...about 2 years ago and after about 12+ years of use my trusty old 29 inch 4:3 Sony Trinitron went 'down the pan'... I was hoping it would see me through a few more years to take me into the magical 'digital age' where I could buy a huge/flat/thin/hi res screen for under £500-00 but -alas - no!
I looked around and brought a 32" widescreen JVC (no trinitron). Not bad for the money but nowhere near as good as the old Sony. Anyway -It would do me for a few years I thought.... No problems - I could live with it and it worked well with my VHS/DVD recorder and 160g DVR/DVD recorder all connected together with standard 'low cost' scart cables.

Just a few weeks ago my daughter's TV packed up and I decided to let her have my JVC to save her paying out her hard earned money and I made the decision to go for a brand spanking new -all singing - dancing'- LCD or Plasma TV (at that time - I didn't even know the difference between the two formats !)

Anyway after 'much research' on the web and especially within this site I decided to purchase a Toshiba 37" (c3030 range). After setting it up and plugging everything in I was - to say the least - very disappointed !

My wife and myself and the kids/grandchildren are just your 'average joes' when it comes to TV viewing - news/soaps/documentaries/ a bit of sport and occasionaly a film or two....

I've had SKY for years and always used this as my main source of TV input... My SKY picture (SD - not plus or HD) with this new Toshiba was absolutely terrible... no 'real' definition - a water coloury type look - no detail in skin tones - shimmering - screen 'fizzing' on lots of scenes.

The inbuilt Freeview of the Toshiba gave a much better signal but to me - nowhere near as good as my old CRT sets of old. Just about bearable and viewable.....

Now - When recording anything the picture quality becomes even worse - Even doing a straight 'pass through' from the AV input there is an even more dramatic loss in detail. After recording and looking at playback - even using the best 'HQ' mode on my DVR it's almost like looking at a 'semi-cartoon' - DETAIL ! -Forget It - there 'aint none !!.....

I thought - it must be my connections (my trusty 15 year old scarts !) So - went out and purchased - a new Ixos XTH 611 and a new QED P2110 - plugged them in expecting to see at least some change ! - What did I get ? To my eyes - absolutely no improvement ! That gold plated scart hype must be a godsend and a little goldmine to the manufacturers !

I've also just purchased a 'Digital Video Essentials' DVD so that I can set up my screen to its 'ultimate' output - i'm now forever 'twiddling' with my setup - not watching the TV program on the screen - I'm just watching the SCREEN...

Now after about 3 weeks - I can just about bear to live with this 'digital wonder'. Probably in High Definition it would be much better but that means getting SKY HD or the Virgin+ box - then I'd have to change my recording equipment to cater for the HD..... that to me is a lot of money and for the amount of viewing I do - a total waste of time.... Remember - i'm just an 'average joe' viewer - there are millions more like me that as I speak (write) are probably contemplating the purchase of one of these lovely big / flat / thin screens to adorn and take pride of place in their living rooms.

I like the look and design of my Toshiba - it fits in well with my room decor. In fact it looks beautiful standing there proudly on its pedestal - that is - 'TIL YOU TURN IT ON !!! Then - well what can I say...

...If this is progress then take me back into the 'dark ages'....


All you CRT lovers - I now know what you saying.... For standard definition viewing I'm sure a good old Sony or Panasonic CRT is streets ahead of what i'm looking at as I write this (Webmley Cup Final - just going into extra time )...

I can't go back now - I simply can't afford another 'new' TV - I'll live with it - (just about) - but anyone reading this -thinking of a new TV - BE WARNED - have a really good look at what you're about to purchase and make sure 'it does what it says on the tin' !!!

Perhaps i'm a little too much of a born perfectionist but I did expect a lot more than i'm now getting from my TV viewing 'leisuretime'... 'Frustration Time' is what I now call it - it's taken away much of the pleasure I used to get out of just sitting down in my armchair to relax and just 'view the telly' !


Anyway - i'm off now to look at those blurry - fizzy - cartoony little things on the telly kicking a ball about - Oh no ! - sorry its still a live BBC broacast of the cup final - must be my glasses steaming up....

Arghh had finally settled on buying that telly after reading posts about it on various forums saying it was a decent telly and now this.

Maybe I should spend the cash in the pub instead.

...I'm not saying that the Toshiba brand is bad - the TV was a good price.... just be warned BEFORE buying it - make sure that the picture quality is up to your requirements...

There IS a big difference between a CRT and LCD at standard (SD) settings....
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>>>>Arghh had finally settled on buying that telly after reading posts about it on various forums saying it was a decent telly and now this.

Maybe I should spend the cash in the pub instead.

But did you go and demo the display in person?

HD would be a much better source to get the best out of your display. Sky has the best available content with around 13 channels, I doubt you would be impressed with the HD content on V+, it has very little HD content.

As for the HD recordings, can't see any reason why you would need to change your equipment for this. The HD box is a PVR and records the HD content on to it's HDD.

Sadly this isn't really anything new and it's often discussed on many forums.

I feel it started with 100Hz CRT TV's - they might have been flicker free but they looked poor comapred to a quality 50Hz CRT. In fact the first 100Hz 32" 4/3 I came across was a Finlux around 1990 (give or take a year) and it was one of the very first and it looked like lego blocks moving around!

LCD and Plasmas can look fairly good on standard definition (in fact the latest Panansonics 32LXD70 looks very reasonable on standard definition tv) but they're still not as good to my eye as a good CRT.

LCD and Plasmas are 100% better with picture geometry however, compared to wonky old CRT widescreen's.



Sadly many digital technologies that have been sold as being better than what they replaced, aren't really better but they might have some better qualities.

Digital TV (standard def) isn't really better than analogue but it caters for widescreen better (PAL Plus tried for analogue but it came too late)

DAB audio has got worse and is no longer being touted as a superior sound to FM stereo (originally it was sold on it's improved audio quality)

LCD and Plasmas are finally getting better though!

good post. When thinking about buying a LCD or Plasma, STOP - and check one out in the shops/demo first, and make sure its with a proper tv picture, not a demo disc.

The higher resolution of these new screens is fixed at high settings, so when you feed it with a low quality signal (SD), the results are often poor (compared with the same SD signal on a good CRT tv).

But some LCD's/Plasma's handle SD pictures better than others. You really have to shop around and take quite a bit of time doing it, but some can produce a fairly good SD image. With many you can make the picture look better by having greater distance between you and the screen (compared with CRT tv's). Keep in mind that you will need to emulate this bigger "gap" at home.

Most of these new sets will produce a far better image if you feed them with a HD source, such as CableHD or SkyHD. If you go for the SkyHD option, you will also have the built in "+" hard disc recording, which will be at the original quality (HD if its an HD channel). But these are subscription service's. The BBC offer a single demo HD channel free to air on satellite. Blue Ray and HD-DVD as well as PS3 can also offer HD quality. Some regular (SD) DVD players/recorders now feature in built upscaler, so the quality from your current SD DVD's is improved.

Dave

i have the 32c3030db and find it to be a superb bit of kit , vastly better in my opinion the in laws 32" panasonic crt , and believe me , if i thought it was crap then i would have going back to currys post haste , what i did find though is that the factory settings are no good at all , have a good play about with it and you will see what i mean , mine was set at 100 % backlight for a start

and many people with CRT tv's have poor pictures either due to the CRT its self or poor reception. I recently saw a CRT replaced by a LCD - using the same signal and the LCD was easily the better picture, but this was due to the poor quality of the previous CRT. The LCD was still good, but not a mile ahead compared with our Sony CRT's.

If anyone had a previous CRT with poor picture, and poor analogue reception (snowy), then bought a Sky digibox and LCD together the resulting picture change would be a great upgrade.

A lot of what people think of LCD is based on their previous specific experience of CRT and analogue reception. Similar to how some people think Vinyl or even audio tape is better than CD.

Dave

what model was your sony? im looking for a user manual for a kv-s2942u ?

No TV in the world would have made that excuse for a match look any better!!!! :yawn: :yawn: :yawn:

I dont think you did enough research.

This forum has had countless threads over the last few months from people taking their new LCD/plasma home before realising that for SD display they are shit.

At the very least you should have got the shop to run a Sky system through it before buying it.

Opinions are like arseholes,everybody has one.But only yours counts.

There is enough negative feedback about SD on LCD to make it a natural move to watch the set first to see if you can tolerate the defects of SD.

If you sit 15 feet away the picture will look fine.
Thats no recommendation but its unfortunately true

well how much research should ' average joe do?'

he obvisously looked at the thing

should we not help or slag him off


get a star wars dvd on and look at set-up

it will help BUT your normal viewing off telly may seem strange, a case off getting used to it

if no star wars play about with contrast, brightness that sort of things

I just bought a Toshiba 37X3030DB at the weekend and I was a bit worried what it would be like watching SD especially after reading some of the threads on here!

I firstly set it up via a scart cable and picture was pretty crappy but I was very pleasantly surprised when I set it up via HDMI cable through my V+ box and SD picture is now very good after a bit of messing around with different settings.

I would recommend a Toshiba but only if you can run it through HDMI

watching sd sky through scart on mine and most channels are fine , ok , some are crap , but i dont think the best tv in the world could do anything about it

http://sky.com/hd/what-does-it-cost-existing.htm

you will likely pay £10per month extra plus an installation OR hang off and see what happens with bbc/ other tv companies bringing out HD

it will get cheaper but how long till they are more appealing?