[Rem0te]

I have read may posts / reviews re the quality of LCD and Plasma TVs, the emergence of HD TV etc and even Curry's / Comet only seem to sell these new TV's but in all honesty are they really fit for purpose?

Of all my friends who have a mix of both formats and from different brands Toshiba / Sony / Pioneer and Samsung I not convienced they are really suitable.

For instance, when compared to my 'normal' 32" JCV, the pixalate, esp. up close or watching any fast moving sports and CGI graphics in film are both poor in relation.

Obviously they are getting better but is this an industry / retailer push on something that isn't really right yet and a case of Emperors new clothes?

[eddiewood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rem0te

I have read may posts / reviews re the quality of LCD and Plasma TVs, the emergence of HD TV etc and even Curry's / Comet only seem to sell these new TV's but in all honesty are they really fit for purpose?

Of all my friends who have a mix of both formats and from different brands Toshiba / Sony / Pioneer and Samsung I not convienced they are really suitable.

For instance, when compared to my 'normal' 32" JCV, the pixalate, esp. up close or watching any fast moving sports and CGI graphics in film are both poor in relation.

Obviously they are getting better but is this an industry / retailer push on something that isn't really right yet and a case of Emperors new clothes?

Sit 2ft from your 32" CRT, not so good now eh? If people insist on sitting too close to a large screen then they will get a poor picture

If fast moving sports is a problem, then the TV isn't a good one. Up-scaled DVD on my 46" is fantastic, Star Wars etc., is simply awesome!

SD TV is a mixed bag depending on the bit-rate of the channel being watched, the main ones are very good. Quite why people insist on comparing SD with an up-scaled picture is, erm, interesting...of course it's going to look worse up-scaled on a big TV!

They can keep their little TV, I'll stick with my 46"!

[Jarrak]

The problem is that there is a far greater range in performance with flat panels compared to CRT and the recent price crash is down mostly to cheap older panels being rebadged with poor driving electronics and being shifted by the tens of thousands to consumers who really expect any TV is going to be as good as what they had and a match for one costing twice as much.

While there are issues with flat panel SD performance the root cause is poor SD digital broadcasts, the majority of panels which have trouble with digital channels don't with DVD, perhaps digital TV in the UK needs more regulation rather than the displays.

[ShiftyDundee]

I got a 37" Samsung last month and I'm loving it. The picture from my V+ box is great, upscaled DVDs look amazing and, as it has PC input, I'm typing this using it as a monitor too which makes it great for BBC iPlayer and 4OD too.

[jibberjabber2b]

This is a problem a have with a friend of mine. She cannot understand my fascination with this "HD stuff" as she put it. In her opinion the SD looks "c**p" and the HD looks "alright".

In my opinion she needs to go to specsavers first of all because the pixellation on SD on my set at least is VERY minimal, but also needs to understand that the compression used for SD digital channels are highlighted more on even a medium sized (32") LCD TV compared to a 28" SD CRT.

Why she couldn't see the vast amounts of extra detail that HD provides is totally beyond me. Then again most of the time she is totally beyond me!

Oh yes, and I do have a V+ box that does the upscaling which means SD does look great and BBC HD as well as the generous on-demand HD content of course is HD so is absolutely excellent.

[infiniteloop]

short answer....the £1000+ ones generally are, the sub-£399 ones generally aren't. Most cheap LCDs look absolutely ghastly on an analogue SD input, their electronics just aren't up to it. HDMI devices look much better usually, dodging as they do some of these sub-standard A>D electronics. There's also scaling, contrast, refresh...so many factors. I can tell you that my Sky HD box, even when upscaling a boggo SD channel like Living, looks 1000% better through HDMI on my cheap "cooking sherry" Hitachi LCD than then same channel through RGB into a Samsung that cost £800. My £1300 DLP projector beats them all into a cocked hat though, but that's for special occasions like movies, Lost, BSG and COD4.

[BallroomBear]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rem0te

I have read may posts / reviews re the quality of LCD and Plasma TVs, the emergence of HD TV etc and even Curry's / Comet only seem to sell these new TV's but in all honesty are they really fit for purpose?

Of all my friends who have a mix of both formats and from different brands Toshiba / Sony / Pioneer and Samsung I not convienced they are really suitable.

For instance, when compared to my 'normal' 32" JCV, the pixalate, esp. up close or watching any fast moving sports and CGI graphics in film are both poor in relation.

Obviously they are getting better but is this an industry / retailer push on something that isn't really right yet and a case of Emperors new clothes?

Unless you're going to watch Blu-ray or Standard DVD through an good upscaler, then the quick answer in most cases is yes.

A sales rep in Comet even told me not to bother buying any LCD tv in his store.

It's not so much the equipment not being fit for purpose, especially not at the higher price end, (some cheaper LCDs are nasty) but more of the required signal quality not being available to take advantage of the equipment.

[stvn758]

28inch CRT = crap.

46inch LCD = pure joy,


I am more than pleased with SD & HD.

[AlanO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rem0te

I have read may posts / reviews re the quality of LCD and Plasma TVs, the emergence of HD TV etc and even Curry's / Comet only seem to sell these new TV's but in all honesty are they really fit for purpose?

Of all my friends who have a mix of both formats and from different brands Toshiba / Sony / Pioneer and Samsung I not convienced they are really suitable.

For instance, when compared to my 'normal' 32" JCV, the pixalate, esp. up close or watching any fast moving sports and CGI graphics in film are both poor in relation.

Obviously they are getting better but is this an industry / retailer push on something that isn't really right yet and a case of Emperors new clothes?

They're fit for purpose in as much as they are designed to receive and display TV signals.

I think one of the problems is people are going for much larger sets than they did with CRTs - i.e not so long ago 24 / 26" was considered a 'large' set, yet the majority of LCDs sold seem to be this size and increasing numbers are 32" +. I suspect some of the picture probs would have been seen if you'd tried to use a 30" > CRT set. However if you go for a larger set, then more detail will be seen, therefore more shortcomings will be seen. Chances are it wasn't noticeable with smaller sets.

[SeaviewHome]

LCD's are much cheaper to bang out than a Plasma.

My friend works in a factory that builds TV's and they have just gone over from Plasma to LCD. The reason, LCD components are much cheaper than Plasma and they can turn out 3 LCD's in the time it used to take them to turn out 1 Plasma TV.

So if you go in Curry's and they try and sell you an LCD as opposed to a Plasma, its not the sales commission that drives them, its the fact they make more profit selling them.

Plasma gives a much better picture with fast moving objects and that was part the reason I went for Plasma over LCD.

[cooler]

On my Samsung lcd its got MoviePlus which is meant to reduce motion blur when watching fast moving objects. Ive watched quite a lot of films on my Sammy and havent noticed any motion blur so a plasma isnt really nessesary to avoid it.

[eddiewood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cooler

On my Samsung lcd its got MoviePlus which is meant to reduce motion blur when watching fast moving objects. Ive watched quite a lot of films on my Sammy and havent noticed any motion blur so a plasma isnt really nessesary to avoid it.

MoviePlus? I guess you have an M86/M87 then? That's a good set.

My Sammy F86 handles fast moving objects without 100Mhz Motion Plus switched on. In fact, I have never had it switched on.

When I watch budget LCDs the difference is very noticeable, so it's not surprising that LCD gets a bad reputation.

You get what you pay for.