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When the widescreen tellys first came out i spunked £2,000 on a state of the art 32 inch phillips silver telly with built in glass stand.Its still going strong after about 11 years and still in very good nick,apart from the remote which is u.s.
Should i trade my silver dream machine for a new fangled lcd jobber?
or wait a few years til they are a reasonable price?
you spunked £2,000 on a TV set? is your semen really worth that much? and did it improve the picture quality?
His Holiness, The Pope wrote: you spunked £2,000 on a TV set? is your semen really worth that much? and did it improve the picture quality?
Aye lad,thought i was the dogs bollocks when i bought that telly,but now it looks medieval!
Well, I have no TV since it went pop about a year ago, instead I use a TV card in my pc and watch on my monitor. SO, my plan is to buy a nice big LCD monitor and just use that. HD tv's are just monitors BTW, standard (UK) TV is 625 lines, so a res of 640x480 is more than enough (things look smoother than that on analogue tv's just because they blur the alising a touch), and HD tell would be pulling the equivalent of 1024x768 or thereabouts.
There are some fairly affordable HD widescreen LCD jobs around, Argos have a nice one for £299. But as I say, a nice 23" widescreen LCD monitor will be my choice when the time comes.
Should i trade my silver dream machine for a new fangled lcd jobber?
or wait a few years til they are a reasonable price?
Depends if you want a bigger screen and if you intend to get any HD equipment (Sky HD, X-Box HD drive, PS3, DVD with HDMI, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray etc...). If the answer is no, wait until your current set packs up. Undoubtedly the better true HD (1080p)screens will come down further is price. The resolution of the cheaper HD screens varies and some aren't much better than a CRT screen. You, as always, get what you pay for.
Couple things to think about:
LCD vs. Plasma - The general rule of thumb for choosing either, is size. anything 36" or smaller go LCD, anything larger than 36" go plasma. If you go plasma, you will need to go with digital cable/satellite, as analog cable looks like crap on the plasma. To get the quality on both, be prepared to go from composite (one yellow video cable) to component (four video cables, green, blue, black and red). One of the main benefits with LCD/Plasma, is that there is no "corner-fade" (the entire screen is as bright as the center) which CRT television screens have due how the electrons are shot onto a CRT screen. Do your homework if buying either, though, as there are HUGE quality differences between brands. Also, if trying to be economical, look at large computer monitors. They are EXACTLY the same as televisions, but without a few of the bells and whistles (like a cable tuner, which is usually already taken care of by your cable box) and speakers (which speakers can be purchased or if you have a home entertainment center, the speakers are unnecissary).
HD vs ED - You're plasmas and LCDs use either HD or ED technology. There is a big push for HD monitors by the retailers mainly due to price. The price of HD is NOT because it is newer technology, so higher priced....actually it is more expesive to make....so don't equate price with quality on this. HD is extremely good when it comes to HD quality cable tv and dvds, but is has lesser quality when watching normal digital cable, VHS, and other non-HD sources. ED is cheaper, and in my opinion, a better choice, as it has a subtly lesser quality on the HD sources, but MUCH higher quality on the non-HD sources. So in short, if you watch nothing but DVDs and HD tv, then go with a HD set. If you watch alot of tv, then go with ED.
Hope this helps.:)
42" Plasma HD Ready with Freeview built in, Panasonic. I paid £1399 in October, going for about £999 now. Top TV though.
EdelBrock wrote: Couple things to think about:
LCD vs. Plasma - The general rule of thumb for choosing either, is size. anything 36" or smaller go LCD, anything larger than 36" go plasma. If you go plasma, you will need to go with digital cable/satellite, as analog cable looks like crap on the plasma. To get the quality on both, be prepared to go from composite (one yellow video cable) to component (four video cables, green, blue, black and red). One of the main benefits with LCD/Plasma, is that there is no "corner-fade" (the entire screen is as bright as the center) which CRT television screens have due how the electrons are shot onto a CRT screen. Do your homework if buying either, though, as there are HUGE quality differences between brands. Also, if trying to be economical, look at large computer monitors. They are EXACTLY the same as televisions, but without a few of the bells and whistles (like a cable tuner, which is usually already taken care of by your cable box) and speakers (which speakers can be purchased or if you have a home entertainment center, the speakers are unnecissary).
HD vs ED - You're plasmas and LCDs use either HD or ED technology. There is a big push for HD monitors by the retailers mainly due to price. The price of HD is NOT because it is newer technology, so higher priced....actually it is more expesive to make....so don't equate price with quality on this. HD is extremely good when it comes to HD quality cable tv and dvds, but is has lesser quality when watching normal digital cable, VHS, and other non-HD sources. ED is cheaper, and in my opinion, a better choice, as it has a subtly lesser quality on the HD sources, but MUCH higher quality on the non-HD sources. So in short, if you watch nothing but DVDs and HD tv, then go with a HD set. If you watch alot of tv, then go with ED.
Hope this helps.:)
Very little run of the mill equipment over here has component outputs. Toshiba does, I'm not sure about other brands. More expensive stuff is more likely to have this connection. You also need to be able to set it to progressive scan.
We don't have ED in the UK.
It is more or less impossible to buy a non HD flat plasma/lcd monitor these days. They are also a lot less than a 32" Sony CRT widescreen TV was 6 years ago.
So equipment with HDMI output is the way to go. If you don't, the picture could be worse than the current one if you choose a larger screen.
Kevin Smith wrote:
EdelBrock wrote: Couple things to think about:
LCD vs. Plasma - The general rule of thumb for choosing either, is size. anything 36" or smaller go LCD, anything larger than 36" go plasma. If you go plasma, you will need to go with digital cable/satellite, as analog cable looks like crap on the plasma. To get the quality on both, be prepared to go from composite (one yellow video cable) to component (four video cables, green, blue, black and red). One of the main benefits with LCD/Plasma, is that there is no "corner-fade" (the entire screen is as bright as the center) which CRT television screens have due how the electrons are shot onto a CRT screen. Do your homework if buying either, though, as there are HUGE quality differences between brands. Also, if trying to be economical, look at large computer monitors. They are EXACTLY the same as televisions, but without a few of the bells and whistles (like a cable tuner, which is usually already taken care of by your cable box) and speakers (which speakers can be purchased or if you have a home entertainment center, the speakers are unnecissary).
HD vs ED - You're plasmas and LCDs use either HD or ED technology. There is a big push for HD monitors by the retailers mainly due to price. The price of HD is NOT because it is newer technology, so higher priced....actually it is more expesive to make....so don't equate price with quality on this. HD is extremely good when it comes to HD quality cable tv and dvds, but is has lesser quality when watching normal digital cable, VHS, and other non-HD sources. ED is cheaper, and in my opinion, a better choice, as it has a subtly lesser quality on the HD sources, but MUCH higher quality on the non-HD sources. So in short, if you watch nothing but DVDs and HD tv, then go with a HD set. If you watch alot of tv, then go with ED.
Hope this helps.:)
Very little run of the mill equipment over here has component outputs. Toshiba does, I'm not sure about other brands. More expensive stuff is more likely to have this connection. You also need to be able to set it to progressive scan.
We don't have ED in the UK.
It is more or less impossible to buy a non HD flat plasma/lcd monitor these days. They are also a lot less than a 32" Sony CRT widescreen TV was 6 years ago.
So equipment with HDMI output is the way to go. If you don't, the picture could be worse than the current one if you choose a larger screen.
shame on the ED not being in the UK. Guess its the just like the VHS / Beta wars, the winner isn't always the best, but the one with better marketing.
My advice in any case is to wait and then buy a cheap non-brand one. Heck even Aldi are starting to get them now.
I've almost entirely given up buying "brand" products, except for HIFI gear. These days when everything is made in China I just don't see the point. The non-brand stuff probably even comes from the same factory (well at least the components do.)
I still dunno about LCD vs plasma. Apparently plasmas are supposed to be better if yo want a bigger screen.
There still is some question about how long they'll last. from what I've heard there's no way you'll get 20 years out of a LCD or plasma screen, not even half that.
EdelBrock wrote:
shame on the ED not being in the UK. Guess its the just like the VHS / Beta wars, the winner isn't always the best, but the one with better marketing.
Forgive my ignorance but... what the heck is ED????
I forgot then there's the matter of getting real HD. Some firms don't. I had an article on that somewhere where it all was explained. Something more to watch out for.
Spotnick wrote:
EdelBrock wrote:
shame on the ED not being in the UK. Guess its the just like the VHS / Beta wars, the winner isn't always the best, but the one with better marketing.
Forgive my ignorance but... what the heck is ED????
From wiki. I was curious myself.
Enhanced-definition television, extended-definition television, or EDTV is a CEA marketing shorthand term for certain digital television (DTV) formats.
EDTV generally refers to video with picture quality beyond what is broadcastable in NTSC or PAL, but not sharp enough to be considered HDTV. A DVD player with progressive output is considered the lower end of this class, when playing a progressively encoded disc. (The maximum EDTV frame rate of 60p is not possible from a DVD.) The common implementations of EDTV are 480 or 576-line signals in progressive scan (as opposed to 50-60 interlaced fields per second, see NTSC, or PAL and SECAM). These are commonly referred to as "480p" and "576p" respectively. In comparison, a standard definition television (SDTV) signal is broadcast with interlaced frames and is commonly referred to as "480i" or "576i".
Because EDTV signals use a progressive scan, they have about 50% more vertical resolution than interlaced SDTV pictures with the same number of lines, and do not show the spatial/temporal aliasing artifacts associated with interlaced video. As a result, EDTV material gives much better results when upconverted for display on HDTV television sets. However, because of the higher level of spatial coherence within single progressive frames as compared to single interlaced fields, EDTV does not increase the amount of data bandwidth proportionately to the greater number of pixels displayed per second.
The use of EDTV instead of HDTV allows DTV stations to broadcast multiple programs at once while still improving quality over standard broadcasts.
EDTV signals are often broadcast in a 16:9 aspect ratio, with non-square pixels. The horizontal resolution is 704 or 720 pixels regardless of aspect ratio. The image is stretched for displaying to an aspect ratio of 4:3 or 16:9.
In the United States, the ATSC official DTV formats include SDTV, and HDTV. EDTV is considered part of the HDTV standard.
Prior to the 2004–2005 television season, FOX was broadcasting in EDTV in the United States. As of the 2004–2005 season, they have begun broadcasting in 720p, an HDTV format.
Spotnick wrote:
EdelBrock wrote:
shame on the ED not being in the UK. Guess its the just like the VHS / Beta wars, the winner isn't always the best, but the one with better marketing.
Forgive my ignorance but... what the heck is ED????
I think you can take pills for it.
I guess it all depends on the source quality of what you are watching. What is the best resolution they offer in your area? I know England has had better resolution than the USA in the past, but now the USA is finally starting to get 720p HDTV broadcast in alot of shows and it is so much better for sports and documentaries, the rest of the stuff it really doesnt matter. DVDs of course look better on a widescreen TV but I'm surprised how bad some video games can look, you can barely even read the words sometimes.
Now they broadcast in 720p but eventually will upgrade to 1080p. They are selling 1080p HDTVs the last few months but I've read that they are still not really up to full HDTV specs in reality, not that I really know, but there are not many real 1080p sources anyway... it is all so confusing
NOOLigan wrote: My advice in any case is to wait and then buy a cheap non-brand one. Heck even Aldi are starting to get them now.
I've almost entirely given up buying "brand" products, except for HIFI gear. These days when everything is made in China I just don't see the point. The non-brand stuff probably even comes from the same factory (well at least the components do.)
I still dunno about LCD vs plasma. Apparently plasmas are supposed to be better if yo want a bigger screen.
There still is some question about how long they'll last. from what I've heard there's no way you'll get 20 years out of a LCD or plasma screen, not even half that.
First there is a BIG difference with cheap plasmas at least. They look like shite.
As for the LCDs and Plasma size... first, plasmas are pixelated with each pixel is its own "lightbulb". Because of this, you don't want to be sitting too close to the screen or you notice the spaces between the pixels. The reason they are good, is that if one "bulb" goes out its only one pixel and not noticable. The LCD is super clear and doesn't show any pixels, as it is liquid crystal. However, it is sandwiched between two pieces of glass, which if they break...game over for your screen. There is also a flourscent light behind the liquid crystal display, and if that one light goes out, game over. Mainly its due to the construction and breakability that you don't want to go with a large LCD screen. Both (high quality brands) are suppose to last about 20 years of CONTINIOUS play, so if you turn it off, you'll get more life from them.
But DO NOT get a no-name-brand plasma or LCD, or you are simply throwing your money away.
I just bought a 28" widescreen CRT TV for £170. I'm very pleased that all the new technology is driving prices down so much as it means poor people like me can afford a nice big TV! It might not be a plasma or LCD but i love it. 
if space permits, consider going with a projector. I have an infocus screenplay 4805 projecting onto a 92" diagonal 16:9 screen. Even though the projector is not true high def. it accepts all HD signals and displays them its native resolution. what that means is the hi def channels from my cable box look absolutely mint. so do DVD's and my playstation. Every single person that sees this setup is blown away by the picture quality and gasps with disbelief when I tell them the projector cost $500 and the screen cost $200.
fuck all that new technology crap.
my 32 inch Goodmans THIN screen from Curry's still does the trick. although sometimes i can't see the footy scores in the top left hand corner.
King John Honest John wrote: fuck all that new technology crap.
my 32 inch Goodmans THIN screen from Curry's still does the trick. although sometimes i can't see the footy scores in the top left hand corner.
Which in my case, recently, is a good thing!:\ohwell:
Bonzette wrote:
King John Honest John wrote: fuck all that new technology crap.
my 32 inch Goodmans THIN screen from Curry's still does the trick. although sometimes i can't see the footy scores in the top left hand corner.
Which in my case, recently, is a good thing!:\ohwell:
yeah i still thought it was nil nil when i watched the last two minutes last night.
King John Honest John wrote:
Bonzette wrote:
King John Honest John wrote: fuck all that new technology crap.
my 32 inch Goodmans THIN screen from Curry's still does the trick. although sometimes i can't see the footy scores in the top left hand corner.
Which in my case, recently, is a good thing!:\ohwell:
yeah i still thought it was nil nil when i watched the last two minutes last night.
It was still 0-0 when i watched the replay on sky sports this morning!
My Panasonic plasma has lip synch issues and when you see floods of light it looks unnatural, kind of staggered into sections rather than smooth. Other than that it's ace.
Over here in Japan, terrestrial analogue TV will end in the summer of 2011, and will be switched over to terrestrial digital television, so most households will either have to buy TVs for digital television, buy a tuner, or buy a computer that you can watch digital TV on.
A 32 inch television equipped for terrestrial digital TV (all the new TVs made here are now terrestrial digital) costs about 150000 yen on average. (1276 US dollars or so, or £650)
Right now our television is still usable, so we're not buying a new one yet, but I'm thinking of just buying a new computer that you can watch TV on instead of having to buy a new computer, plus a new television.
leather_girl wrote:
A 32 inch television equipped for terrestrial digital TV (all the new TVs made here are now terrestrial digital) costs about 150000 yen on average. (1276 US dollars or so, or £650)
.
How much is that in Euros?
