Full HD v's HD ready

continualdiamond

What on earth is the difference??

Been looking at LCD tv's on ebay and see them with this description and have no idea what they mean.

Marty_J

Here you go:

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

Leopard

Full HD (1080p/i) is really only of benefit with televisions greater in screen size than 32".

But by 52" it should be considered essential.

Samba_Pa_Ti

yeah the input source is worth considering as well, ive got a 720p HD tv and i watch sky (not hd) on it, so its perfect.

i can also watch blu rays on it in HD (even tho its lower res its still good quality).

since freeview and regular sky are not in hd, is 1080p really essential ? to me its not. (and since ive got a computer that has a 1080p monitor it really doesnt bother me at all).

BargainGalore

1080p as other said is full HD the only real sources of full HD is blue ray, perhaps pc (depending on graphics card), ps3 etc. Broadcast from freesat or sky HD is not full HD quality but is 720p or 1080i

Rowan126

Full HD - can support up to 1080p.
HD Ready - can support up to 720p normally

Lum

PS3 and XBox 360 don't do true 1080p either, except on a few games. For the most part the hardware isn't powerful enough to render a modern game at 1080p, so they render to 720p (and in the case of some XBox games, 480p) and then scale it.

Note that Sky being 1080i, there is no quality loss displaying it on 1080p as you just need to deinterlace, wheras you need to scale if you're viewing it on a lower resolution panel.

So Sky, BluRay and PC are the only 1080 sources you'll have. There's quite a few nice PC games out there nowadays that use the XBox controller (and there are even ways to use a wiimote with a PC now) and play well on a TV though, so if you have a media centre PC and also use it for gaming, it's nice to have 1080p.

Leopard

Some sources can upscale to 1080p, too.

We've got a 52" Sony (LCD). Our SD inputs are a Freesat Humax Foxsat-HDR box, a de-commissioned Sky+ box, a Sony RDR-HXD995 DVD recorder (digital & analogue tuners) and the TV's own on-board tuners (digital & analogue). We get the best SD picture from the DVD recorder, upscaling (itself) to 1080p via an HDMI lead.

The HD picture from the Humax box (1080i) is stunningly good - and free! :money:

Blu-ray is full 1080p and even better.

roddydogs

Do you really want to buy from E-Bay? or do you mean a used one

continualdiamond

I've just been looking on ebay at tv's within a certain distance from me and didn't know what the difference was.

Thinking of buying a 40 or 42 HD for the lounge room, not from ebay. We currently have a 42 plasma thats not HD that we only paid £50 for and fixed a pixel fault.

Then sell the 42 plasma and buy a smaller HD tv for the bedroom and then sell the 28 CRT tv thats in the bedroom.

Leopard

roddydogs wrote: »

Do you really want to buy from E-Bay? or do you mean a used one

Although there are risks (which one can minimise), it's not always a bad idea to buy a television on eBay. There can even be advantages to buying online instead of in a shop.

If you do buy something expensive on eBay, you need to pick the seller very carefully and open up a dialogue, initially by email, before purchasing.

If you purchase a television (or a monitor) in a shop and you then discover that it has one or more dead pixels, you are likely to encounter problems if you try to return it. Most manufacturers stipulate that a small number of dead or defective pixels is possible and is within factory tolerances: so they don't accept it is a fault.

If, however, you purchase an item online (including a Buy-it-Now or a Second Chance offer, at a fixed price, on eBay) the Distance Selling Regulations enable you to return it within a few days and get your money back for pretty much any reason - even if the item is not faulty. So, if you don't want to live with a dead pixel or two, you don't have to.

I bought our 52" Sony late last December, new and unused, from a private seller on eBay who lives 250 miles away. The eventual price was about £700 less than retail and the television was absolutely perfect. The seller was a really friendly and helpful guy who works for Sony (and presumably gets a discount). He organised all the shipping privately and it arrived just before Christmas with full paperwork and a Sony warranty. The main point, though, was that I could have sent it back if it had had any defective pixels. eBay would not release my money to him (via PayPal) for 21 days or until I filed a Positive Feedback.

I also bought a 30" computer monitor last year on eBay at a saving of several hundred pounds and with that same ability to return it if it had had a single defective pixel. That, too, was perfect.

So, don't necessarily rule out eBay: the savings can be considerable. :money: