Reply to: Is HD overrated?

[Amiga500]

My 42 inch HD LCD (Sony Bravia) was a Tesco bargain at £480 in April

Mine is 42 inch too actually, I always quote 40 inches as it has a nice ring to it (subconscious rounding down ) That's a good price, although I bought mine when they were a bit steeper generally.

[MPwannadecentincome]

My 40 inch HD LCD screen (Sony Bravia) was a New Year's bargain a few years ago at about £899... That's the cost your projector will be in a few years with a few bulbs...

And unlike your projector I can watch it with the curtains open too!

My 42 inch HD LCD (Sony Bravia) was a Tesco bargain at £480 in April

[Ivor Bigun]

My 40 inch HD LCD screen (Sony Bravia) was a New Year's bargain a few years ago at about £899... That's the cost your projector will be in a few years with a few bulbs...

Wrong! The projector will still be worth at least 50% what was paid, and with a new bulb, its as good as new. It uses all the new formats NOW whereas the technology in your TV is the dark ages. LCD wears out over time and your picture will look sh* t after a year if you use it for that length of time.

I'm sorry but you have to face it. You've overspent on inferior technology and gone in the wrong direction. You already said about breaking your back with a plasma

Considering how proud you are of tech things (like you name ),
It must be really galling for everyone to see that you've made such a basic mistake.

If you want to really see the difference HD makes, buy a projector.
If you're not bothered, buy a TV with motion judder

[Amiga500]

"Duhhhh look at my 60 inch plasma, its the best don't you know - only cost £5000"


Anyway, Amiga500, if you spend that amount of time in playing with yourself, you'll go blind anyway.

My 40 inch HD LCD screen (Sony Bravia) was a New Year's bargain a few years ago at about £899... That's the cost your projector will be in a few years with a few bulbs...

And unlike your projector I can watch it with the curtains open too!

[Ivor Bigun]

So you'd be paying £100 a year for a new bulb if you used it heavily (the quotes are often exaggerated too) and would have to sit in a darkened room. Sounds feasible to me

"Duhhhh look at my 60 inch plasma, its the best don't you know - only cost £5000"


Anyway, Amiga500, if you spend that amount of time in playing with yourself, you'll go blind anyway.

[Amiga500]

For movies and games, a HD700X is far better than ANY TV - plasma, 60 inch or otherwise...and it costs a fraction of what you paid .
A spare bulb is about £100 and lasts 3000 hours.
If you don't believe me, check out the reviews!
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-5212.aspx

So you'd be paying £100 a year for a new bulb if you used it heavily (the quotes are often exaggerated too) and would have to sit in a darkened room. Sounds feasible to me

[Ivor Bigun]

No, had a 60 inch plasma as well as my 40 inch LCD screen - preferred the clarity of my LCD screen. My friend just bought a new top spec Samsung plasma - playing his Xbox 360 in HD versus the same game on my Sony LCD revels inferior quality on the plasma (a less crisp image) couple with that plasma's are tulip for computer output.

I also nearly did my back in lugging one of those plasma's about, my LCD is nice and light for moving around.

For movies and games, a HD700X is far better than ANY TV - plasma, 60 inch or otherwise...and it costs a fraction of what you paid .
A spare bulb is about £100 and lasts 3000 hours.
If you don't believe me, check out the reviews!
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-5212.aspx

[voodooflux]

Samsung, Panasonic Veira or Sony Bravia are the brands to go for IMO.

Pioneer are worth adding to that list - outstanding picture quality, but it comes at a price premium.

[ookook]

Samsung, Panasonic Veira or Sony Bravia are the brands to go for IMO.

Regarding source material, while SKY HD etc costs a lot and delivers not much, if you have access to a decent dl source (ie Usenet) then there are thousands of Blu-Ray / HD-DVD source movies / tv shows which are encoded into x264 and will play off a media player.

We have a server handlng all the dl's that is NFS mounted onto the media player - so kick your downloads off any time you want from work and they're waiting to be played when you get back.

[Amiga500]

My brand new TV which replaced the old one is a 63 inch plasma - yes mine is bigger than yours etc.. !

No, had a 60 inch plasma as well as my 40 inch LCD screen - preferred the clarity of my LCD screen. My friend just bought a new top spec Samsung plasma - playing his Xbox 360 in HD versus the same game on my Sony LCD revels inferior quality on the plasma (a less crisp image) couple with that plasma's are tulip for computer output.

I also nearly did my back in lugging one of those plasma's about, my LCD is nice and light for moving around.

[contractor79]

I've only spenet £50 in my entire life on TVs. Though I must admit each time I go to a shop I think wow let's buy that 1k TV. But how much would I have to sell it for when I want to upgrade?

My parents always rented TVs and got upgraded each year, then got to buy the TV if they wanted for cheap at the end. Maybe that's the way to go.

[eliquant]

HD is all about detail, the sweat on a tennis player's arm, the crows feet on that aged actor's face and for that I think its worth it. Its nowhere near detailed as much as viewing the real world through one's very own eyes but I tell you flicking back and forth Wimbledon tennis from BBC1 (standard Definition) to BBC HD, the difference is startling, you can see the detail on the faces in the crowd etc. overall a better experience and worth it.

My brand new TV which replaced the old one is a 63 inch plasma - yes mine is bigger than yours etc.. and I am very pleased with it - and was with the old one also. Also the brand new Samsungs have ethernet capability so you can use the TV as a DLNA media player from any DLNA PC acting as the media server (although its limited to what codecs the Samsung software can play); also the new Samsungs connect to the internet but content is highly restricted at the moment with very basic financial widgets which stream stock price data (delayed 20 mins !), Flickr and Twitter, this service is internet@tv (or tv@internet) from Yahoo, it comes free so you can watch TV and have the apps running on screen whilst you watch TV. I'm hoping that they get a (now U.S. only) "Netflix" widget on there as hinted which means you can pay per view any one of 20,000 online movies.

Note the "WoW" factor soon wears off and what is new and different just becomes the norm, but going back to SD creates a notable experience. I think Samsung have got this new scaler chip in their new series which "I believe" scales up SD content quite nicely. I think Samsung are the best overall given price / quality etc but get your 5 year warranty !

[Amiga500]

But it's not OLED, LED screens are just LCD's with LED backlights.

OLED's pixels are individually lit, it’s completely different technology.

HTH

OLED stands for Organic LED, you are correct the one I linked was really a LED lit LCD screen but is still is a lot thinner than a standard LCD screen as it is not using CCFL or HCFL lighting. This is a good cheap short term solution until OLED prices drop.

[gingerjedi]

Pardon me, but I call bulltulip on that. You can buy a 40" LED Ultra Slim TV by Samsung on Dabs for £1199:

http://www.dabs.com/products/samsung...d-tv-5GLV.html

But it's not OLED, LED screens are just LCD's with LED backlights.

OLED's pixels are individually lit, it’s completely different technology.

HTH

[Amiga500]

Get a cheap (Panasonic or Sony) bluray player and a HD700X projector. (should be less than £600 for both)

Sort out the sound (your hi-fi ot surround sound system?) and you will be amazed at what HD on £600 can look like.

My screen is 2 metres across - it looks awesome - far better than any TV.

Yeah, and the bulb for that model of projector costs £200 a pop...