Lee Reynolds

If so which one? Seems to be quite a few to choose from.

I want a 40 inch one, but the jargon baffles me lol

Dannn

way over priced - buy another brand....!

If you want 40"+ and it has to be LCD then look this brand:

http://www.mirai.eu/

I brought my boy the 32" lcd for a mere £380 and its fooking awesome. I was expecting issues with it but its probably better that most of the branded models by a long shot!

http://www.mirai.eu/Europe/ProductDe...d=46&cat_id=43

Now they do a 42" with is full HD 1080P and I think it sells for £1000:

http://www.mirai.eu/Europe/ProductDe...d=53&cat_id=56

If you want more advice then go to:

http://www.avforums.com/

HTH,

Dan

edit - almost forgot they come with 3 years manufactures warranty!

plynchy

I bought a 42" Hitachi plasma, very pleased with it.

Got it for £200 less than advertised price with a free 5 year warranty from Richer Sounds.

Dannn

Here is another one I could not remember earlier:

http://www.xoro.com/Product/TV/106cm...VHTL4242w.html

http://www.xoro.com/Product/TV/119cm...VHTL4742w.html

Probably better than the Mirai but it hard to find a stockist in the UK.

Also do note that the 42" Mirai above apparently has a few issues with 1080P (its hdmi only) and I did read somewhere that someone said it was blurry!

Tangodeltasierra3

Lee try get the 1080P spec telly, or get to Costco - well worth it just for the returns/warranty.

Carlsworth

got the 50 inch sony bravia lcd3 bad boy....

the picture is debateable, but that depends on the signal quality of the built in freeview

ps3 on it is fooking amazing with the hd lead


ps3 and 50 inch bravia



carl

Rob

I have a 40" Bravia LCD.

over priced my ass! just need to shop about. all the samsung's, pioneer's etc of similar spec are the same sort of price. the model I have dropped in price about 500 notes in 6 months and came with a free sony micro hifi system (120 quids worth) at the time of purchase. I think there were other deals regarding Sky HD to be had also at the time.

Having lived with my Sony the EPG is fantastic, 2nd to none, makes it even better value for money. as it's a side to the telly i didnt consider when check them out in the shops. but it's ease of use and feature rich interface makes something not to be over looked when speccing telly's.

The picture is fab, considering it's only off the built-in freeview it's fantastic. I know it'll be better off a HD box but it's still great with freeview. My 360 looks awesome also Mine is only a 1080i picture but since it's only my 360 that really uses this it's not a problem and looks great.

I also think the this dont get a LCD over 32" thing alot people say is crap, I compared mine next to many plasma in store side by side and plasma's are no better IMO. Infact I prefer the LCD picture. Modern LCD's are much better than the 1st gen items now.

Rob

gingeRS

my housemate has the 40 inch sony LCD 2000LE or something?

its is a great telly, and with the blueray on his ps3 it looks

rsnissan

iTrader: (9)

I have a 40" W Series Bravia 1080p and its AMAZING for full HD stuff, like my ps3 or blu ray or even when my laptop is connected in 1080p however if your main viewing consists of standard def (or if you dont really need to use it for a PC monitor) then i would get a plasma.

Lee Reynolds

hmmm mixed views.

When weve been looking in shops, the sony bravia always seems to have the best picture

Smit

iTrader: (5)

Lee have a look here... Very good prices and great service

http://www.121electricals.com/store.asp/c=43/q=3

mike23

In my opinion the sony bravia's are the best, the v and w series are very good i have the v series and cant fault it, very happy with it, pay that little extra its worth it. also the more expsensive phillips are very good too and the panasonics.

Lee Reynolds

cheers smit will look

Craig, ive had forms for costco now for 3 months and still aint got them off

Tangodeltasierra3

You dont send em off, u turn up, pay, have yer photo took and get yer card straightaway, painless.

rsnissan

iTrader: (9)

that will depend on the feed its getting, what will be your main source on the TV?

Lee Reynolds

sky

oh reyt craig, i had forms sent for me

Madbradz

Am I right in guessing that 1080 Is the one to go for?

Also HDMI.. Xbox360 donest have ports does it?

Adam

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

Lets make a few things nice and simple - and nice and clear.

Unless you get a GOOD lcd tv, then anything that isn't "HD" won't look great, specially if you are used to the good old CRT (tubescreen) TV's...

That means that normal TV/Freeview/Cable/Sky, isn't gonna look as good on your flashy LCD as it would on your CRT, unless of course it is a HD transmission (like BBC HD or similar)

Why? It's all to do with resolutions. I'll try to explain it in a simple way.

With standard PAL (the UK/europe standard) transmission/DVD's etc the picture has 576 (horizontal) lines of pixels. 576 from top to bottom. These are INTERLACED lines. That means that line 1,3,5,7,9,etc show at the same time and 2,4,6,8,etc show a split second later - constantly alternating. (For reference, PROGRESSIVE SCAN means it scrolls all the lines in one go, usally giving a faster and more natural looking picture)

So. All LCD's and 99% of plasmas (except the early plasmas which are EDTV's, but not worth talking about here) are HD ready. This means that they support a minimum of what is called 720p. 720p means that the TV resolution is 720 horizontal lines, and the P means it can show these 720 lines in progressive mode - great for DVD's using a good quality DVD player that has component output (three RCA's : red, blue and green, or the HDMI output on newer players)

But, what about the fact that standard def DVD;s and TV progs only have 576lines?

The TV is fitted with an upscaler. Without this, the picture would be a box inside the screen with black all around it. Showing 576lines inside a matrix that shows 720lines - 576 lines of picture, 72 lines of "nothing" top and bottom (144 lines total). What the upscaler does is "blow up" the image to fit the native resolution of the screen - 720 lines.

Now on standard def transmissons, this isn't the best thing. The "bit rate" (the speed at which data is transmitted - the higher the better quality it is) of digital TV (Freeview) isn't fantastic. It's better than analogue mind. Sky isn't all that great either.

With a HD source (either BluRay, HD DVD or a HD transmitted TV programme, the source is the same resolution of the screen - much in the same way as standard TV transmissions are the same resolution as a standard CRT TV is! So more detail and no replicated or "added" lines

Something to think about there. A good LCD tho, can look great mind. But don't expect it to look as good as the HD demo's you see in the shops, like the SkyHD national geographic demo's or HD sports demo's etc....

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

Next, the jagon buster!

We touched upon resolution rates already - 720p. That is only one part of the HD "range". The other is 1080 - 1080 lines of pixels. These come in tow flavours - p (progressive) and i (interlaced). As before, p is better than i.

Remember tho, a 1080p set (the highest resolution you can get) will still have to upscale a 576line standard TV picture, which isn't gonna lok the dogs bollocks! And an NTSC picture (american standard) is only 480 lines, so even more space to fill!

If you want future proof (at least for the forseable future that is) then a 1080p set is the one to go for. More DVD's and games (like on the PS2 etc) are coming out in 1080p, and the quality is INSANE.

As for inputs - scarts only transmit 576 PAL pictures (most players are compatible with 480 NTSC wo will adjust to suit the scart/svideo/composit outputs)

S-Video is the round black plug, usually with 4 pins. This transmits colour and lumience over two wires within one cable, and is a step down from scart

Composite is the single yellow RCA/phono that carries colour and luminence in one cable is is a step down from s-vid. It's not great and really, next to RF, the lowest quality video signal.

Component (as previously mentioned) is three phono's/RCA's that are reg green and blue. Commonly, but incorrectly, referred to as RGB, these send colour over three cables, with the "sync" (what puts them together) in the green cable.

Scarts come in two flavours - CvBS (which is s-vid and composite compatible quality) and RGB Scart - out of the analogue sources this is the best carrier of quality. Mainly because it carries the colours in three "pins" (r,g+b) and the sync on a seperate pin, with luminence on another. It also carries sound (stereo only) which one of the above can do.

Next are digital interfaces;

VGA - the standard (blue) 15pin D-Sub that most computer PC's use. This is also RGB, or actually (look at me the nerd ) RGBHv. That means Red, Green Blue, sync'd both horizontally AND vertically. They are like RGB scarts, but can carry more info and higher resolutions.

DVI - Digital Video Interface. Many PC's have this now and is basically a digital version of VGA. Again, higher resolutions, used more for HD stuff or graphics intensive games.

HDMI - High Definition Multimedia Interface. The DADDY of digital cables. HDMI is like a digital scart in as far as it can carry video and audio, but unlike scart it does a SHIT load of forms. Version 1.3 can carry full HD pictures with completely uncompressed video streams in loads of resolutions : 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p and can also carry 1440p which we don't even have yet!!!! Audio wise it does LOADS. Up to 8 channels (thats 7.1 surround sound) of uncompressed WAV audio, in many formats including PCM, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio and more.

Confused tou enough yet?

Westy

iTrader: (1)

ignore Thrush, he obviously hasnt got a clue..

Lee = I have the Sony Bravia 40inch LCD, and to be fair mate, I cant fault it.. Sky looks good, built in freeview looks good, and the PS3 looks fucking awesome

Get one..

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

Cock Got your amp playing the TV audio yet? No? Cock


j/k

Westy

iTrader: (1)

yep all working sweet

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

Is it? Coolio

foreigneRS

good info thrush

but if you have a 32" tv with an analogue input from a sky box (over scart for instance), will it look any different on a 1080 to a 720?

the original source of 576 will be upscaled to a fixed height (however high a 32" screen is), but just using a different number of lines.

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

Think of an LCD screen like a TFT monitor (essentially the same thing) These work in pixels. A typical 32" LCD screen will have say, 1366x768 pixels. This means it can do 720p, but not 1080i/p.

Now all CRT TV's have 576 lines, no matter of size. Which is why 14" CRT's look sharper and crisper than 36" CRT's. I have a 36" CRT and I presonally think it looks the bollocks with a strong digital TV input, ie Freeview, or a DVD. My brother actually thinks my CRT looks shrper, crisper and faster than his 32" LCD (LG) and of course the black levels are FAR superior (there isn't a plasma or LCD on the market that can touch CRT for speed/refresh rates or black levels)

Going back to LCD's, a 32" with 768 horizontal pixels will show in 720p format, so a 576 line picture has to be enlarged to fill 720 lines.

As with anything, if you go bigger, the pixels become bigger. The ammount of lines stay the same (if comparring like to like 720p ratios) just the lines get bigger. So the bigger you go, the bigger the picture is replicated. and thus you will lose quality. A 26" LCD will look sharper than most 40" LCD's....

Lee Reynolds

cheers thrush are you bored tonight Thanks mate

Dannn

Thrush -

You forgot to mention overscan and 1:1 pixel mapping - very important if your going to plug a pc into it....I leave you to explain......

To be honest that is one of the most important things I would look at when buying an HD TV...!

Fook it here is a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overscan

and another:

http://www.highdefinitionblog.com/?page_id=127

Lee Reynolds

i will never plug my pc into the TV in the room...

TBH im really liking the look of this sony....and when its hung smack in the middle of your living room wall it wants to look as good 'off' as it does 'on' imo

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

1:1 pixel mapping I will give you, but under/overscan is easily fixed by using apps on the PC - notably PowerStrip will sort it out no problem. Infact, a lot of graphics cards (ATI Radeons, nVidia's etc) come with over/underscan correctors

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

I agree - TV's need to look nice and not obtrusive or out of place even when turned off. Thats why I chose my Tosh. I wanted a CRT I knew that, so my options were limited, but the Tosh is labled "the picture frame tv" cos it is very minimalist and looks, at first glance, much like a plasma - till you realise it's a CRT cos of it's depth! But it's very "clean" looking so blends nicely I think....

I really like the glass frame Sony Bravia's

Lee Reynolds

Thrush


i do. I also like the glass type samsung too

Madbradz

Thrush + Everyone Many thanks for all the sound advice! Now to pick one!

Any recomendations for a 26/27" one? I think 32 will be too big for the room

Adam

Dannn

Not all overscan issues can be fixed even with the right graphics card and PowerStrip. IMO its better to have one that turns it off without any hassle, some TV's do it automatically (my boys 32" Mirai does that) and others it can be switched off in a service menu (samsung ?).

Dannn

27"

http://www.techfever.co.uk/products.asp?partno=5891

but the 32" is much better value IMO:

http://www.techfever.co.uk/products.asp?partno=6438 - £364.46 incl. vat and delivery.

dale_jeffs

i dont think they are over priced to be honest. you can notice the quality for paying the extra. i recently brought an LCD for my room just a 26" anything bigger would look silly. i started looking at some of the cheaper makes, for the money i guess there not bad but the designs, build quality, and the quality of the picture aren't all that.

so i decided to look at the sony's and samsungs. ended up buyin a 26" samsung for £500 and its amazing! great design and briliant picture, gaming is awesome! worth every penny.

definately worth paying the extra, end of the day you get what you pay for. on top of all that you can say "yea... its a sony"! lol

ricky_3dr

I got one of them too, proper telly, proper picture quality