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[Martin_1962]

I have been told by "the experts" that we will not receive Freeview HD until the anologue transmitters are turned off in each region TB.  For us down here that means 2012.

Yep, same for us.

I got a bit fired up about getting a new TV over Christmas but, after looking at loads of TVs, turning off the daft "dynamic" modes and trying to set them up to give somewhere near a realistic picture, I came to the conclusion that keeping hold of my 10 year old Sony 32" CRT (and my money) is about the best bet at the moment.

Kevin

You don't want to know how much we had to spend to improve on a CRT picture

Lets just say it was top of range for electronics and not for styling.

It used to be easy to recommend a decent LCD TV "W series Sony" used to be good but other manufacturers have picked up and SOny have messed their model numbers up.

Mine is one of the last 10bit panels and was the middle market 1080 panel.

[TheBoy]

I have been told by "the experts" that we will not receive Freeview HD until the anologue transmitters are turned off in each region TB.  For us down here that means 2012.

Yep, same for us.

I got a bit fired up about getting a new TV over Christmas but, after looking at loads of TVs, turning off the daft "dynamic" modes and trying to set them up to give somewhere near a realistic picture, I came to the conclusion that keeping hold of my 10 year old Sony 32" CRT (and my money) is about the best bet at the moment.

Kevin

I'm sure HD will look superb on your million year old Sony CRT

Mind you, you're a normal (ish ) bloke - one day, you will again get a bee in yer bonnet about a new TV, for no other reason than feeling you deserve a little pressie for being a good boy....   ....or you could spend the money finishing your en-suite floor

[TheBoy]

You don't want to know how much we had to spend to improve on a CRT picture

Having had 4 Fony Wega CRTs this decade, I'm guessing the cheapest, nastiest, crappiest Tesco Special £199 32" LCD would blow any Sony Wega CRT out of the window.


The W series wasn't that great - by the time you turned off all the digital 'enhancements' its not any better than anything else with similar quality panels, and certainly not worth the dosh Fony wanted...

[Martin_1962]

You don't want to know how much we had to spend to improve on a CRT picture

Having had 4 Fony Wega CRTs this decade, I'm guessing the cheapest, nastiest, crappiest Tesco Special £199 32" LCD would blow any Sony Wega CRT out of the window.

The W series wasn't that great - by the time you turned off all the digital 'enhancements' its not any better than anything else with similar quality panels, and certainly not worth the dosh Fony wanted...

I bought a Wega in 1999 and mine was excellent.

The W series was good, ours is exellent.

Couldn't afford a Pioneer Plasma

[Kevin Wood]

I'm sure HD will look superb on your million year old Sony CRT

What HD would that be?  No freeview HD until 2012. I'm not about to pay Murdoch any more money, and, even then, he appears to offer sport, movies and "HD for HD's sake" nerd-porn in nearly-HD, none of which I'm interested in.

I could get a TV with freesat-HD integrated, and wire up the unused feed from the LNB, but there doesn't appear to be a large choice of freesat TVs at the moment, and I don't really fancy yet another set-top box. :-/

I suppose I could get a blue-ray player but most of the DVDs Mrs. KW appears with have the girl with the choc-ices wandering up and down at the bottom of the picture, so not exactly HD.

Every TV I've tried seems to do such a lousy job of rendering SD images that I can't see the point until the majority of what I want to watch is in HD.

Mind you, you're a normal (ish ) bloke - one day, you will again get a bee in yer bonnet about a new TV, for no other reason than feeling you deserve a little pressie for being a good boy....   ....or you could spend the money finishing your en-suite floor

No need to spend money on the en-suite. All the bits have been in the garage for years.

Mind you, how long does floor tile adhesive keep for? :-/

Kevin

[TheBoy]

I'm sure HD will look superb on your million year old Sony CRT

What HD would that be?  No freeview HD until 2012. I'm not about to pay Murdoch any more money, and, even then, he appears to offer sport, movies and "HD for HD's sake" nerd-porn in nearly-HD, none of which I'm interested in.

I could get a TV with freesat-HD integrated, and wire up the unused feed from the LNB, but there doesn't appear to be a large choice of freesat TVs at the moment, and I don't really fancy yet another set-top box. :-/

I suppose I could get a blue-ray player but most of the DVDs Mrs. KW appears with have the girl with the choc-ices wandering up and down at the bottom of the picture, so not exactly HD.

Every TV I've tried seems to do such a lousy job of rendering SD images that I can't see the point until the majority of what I want to watch is in HD.

Mind you, you're a normal (ish ) bloke - one day, you will again get a bee in yer bonnet about a new TV, for no other reason than feeling you deserve a little pressie for being a good boy....   ....or you could spend the money finishing your en-suite floor

No need to spend money on the en-suite. All the bits have been in the garage for years.

Mind you, how long does floor tile adhesive keep for? :-/

Kevin

Say its gone off, and the local shop has run out...  ...that'll keep her quiet for another year or so

[TheBoy]

Like Kevin Wood, I dislike STBs, so I'll be changing at least 1 telly (the analogue only LCD in the bedroom) at DSO. Shame, its been a bloody good set. No name, cheap chinese tat, but good analogue pic, and great for the job it has to do, and a great viewing angle.

Was in Costco yesterday looking at possible replacements. Nothing. Seems none of the 20-24" ones have adjustable tilt on the base, and as the telly is high, thats a pain

[TheBoy]

The W series was good, ours is exellent.

I had a feeling that your W series would be better than anybody else's W series...

[Lizzie_Zoom]

My question is .... Is HD worth having as I object to paying Sky an extra tenner a month for it if there is little difference to your veiwing

The cynic in me would suggest Sky degraded the quality of their SD to make HD seem much better.

Sky HD is significantly better than Sky SD. Sky HD is noticibly better than Freeview SD. Not sure how Sky HD compares to Freeview HD, as not seen the 2 side by side...

I have been told by "the experts" that we will not receive Freeview HD until the anologue transmitters are turned off in each region TB.  For us down here that means 2012.

That is correct, Freeview HD comes with DSO.  Oxford was due for Spring 2011, but Beckley transmitter went bang one day when they were testing the DSO stuff , hence the delay in these parts.

Be aware, *any* Freeview decoders older than 6 months will *NOT* be able to receive the HD channels. Even some decoders and TVs now cannot decode the Freeview HD transmissions. The standard you are looking for is DVB-T2.

Thanks TB, but I should be ok as I have just taken on BT Vision with one of their "magic" boxes 8-) 8-)

[TheBoy]

My question is .... Is HD worth having as I object to paying Sky an extra tenner a month for it if there is little difference to your veiwing

The cynic in me would suggest Sky degraded the quality of their SD to make HD seem much better.

Sky HD is significantly better than Sky SD. Sky HD is noticibly better than Freeview SD. Not sure how Sky HD compares to Freeview HD, as not seen the 2 side by side...

I have been told by "the experts" that we will not receive Freeview HD until the anologue transmitters are turned off in each region TB.  For us down here that means 2012.

That is correct, Freeview HD comes with DSO.  Oxford was due for Spring 2011, but Beckley transmitter went bang one day when they were testing the DSO stuff , hence the delay in these parts.

Be aware, *any* Freeview decoders older than 6 months will *NOT* be able to receive the HD channels. Even some decoders and TVs now cannot decode the Freeview HD transmissions. The standard you are looking for is DVB-T2.

Thanks TB, but I should be ok as I have just taken on BT Vision with one of their "magic" boxes 8-) 8-)

Sorry, don't have enough dealings with Vision to know if they are DVB-T2. Somebody will know

[Taxi_Driver]

Well, i bought myself a late crimbo prezzie.....
A Sony 40EX403......and at £399.....a good deal, imo

Its got integrated freeview HD....and picks up the 4 HD freeview channels available at the mo in my area....with impressive pic quality 

I spent quite a lot of time yesterday......getting it networked....i refused to buy the sony usb wifi dongle at £70 and didnt want to run a cat5 cable from the tv to my router.....so used a spare wifi bridge i had (tho i had to flash the bridge first to latest firmware, to get WPA-PSK encryption working on it )

Works well streaming of my desktop pc ( tho that was another headache to get to work) and has highlighted i now need a faster desktop.....as i had to lower quality of streaming as the cpu runs 100% 

KW- remember tho.....that the shops will be running them in 'shop' mode and not 'home' mode.....i think that was the first question my tv asked when i first turned it on....

The only slight negative i have at the moment with the sony....is you carnt seem to be able to fully turn it off, unless you unplug it.....pressing the on/off button on the remote puts it in standby, the same as pressing the on/off on the set.....however, unless you have it in 'quick start' mode, which i don't, it only uses 0.2W in standby, so not concerned. (its uses 20W in standby if 'quick start' is turned on)

I also updated the firmware on it.....as there was one available on the sony website...

[TheBoy]

As for standbys etc, I don't think any turn off fully now.

I have a remote control 10 way mains socket behind telly - 2 sockets are perm on (for MCE and for aerial amp/splitter (I have 6 devices to feed aerial to), other 8 are switched on and off for the amp, sub, telly etc.

[Marks DTM Calib]

I have to agree.  Film was always a good medium and although it had its foibles (grain, colour stability over time etc.) most people grew up with it so see it as a reference and there are even a lot of professionals who would like to (and do) distort electronically-originated material to emulate it.

Apart from nitrate stock that could spontaneously combust and a load of 16mm stuff that had its own peculiarities, not least poor resolution, there is a cracking archive of better-than-SDTV stuff to be found.  There was even a 70mm format that was used over a long period.

Another little-known fact about tv is that on the old PAL colour system, if you wanted to show a black & white film, you could (and they didn't always) switch off the colour system and the bandwidth would increase dramatically giving effectively HD tv at the expense of colour.  Not as HD as today's offerings but certainly very noticeable.

No it wont.

[Kevin Wood]

KW- remember tho.....that the shops will be running them in 'shop' mode and not 'home' mode.....i think that was the first question my tv asked when i first turned it on....

Yep. God knows who would ever buy one based on what they saw in Currys/Comet.

Mind you, I overheard two customers in said establishment talking about how wonderful these new 3D TVs are, how the picture has real depth and it looks like the people are waking into your room, etc.

1) The model of TV they were looking at was not a 3D model, it was a cheap, nasty LCD model with maximum contrast, maximum saturation dialled in, with a noisy analogue SD source and so much "edge enhancement" that the people looked like the cardboard cutouts you used to get on the back of a box of shreddies.

2) They weren't wearing 3D glasses.

Must be like shooting fish in a barrel selling stuff to such cretins.

Kevin

[aaronjb]

LOL What an awesome demonstration of the average customer intelligence

The only thing is there are very few places to go that actually have sets set up correctly to evaluate them