42" Plasma TV £887.07 incl VAT and incl Delivery !!

Berwhale

talkshop wrote:

1) Have a minimum display of 720 physical lines in wide aspect ratio - which means, in effect, that it needs to be at least 720 pixels deep and 1280 pixels across.

Only the number of lines is important. I have an Hitachi 32PD5200 plasma with a resolution of 852 x 1024 which has DVI with HDCP and is HDTV compliant.

Also note that the benefit of the higher resolution is NOT limited to HDTV broadcasts. If you have a DVD player capable of progressive scan (i.e. non-interlaced) output via component video or DVI/HDMI than you will also get the extra resolution.

I have a Samsung HD945 DVD player connected via DVI and the quality has to be seen to be believed.

The 32PD5200 can be bought for just over £1300, it's a 32" which is probably more suitable for the majority of British living rooms. I find that 42" screens look too blocky from anything less than 4m away.

The Samsung can be had for around £150.

Metallifux

Berwhale wrote:

Only the number of lines is important. I have an Hitachi 32PD5200 plasma with a resolution of 852 x 1024 which has DVI with HDCP and is HDTV compliant.

Also note that the benefit of the higher resolution is NOT limited to HDTV broadcasts. If you have a DVD player capable of progressive scan (i.e. non-interlaced) output via component video or DVI/HDMI than you will also get the extra resolution.

I have a Samsung HD945 DVD player connected via DVI and the quality has to be seen to be believed.

The 32PD5200 can be bought for just over £1300, it's a 32" which is probably more suitable for the majority of British living rooms. I find that 42" screens look too blocky from anything less than 4m away, especially with

The Samsung can be had for around £150.

I think you just explained why people should get an HD ready panel, the demand is for ever bigger screens and to stop the picture from looking awful you need higher resolution. Also prog scan has nothing to do with resolution it just means that frames are fed to the display as a whole instead of being interlaced where half of the display is drawn, then the other half on alternating lines.

Berwhale

Metallifux, that was the intention. I certainly wouldn't recommend buying a low res plasma, I'd buy a decent 28" CRT for around £280, then wait a year for HD plasma to come down in price.

Also, I wouldn't say that progressive scan has nothing to do with resolution. Prog scan is usually specified using terms like 576p, 768p, 1080i. These numbers related directly to the resolution that is transmitted to the screen. I use 768p between my DVD and plasma which means that a 1024 x 768 non-interlaced picture is transmitted from the DVD player.

Incidently, it was seeing Martin on a Sunday morning saying it was OK to treat yourself to a plasma that got me to this site in the first place. Martin's appearance also convinced the misses it was OK to get the plasma, so thank's Martin!

dan_scott

lol i was wondering how long it would be before all the plasmas that can not do hdtv would start droping in price, might get one for my spare room and play games on it. sky hdtv next year not long now.

Metallifux

Berwhale wrote:

Metallifux, that was the intention. I certainly wouldn't recommend buying a low res plasma, I'd buy a decent 28" CRT for around £280, then wait a year for HD plasma to come down in price.

Also, I wouldn't say that progressive scan has nothing to do with resolution. Prog scan is usually specified using terms like 576p, 768p, 1080i. These numbers related directly to the resolution that is transmitted to the screen. I use 768p between my DVD and plasma which means that a 1024 x 768 non-interlaced picture is transmitted from the DVD player.

Incidently, it was seeing Martin on a Sunday morning saying it was OK to treat yourself to a plasma that got me to this site in the first place. Martin's appearance also convinced the misses it was OK to get the plasma, so thank's Martin!

Yep sounds like you have a sweet set up there. I have noticed a lot of so called HDTV displays can only handle 720p natively and not 1080i which they have to reduce the resolution on as 1080i has a res of 1920*1080 which is a hellishly high res for a plasma.

Berwhale

Yes, but 1080i is actually interlaced, hence the 'i' rather than the 'p' suffix, it's not necessarily better than 768p, especially on a 32" screen from 4m away. TBH, it really depends on what you are watching.

I've cancelled my whole NTL TV package at a saving of £30 a month and now just watch Freeview using a Thomson dual tuner HD recorder (£150) and films rented from CD-Wow's excellent service for £15 month. Basically, it's half the price, I don't pay for anything I don't want to watch and all the films look much better in progressive scan

Rave

Berwhale wrote:

Also, I wouldn't say that progressive scan has nothing to do with resolution. Prog scan is usually specified using terms like 576p, 768p, 1080i. These numbers related directly to the resolution that is transmitted to the screen. I use 768p between my DVD and plasma which means that a 1024 x 768 non-interlaced picture is transmitted from the DVD player.

Maybe, but that picture has been interpolated up by the player from the DVD's native resolution of 480/576 x 720 (x 24/25/30 frames per second), so there's little or no improvement in detail. Anyway it's the numbers that dictate the resolution, not the i or p for interlaced or progressive. 1080i has the same number of pixels in the image as 1080p, it just has half the number of 'frames per second'.

All plasmas, LCD TVs, projectors etc. have to run a progressive signal at a basic display level, so they all have built in de-interlacers. Doing this in the DVD player rather than the display probably gives better results, admittedly.

zag2me

Do not buy a tv that is not HDTV compatible, Thats the reason why they are all dropping in price. Go into comet and look at the Sagem 50" DLP running the HDTV demo, it truely will blow you away. I cant imagine buying a tv for 900 quid then it becoming redundant in 8 months time.

Once you see hdtv, you will never want to go back. Sky is also looking at introducing hdtv by the end of this year or beginning of 2006, so its not long away at all.

marnstars

zag2me wrote:

Do not buy a tv that is not HDTV compatible, Thats the reason why they are all dropping in price. Go into comet and look at the Sagem 50" DLP running the HDTV demo, it truely will blow you away. I cant imagine buying a tv for 900 quid then it becoming redundant in 8 months time.

Once you see hdtv, you will never want to go back. Sky is also looking at introducing hdtv by the end of this year or beginning of 2006, so its not long away at all.

I agree that the Sagem looks stunning with a HD feed, but with extra hardware required (namely a new HD Sky box) and no doubt further subscription to a HD service (namely Sky again) - will it ever have a chance to catch on or just be elitist?

I am still yet to be convinced and there are bound to be people out there who want a Porche but make do with a Ford (if you get my point).

MoneyMachine_2

I'm thinking along the same lines - HDTV will be around - but I wont be upgrading my Sky box and TV. Hardly worth all th expense to have a 'much better picture.'
This will be, for a nmber of years after its launch, an elitist product.
I would rather have a 42" plasma without HD than a 28" with HDTV.

I wouldnt pay over twice the price for a plasma with HD technology.
I will wait until the prices fall massively like they do with everything else.
The way I see this - now is the perfect time to buy if u ever wanted a plasma but were struggling to afford one.