tv advice for total numpty

Blacksheep1979

GunJack wrote: »

blacksheep - for the difference in picture quality for standard def tv, it is pointless paying twice as much for a telly. MIL has an expensive samsung, and the quality is not £3-400 better than mine. And with a HD input - as I said, it's grand. It seems that there is a lot of snobbery involved still within the consumer electronics sector, but if you would rather waste £400 of your money, it's your perogative. It's not right or wrong,just your view and I'll respect that. The OP was on a budget, though, so the cheaper end of the market should not be overlooked.

I am in no hurry to go HD yet (apart from PS3 and xbox360), by the time everything is made and broadcast in HD prices of equipment will have come way down anyway....any guesses on how long it'll take anyone ??

Sorry but I'd think it was a waste of £5-600 to buy an el-cheapo no name that has lower quality that would constantly bug me. As said in my original post to get the best pic quality you have to adjust the screen when you get it home - has your MIL done this? I honest know that you would notice a difference if you put your two tv's side by side (after optimising the pic) - well unless you have problems with your vision.

Cat695 wrote: »

i stand corrected on the xbox360 so thank you but why would i buy a dying dvd format i might aswell get vhs as i can pick them up for a quid....if your going to buy the latest TV why not buy the latest player aswell??? kinda makes sense than buying something that is dead or dying

Hmm what you're talking about there are GAMES consoles, their primary function is to play GAMES and seeing as the xbox has a larger quantity of decent games along with a better online gaming community I think it makes sense to go for that also there are plenty of rumours coming from m$ about bluray players for the xbox and seeing as they've been having chats with LG about it, it seems relatively likely - why would they cut themselves out of the market? It might be your cunning way of doing business 'oh I was supporting format XYZ but that's died but am now not going to make anything to support format ABC', didn't Sony make VHS players/recorders after betamax went tits up?

virgin_moneysaver

be_alright wrote: »

V+ is the HD offering from Virgin Media. You can get it, depending how long you've been a customer of virgin and your payment record you might be able ot negotiate a discount on the install which is either £75 or £150. It uses the same cable and it's just a new box that they come in and install. It's a recorder too with three tuners in so you can watch one channel and be recording two other programs as the same time to watch at a later date.

so I pay virgin to swap the cable box with the card thingy sticking out the slot for this v& box - you say it records programmes but I'll still need to get a dvd player - have I got this right so far?

& if I don't get V& & buy A hd ready lcd tv the picture will be naff without V& ?

virgin_moneysaver

went to an independent retailer yesterday, who were very helpful, endeavored to use idiot talk as much as possible so I could understand - so chatted about the plasma v lcd, the v& box, blu-ray & hdd

my thoughts so far is that we are gonna get the v& & make do with our dvd player at the mo, until such time we'll get a blu-ray

as far as the TV is concerned its between a Panasonic 42"plasma TH-42PX80B or a
Sony LCD V series 40" KDL-40V4000

any further thoughts would be appreciated

iviv

Well, for what I understand you're using the DVD recorder for, the V+ should replace it in part. The V+ box has a hard drive in it, just like a computer. Using the box, you can look at the TV schedules in the coming weeks, look for things you would like to watch, and set them to record. You can then watch the recorded programs whenever you like, as long as you have room on the hard drive. Obviously, you can delete them as needed.
While you'll still need the DVD recorder to watch DVDs, the V+ box should mean you don't need to record all the shows you want to watch onto DVD.

sleep2much

Trouble with these new tv's is that standard def gets exposed as pretty poor, HD is fantastic, but as most of the time I watch normal def it can be very Disappointing,don't get me wrong, I'm not going back to crt, but I tend to think this push to huge lcd TV's was more fashion lead than quality picture, I'm sure others will not agree, not many people who spend £1000 on a new telly want to admit the picture just isnt as good.

[Deleted User]

sleep2much wrote: »

Trouble with these new tv's is that standard def gets exposed as pretty poor, HD is fantastic, but as most of the time I watch normal def it can be very Disappointing,don't get me wrong, I'm not going back to crt, but I tend to think this push to huge lcd TV's was more fashion lead than quality picture, I'm sure others will not agree, not many people who spend £1000 on a new telly want to admit the picture just isnt as good.

It just depends on the quality of the image processor the tv uses, the type of connection and quality of lead and whether the television has been properly calibrated or not. Even if it's just a dvd copy of a calibration program it's enough to make the difference between SD CRT and SD LCD/Plasma negligible.

I've seen so many uncalibrated sets in people's houses it makes me wonder how bad their eyes are!

iviv

Plus, in some ways its future proofing. It may not look as good now, but in a couple of years when everything goes HD, you'll be able to see it in all its glory.

I don't watch TV, though, so I don't mind.

[Deleted User]

I wouldn't be able to live without a HD tv for my Xbox and rather large but cheap collection of HD DVD's.

sleep2much

I love my telly, its one of those new red Samsungs, you can really tell the differance between differant channels quality, as for messing around with differant settings I seem to be doing it every day, I'm pleased with the results, I'm looking forward to more hd output from the bbc and itv, and yes it's future proof, anyway thats what I told the wife.

superscaper

sleep2much wrote: »

and yes it's future proof, anyway thats what I told the wife.

So it'll be able to display ultra high definition then

(already being developed and BBC shown interest in)