[neilcoates]

ok, i have finally succumbed to buying a 32" Sony LCD KDL-32D3000U - supposedly the best 32" LCD they make.
I already have a Sony KV32 DX30-U CRT (which is 6 years old ). I am watching both through a standard sky feed - not HD
The CRT is better in absolutely every way. No smeariness of images (grass looks particularly bad when watching football on the LCD) , and lovely sharp text (not perfect , but much better on CRT)

The LCD is only really acceptable at around 4m+ viewing distance , which is where i watch it , but I am afraid that all those people who are extolling the virtues of LCD must , I am afraid , need their eyes testing . Trust me , I have 20:20 vision and the difference is not even close.

Now my CRT will never be capable of HD, and my LCD is (not full HD of course ) , but I still doubt LCD HD will be as pleasurable a viewing experience as CRT SD.

Comments please!!!!

[Gadget Guy]

Have to agree totally 100%.
I have a panasonic 36" CRT fed from a freeview box and have yet to see any flat screen TV (Plasma or LCD) which can display a SD picture which even comes close to mine. It will be many years before I am conned into buying this inferiior technology by the TV manufacturers and hopefully they will be able to get a decent picture on the them by then (unless my panny packs up and I can't find another).
Hope you can get a refund on your Sony LCD.

[TRS]

I'm still clinging to my Panasonic 32 inch CRT! I've never seen an LCD with SD pictures that, in my opinion, is any better than average. Most are poor and fast moving sport is awful. If I was to change it would definitely be a plasma. Yes LCD sets are great looking as furniture, but awful to watch.

[Caxton]

Agree with the comments here, I have seen nothing to touch my CRT. The only picture I have seen better is HD DVD on a plasma produced to show in a TV store. In broadcast quality SD is dreadful HD only slightly better. As the last poster said they look better as just a piece of furniture.

[DigiRich]

I think the main problem is how the technologies cope with a poor quality source. When fed from SD the LCD will show up any imperfection in the image, with football as there is not the bandwidth to show grass well it becomes a blur. It seems that CRT can cope quite well with that. I am confused how so many people I have seen watch an LCD screen and think the picture is brilliant and that the pic on CRT is awful, probably the same way that people tend to find a wine tastes better if it is more expensive. You need to have some sort of fault with a CRT for the picture to be bad.

[roddydogs]

If you happy with an ancient CRT , thats all that matters.

[broadz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by neilcoates

but I still doubt LCD HD will be as pleasurable a viewing experience as CRT SD.

Oh dear. And you claim that the verdict you have issued is official.

The SD picture quality on my 32" HD Ready LCD pisses on the picture quality of my 32" CRT. So no, I totally dispute your 'official' verdict. My LCD has a much better, sharper, brighter picture, regardless of source. It is no longer a pleasure to watch the CRT, it is always a pleasure to watch the LCD.

[MarkElkington]

So what you're basically saying is that watching a SD source on an SD TV provides better quality than an SD source on a HD TV?

And you're suprised by all this?

Go get yourself a SKYHD box or a blu-ray player. Connect the sky/dvd to the CRT using a scart and the PS3/SkyHD to the LCD by HDMI. Watch the same channel / film, at the same time, then tell us your CRT is better. The HDTV isn't built to handle poor SD sources.

Its like saying a DVD and VHS look identical on a ten year old 14" portable with no scart socket!

[sancheeez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by neilcoates

but I still doubt LCD HD will be as pleasurable a viewing experience as CRT SD.

You're wrong there.

I'm guessing you haven't actually watched any HD material yet?

Yes, some of the crappy quality channels look worse on an HD TV, but they didn't look that great on CRT either. The lack of definition in the CRT tended to hide the poor quality of some channels to an extent.

[gomezz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkElkington

So what you're basically saying is that watching a SD source on an SD TV provides better quality than an SD source on a HD TV?

I am not surprised but I would be disappointed if a new TV was worse at doing this than my 15 year old CRT. After all, most programme material is still broadcast in SD and current sets should have showing these as best as they can as a main priority. But it seems the manufacturers are more interested in flash new bells and whistles rather than making something which works properly *now*.

[gomezz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkElkington

So what you're basically saying is that watching a SD source on an SD TV provides better quality than an SD source on a HD TV?

And you're suprised by all this?

Not surprised but disappointed that as most material most peope watch is still in SD then modern sets should do a better job than they do. A little less effort by the makers on flash new bells and whistles and a little more on getting the basics right would be appreciated.

[broadz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gomezz

I am not surprised but I would be disappointed if a new TV was worse at doing this than my 15 year old CRT. After all, most programme material is still broadcast in SD and current sets should have showing these as best as they can as a main priority. But it seems the manufacturers are more interested in flash new bells and whistles rather than making something which works properly *now*.

You misunderstand. What Mark is saying is that a HD Ready TV, because it has a much clearer and sharper picture, will unfortunately show up the defects on an SD picture more clearly also. Your old CRT couldn't show up the defects, because it had such a fuzzy picture anyway, that the defects disappeared into the background. Unfortunately your CRT has such a fuzzy picture that it will also not be able to show sharp high definition pictures any better than it could show its SD pictures - they will all look crap.

What all these LCD-bashing posters should do is watch their new LCD HD Ready television through a pair of tights pulled down over their faces - that way the sharp LCD picture becomes hazy like their fuzzy CRT picture, and any defects in the SD picture at that point become indistinguishable from the mush that they are used to watching. Meanwhile, people who are interested in watching a decent sharp picture will buy their LCD or plasma sets, take the tights off their heads, and watch super-sharp high definition pictures, or razor sharp (but unfortunately with SD including defects) standard definition pictures.

[gomezz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by broadz

You misunderstand. What Mark is saying is that a HD Ready TV, because it has a much clearer and sharper picture, will unfortunately show up the defects on an SD picture more clearly also.

I misunderstand nothing. Size for size watched from the same viewing distance an HD Ready set should look no worse than an old SD set on SD material. That they rarely do is the problem. If this means the upscaler applying a smoothing filter then so be it. This is what the makers need to be working on. It is the subjective viewing experience which is important. Ideally the best solution would be user configurable filter profiles which could be chosen to best suit the channel and type of programme being watched.

[broadz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gomezz

I misunderstand nothing. Size for size watched from the same viewing distance an HD Ready set should look no worse than an old SD set on SD material. That they rarely do is the problem.

But that's because you're comparing a razor sharp picture with a fuzzy picture as well. And whilst the razor sharp picture shows an excellent picture quality far better than a CRT ever could, it also shows defects in a poor picture quality far clearer also. The only way to reduce the defects is to either watch a better quality picture in the first place (i.e. high definition) or reduce the sharpness of the LCD to degrade it to the picture quality of the CRT (tights over head). Believe me, once the LCD picture quality is as poor as your CRT's quality, you ain't going to see no pixellation or smearing.

Actually, I don't know why I'm bothering explaining. People said they didn't want to move from black and white to colour because the colours made their pictures look fuzzy too. Stick with what you enjoy - and those of us who have adopted the new technology will enjoy what we've got.

[gomezz]

Did you bother reading the whole of my previous post? Or did you just not understand the points I made?

[broadz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gomezz

Did you bother reading the whole of my previous post? Or did you just not understand the points I made?

Yes - you mentioned a smoothing filter. I suggested a pair of tights - both would achieve the same thing. Except with a pair of tights, those of us who like a sharp picture could remove the tights. With a smoothing filter we might not be able to switch it off. And I don't want everything in SD to be mushy.

[GlenL]

Have I missed something, or is there nothing 'official' about this thread whatsoever

Just the OP's personal opinion as far as I can see.

[MarkElkington]

No, it's totally officially. I saw it on Sky News this morning!!
The OP and Gomezz are basically saying that the CRT TV doesnt expose the flaws of SD the way LCD's do. I am in so much shock I could be knocked down with a feather.

Go throw £50 at a HD-DVD player, and use it as an upscaler. Then come back and talk to us about the difference!

[slipperydave]

I've got a 22" LCD for my PC and, understandably, the quality is great when at it's native resolution. If I play a SD resolution DVD on it, it looks OK, but not as good as it does on my 19" CRT. Infact, most stuff looks excellent on my 19" CRT, except HD stuff, which looks miles better on the LCD. I'd say most non-HD sources aren't going to look that good due to the fact that the input's going to be upscaled to fit the resolution of the LCD, and any defects are going to look even worse. The OP seems to forget the fact that the LCD has over 2 times as many pixels to fill as the CRT. Get a picture from Google images and zoom into 2x, and you'll understand why it's not going to look great!

[Jaycee Dove]

Because we could not find any LCD that came close to our Sony CRT we opted for a Panasonic 37 inch Plasma instead when we got Sky HD. This does handle SD images far better and comes pretty close to the Sony CRT.

Your post merely reaffirms my view at the time that Plasma is a clear winner over LCD whilst there are still SD images to watch.

People say Plasma is old technology but if so then the new technology has a way to go to catch it up.

[JBlink]

I suppose I am a fairly late adopter of LCD technology, having had a Panasonic 32" LCD for only just over two years. I resisted because I was unconvinced by the quality of either LCD or Plasma compared to a good CRT. I still believe that to be the case. For SD sources CRT is still better particularly at medium to low bit rates. However, I don't spend my life analysing the picture quality to the n'th degree. For me, the quality of my TX32LX52 is perfectly acceptable under most circumstances. The huge benefit of it over even the best 32" CRT is the fact it doesn't take up half the room. We now have 4 LCDs of varying sizes and just two CRTs (plus 4 more in the loft gathering dust...anyone?). The space regained in kitchen and bedrooms is worth a small compromise in picture quality.

[Orbitalzone]

As far as I'm concerned, it's not just about a high definition panel showing the defects present in an SD broadcast but the fact that all digitally processed images on an LCD or Plasma technology adds its own inherent digital processing 'noise' onto the picture along with any artifacts already present on the progamme. Add in the fact that it has to be scaled to fit the resolution of the panel which only makes things worse and it's no doubt things aren't as good when comparing like for like.

It's much like those 100Hz CRT's that produced very 'digital' looking pictures when viewing analogue TV and even worse on a digital source, picture processing causes similar problems to what people grumble about with LCD or Plasma. Add this processing the fact that LCD's may have other limitations like slow responce times, poor viewing angles, poor blacks, poor whites and all the other potential issues that can affect LCD's.

What people need are 32" LCD's with a native resolution for PAL 576x720 and then let them grumble when they want HD.

or just view it at 3 metres or more and stop looking at the picture at a distance of 1 foot looking for problems because you'll be disapointed everytime at this distance.

Incidentally I'm still using my Sony CRT until it blows up... but I decided a Sony 32D3000 looked good enough for a fussy sod like me.

[the hamster]

I had an old 28" widescreen sony 50hz tv with sky plus and the picture was superb. I swoare that until I saw a decent, crt like picture on a flat panel tv (lcd/plasma) I wouldnt go down that route no matter what. Every time I saw an LCD or plasma, no matter how expensive, everyone looked like Kryton off red dwarf and it was like watching videos on youtube.

Then I saw this at a customers house and read the review

http://www.hdtvorg.co.uk/reviews/pla...ps42q97hdx.htm

Its a bit of a long review but basically there opinion (and mine) is

Conclusion

The Samsung PS42Q97HDX is the most accomplished 42in Plasma we have come across for the price. Not only is it a superb HD performer, the SD performance is more than a pleasant surprise with performance that does not quite match a CRT but comes close.

I am over the moon with this tv and dont miss my CRT one bit.

[ßeta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by neilcoates

ok, i have finally succumbed to buying a 32" Sony LCD KDL-32D3000U - supposedly the best 32" LCD they make.
I already have a Sony KV32 DX30-U CRT (which is 6 years old ). I am watching both through a standard sky feed - not HD
The CRT is better in absolutely every way. No smeariness of images (grass looks particularly bad when watching football on the LCD) , and lovely sharp text (not perfect , but much better on CRT)

The LCD is only really acceptable at around 4m+ viewing distance , which is where i watch it , but I am afraid that all those people who are extolling the virtues of LCD must , I am afraid , need their eyes testing . Trust me , I have 20:20 vision and the difference is not even close.

Now my CRT will never be capable of HD, and my LCD is (not full HD of course ) , but I still doubt LCD HD will be as pleasurable a viewing experience as CRT SD.

Comments please!!!!

I have to disagree.. As no one has 20-20 Vision.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orbitalzone

What people need are 32" LCD's with a native resolution for PAL 576x720 and then let them grumble when they want HD.

Sharp made them until a couple of years back,