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Looking for new flat panel TV
texasboy:
;D Lots of good bargains out there on 32-42 inch wall mounted flat screen tv`s. Prices are coming down daily.
LCD or Plasma? Personal preference is LCD but need some input. Has Plasma sorted out its problems?
cheers
Quantum:
LCD = Lower Quality Picture
Plasma = Slightly Smaller Life Span
Both of them = Lower Quality Picture than a big ass CRT if you don't have an HD source for your T.Vs, Sky HD or something you download (HD sources are about 1GB - 1.5 GB for 45 min T.V episode).
They're getting cheaper and cheaper, but unless your willing to pay another subscription to Sky or you have a 360 or PS3, the whole thing is pointless. I'm waiting for Laser T.Vs to come out or LED backlit LCDs, get a high quality one of those when there's actual HD TV.
texasboy:
Hi Quantum,
When you say lower quality picture??? When I walk into Laser/Comet even Currys I am amazed at the quality of the pictures on LCD. Fantastic defination and clarity compared to my present digital tv. What am I missing, is it really that bad??
cheers
Quantum:
--- Quote from: texasboy on July 24, 2007, 06:51:41 am ---Hi Quantum,
When you say lower quality picture??? When I walk into Laser/Comet even Currys I am amazed at the quality of the pictures on LCD. Fantastic defination and clarity compared to my present digital tv. What am I missing, is it really that bad??
cheers
--- End quote ---
It's all about resolution, a top HD siginal is 1080p, which is: 1920 x 1080, a slightly lower HD signal is 720p which is: 1280 x 720. Apparently most people can't tell the difference between these 2 in a normal living room environment unless the T.V is 65 inches or bigger, personally I can.
Some HD TVs can only display 720p, so check that out before hand. But the real issue is that standard U.K T.V is 576p, which is 720 x 576, now when you stretch 576p to 1080p, especially on a fixed resolution device like a flat screen, you simply get a lower quality picture. The other issue is that LCD in particular is actually a lower quality picture than CRT, this is just fundamental to its technology at the moment, but it is improving a little bit at a time.
In all likelihood, what you see at places like Comet or Currys is an actual HD Movie being played, which requires a computer outputting an HD Signal to it, an HD DVD or Blu Ray Player or a Sky HD subscription (which costs an extra £10 a month on top of a normal subscription, plus it used to cost £300 for the Sky HD Box, but they may have got rid of that extra cost, I'm not sure). Also be aware with Sky HD, there are only a limited number of channels which are actually HD, a couple of the movies, a couple of the sports, a few nature documentary channels, SkyOne HD, BBC HD (very limited stuff on this) and maybe a few more.
Most people take their brand new large flat panel T.V home to find the picture looks almost exactly the same if not a little worse, because they simply haven't done their research and the shops have managed to trick them in to thinking the T.V can magically improve the current picture that they have.
Quantum:
Yet more limitations of HD. (Warning, the file sizes in these screenshots are actually quite large, about 3 megabytes each. Also the quality of the picture will vary from monitor to monitor, if you have a CRT you bought in the last 4 years and a TFT you bought in the last 2, I'd suggest comparing them so you can see that we've actually taken a step back in quality for saving space)
I'd just like to spend a little time discussing HD, the actual quality of HD in itself can change quite drastically, even if your getting the full 1080p glory.
Here's a screen shot from RAN, an HD DVD movie, this is in 1080p, but as we can see the quality is severely limited by the original source of the movie: http://www.freepicshost.net/pview.php?fid=677&fname=RanPHD2.png
Here's a few shots from the Blu-Ray movie 'House of Flying Daggers', while much touted, the encoders for whatever reason decided to encode it with MPEG2, the old DVD format, this doesn't scale to HD as well as other codecs like VC-1 and h264, so the picture isn't as clear or sharp as it should be:
http://shrani.si/?pdvd013v7tn.png
http://shrani.si/?pdvd011v7tk.png
I've developed a keen eye for spotting stuff encoded in mpeg2, I'm usually about 95% accurate, because it has a sort of fuzzy foggyness about the detail that VC-1 and h264 don't have.
All that aside, some times you do get fine looking movies, take the HD DVD version of Matrix Revolutions, a high quality source, a high quality codec and high bit rate all used. If you played this on a large high quality 1080p T.V this would look fantastic:
http://nwgat.net/woot/files/2/reloadedhddvd/3.png
http://nwgat.net/woot/files/2/reloadedhddvd/7.png
http://nwgat.net/woot/files/2/reloadedhddvd/9.png
http://nwgat.net/woot/files/2/reloadedhddvd/10.png
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