Digital TVs

Jolly_Roger

I am thinking of buying a TV with an integrated digital set top box. Does anybody out there have a good reason why I shouldn't? I have so many boxes underneath my tele that by combining the set top box and the tele I think I can get rid of one, especially since my current TV is now developing nasty habits. Can anybody recomment a set for around £350?

dalepearson

I think there are lots of TV's on the market that would fit your description. Personally, I am not a fan of totally intergrated solutions, main reason being single point of failure. At least with a set top box (very cheap now) you only need to replace that if it goes pop, or TV if it goes pop. TV repairs dont tend to be cheap either.

This is only my opinion of course, I am sure in the not to distant future all tv's will have them built in as it becomes the only form of reception.

Joe_Bloggs

I second dalepearson's view. Buy a TV for the picture. Will your TV be able to record to hard disk /DVD like the latest set top boxes ? The answer is no. I would say 'buy integrated' if the small cost of the extra components was reflected in the price. Get a TV with more input options to make the management of your boxes easier. Buy boxes with two scarts to, enable play through/recording options. There is no reason why tuner only set top boxes should be as big as they are. You can get them the size of a paperback book.
J_B.

BenL

As with the other two i share the view of seperate is best.

A lot of people bought early IDTV's and things have moved on so the Tv's processor isn't powerful enough to run digital teletext etc.

The TV manufacturers do not have to continue to provide updates to the software to fix bugs as well.

Its like the combi portable tv and videos of yesteryear where the cheapo video part usually breaks.

Simple set top boxes can be found in Supermarkets for £35 sometimes less.

Ben

jakemuk

argos £29.97 for a sagem one plus its ultra small

scart connect only though, as no rf modulator :d 1 x scart only downside

flossy_splodge

May seem obvious but check first that you can receive digital! I bought an idTV from John Lewis who checked and said I 'should' be OK but actually cannot get digital at all. They now say, ';well of course you will need a new aerial! Didn't tell me that in the beginning! So beware.