Best options for Flatscreen TVs

spakkker

Until full digital switch over it's a bit of a lottery with freeview and HD freeview is going to be the most problematic.
Freesat is fine and you will get plenty of regional tv. You can use an existing sky dish for a freesat box. SD satellite kits at B&Q -£25.

My opinion is that a flat-screen tv takes up so much less space than old crt tv's that you can up the screen size more than you'd think without a new tv looking out of place/oversized. That's your call.
Also, I'd watch out for highly reflective screens , usually plasmas. Full hd is over-rated, as said, but it's the way things are going.
Have a look in some larger stores with a selection of tv's running -I know they won't be set up well- for me I decided against plasma because they looked "dull" !!

Hammyman

spakkker wrote: »

for me I decided against plasma because they looked "dull" !!

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

The last thing plasmas should be accused of is looking dull. Are you sure you weren't looking at over-saturated "shop setting" on the non-plasmas?

moonrakerz

Hammyman wrote: »

Unless you sit closer than 6ft to it, you'd not notice the difference between 720p/1080i and 1080p anyway on a 42" or smaller TV.

You NEED to sit that close (or closer) anyway to get the benefit of HD - be it 720 or 1080.

asbokid

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

BBC are going to move to 1080p format (at least on freeview)

The DVB-T2 specification used by Freeview HD doesn't support 1080p50.

STBs and TVs that purportedly decode and output Freeview HD at 1080p50 are simply transcoding a 1080i50 datastream into a 1080p50 datastream.

In the transcode, two interlace 'fields' from 1080i50 are merged into a single video frame. That frame is then output for twice the normal duration (40ms instead of the normal 20ms for a frame in 1080p50). It's a sleight of hand..

If and when the BBC starts to use 1080p25 for HD broadcasts then they may look no better and might even look worse than broadcasts at 1080i50.

By the time that the DVB-T2 (Freeview HD) standard is updated to support 1080p50, and those updates are accepted by the industry, and new STBs/TVs are produced to support the new standard, there will be consumer-level TVs providing Ultra HD at 2160p or 4320p.

For fear of being accused of repetition, broadcast TV, whether delivered over satellite, cable or terrestrial, is obsolete. We should by now be getting video-on-demand delivered over fibre to the home.

IMO, really don't see the point of 'hd ready' 720 screens, most screens being developed now are 1080p capable, hence you'll see the price of even once high end 720p plasmas slashed.

Nor me.. I was never persuaded by "HD Ready". It was just marketing spin for "obsolete"!