LCD TVs and common issues

[Brunty]

:undecided

Having been a good boy this year I'm wondering if Santa might bring me a HiDef LCD TV this Winterval :thinking:

Isaac and other electrical/electronic/AV people - what causes the blurring on fast horizontal panning on LCD TVs eg. when you try and watch a football match on them?

Is there an item within the specs that might suggest a particular LCD TV might suffer to a greater or lesser extent? Are there features that reduce it?

Be a shame to buy a TV and have to put up with a worse SD picture that my cheap Sanyo CRT provides.

TIA

[Axeboy]

You going for HD-ready, or one of the new full HD TV's?

And what size?

[Brunty]

You going for HD-ready, or one of the new full HD TV's?

And what size?

I knew this would happen! Whats the difference?

The Toshiba 32WLT66 and it's peers are the sort of thing I was looking at. I originally considered the Samsung Slimline HD CRT but have heard of all sorts of problems with them.

Size will be 32/36" anything bigger would swamp my living room.

[Axeboy]

Well, HD-ready isnt pure HD... it just upscales the source as far as I am aware.

Pure HD will run at the proper quality that you get with HD DVD players (£500)


Depends if you will use the HD stuff or not...


Im no expert btw :)

that Toshiba is not HD, its HD ready though, probably all you will use.

[KiwiTT]

RE: Blurring. You need a very fast pixel change rate. Anything below 15-20 ms should be quite good.

If you are getting a New HD, be sure it has HDMI, which includes HDCP

I have just purchased the NZ equivalent of this UK Model (http://www.panasonic.co.uk/lcd-tv/tx-23lxd60/index.htm) for the bedroom. :D

[Brunty]

Thanks guys.

Axeboy - there is (or at least was) 'HD compatible' which down-scaled HD signals to display on a sub HD resolution screen.

From AV Forums (http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=434078&highlight=LCD+panning)

[Axeboy]

Btw Samsung LCD for the win!

[WildCards]

My old man has just bought a 42" Sony Bravia. It's crap for footy matches as it doesn't have the doobury widgit that's been mentioned above. It's awesome for films though. AFAIK he bought the bottom model of three and the chappy in the shop didn't mention it, dad wasn't too pleased until he realised how much extra the doobury widgit TV's were.

[bradc]

response time is the measurement in ms that Richard referred to. You want something as low as possible :)

[Lucas]

We have a Sony Bravia 'S' series (the older type without HD inputs) and even this TV is great It's 32" and the newer version of it is now HD ready too. I reckon if you don't have the money to buy top of the range then the Bravia S series is definately a good buy (speaking from experience here) There are a few fandangle thingymabobs that the V series have (or X series for that matter) that you dont get but great value for money anyhows!

8ms response time and I think it was 1000:1 contrast ratio. Apart from the type of inputs, imo the most important things you should be looking for are these as well as the resolution. Anyone else agree/disagree?

[timiano]

First and foremost. The most important thing, is go out there and have a look yourself rather than relying on word of mouth, internet forums and internet reviews. And, make sure you get to see the unit with a variety of sources. Don't pixel pinch, stand/sit away from it as far the nearest person to it will sit, and don't forget off angle too.

Then you can come back to your internet forum/reviews.

Be aware that a lot of cheap HD ready sets (plasma/lcd) are quite bad at prcoessing SD signals from TV. DVD, they are a bit better, but in no way good. Throw HD at it and they are fine, but how much HD source have you got now?...not much I reckon.

Be careful about LCD, have a good watch of them. Personally, even on the top end units, the image and screen movement doens't look right to me and is very easily effect by ambient light. Contrast is lacking, movement isn't right (especially footie) and it just doesn't look as pleasing as Plasma/CRT (CRT being the best).

Took me ages to decide exactly what I was getting, and eventually went for a 42" Panasonic SD plasma (display only - PWD8) as I had the hifi bits, and the speakers on TV units are mince anyway. I didn't go HD yet, as pixel for pixel, there are very few displays out there that are full HD spec, and most of them are doing some form of scaling. Plus, there isn't that much out there bar XBOX 360 for full time HD. Basically, the manufacturers have been whipping up a purchasing storm pushing all this HD Borrox and everyones gone for it. Buy a new telly, go down on the shop floor, first thing you get asked 'Is it HD ready?'...and like they know exactly what it is, and how important it is, and how if you just hang on a bit, you might get proper HD when HD is widely available and cheap....rant over sorry!

The only application I'd get an LCD for is smaller stuff and if I was getting a XBOX 360, as they work very well in native HD and it allows you to sit up closer, much like a computer screen.

[I-S]

There's also the issue of interlacing.

Interlacing is bad, particularly in the case of something like a football match. Any horizontal moving object in frame will go fuzzy at the edges where the interlaced frames don't match up: http://www.digigami.com/megapeg/screen.php?screen=HDV-mpeg-2-transcoding-DVD-mpeg-2&size=

720p (or when it comes along, 1080p) are far preferable for moving images than 1080i or 720i.

[KiwiTT]

First and foremost. The most important thing, is go out there and have a look yourself rather than relying on word of mouth, internet forums and internet reviews. And, make sure you get to see the unit with a variety of sources. Don't pixel pinch, stand/sit away from it as far the nearest person to it will sit, and don't forget off angle too.I agree.

I was all set to buy a Philips LCD, until I saw it next to the Panasonic.

[Lucas]

Oops, I wasn't meaning "go buy a dang sony!"

Good points timiano.

The angle viewing is a good point as well as how viewable it is in light. A matte finish may sometimes not look as nice as a glossy type screen but the moment there is any light in the room the glossy screen becomes useless so I suppose another consideration is where it's going to be placed in your house.

A large LCD TV is a pretty good buy when you compare it to what we sell at work. 10.4" LCD marine monitors (various applications) $5-6000 a pop!

[StunEm]

I got myself a 40 inch Samsung LCD and the main reason i got it was i just brought a xbox 360 and a 25 inch CRT just wasnt doin it.
The best way to figure out what tv you want is to go and stand around in tv shops annoying the salesmen, asking dumb questions and not listening to the answers and just...

Look at the image, If you sit infront of the tv as much as me then you want to enjoy the experience.
LCD with xbox360 in HD format is brilliant, :2thumbsup
LCD with non-digital aerial makes any faults in reception twice as bad.:uhoh:

[Paul C]

I got myself a 40 inch Samsung LCD and the main reason i got it was i just brought a xbox 360 and a 25 inch CRT just wasnt doin it.
The best way to figure out what tv you want is to go and stand around in tv shops annoying the salesmen, asking dumb questions and not listening to the answers and just...

Look at the image, If you sit infront of the tv as much as me then you want to enjoy the experience.
LCD with xbox360 in HD format is brilliant, :2thumbsup
LCD with non-digital aerial makes any faults in reception twice as bad.:uhoh:

Same as above had a 40" lcd for about a year now and with the xbox 360 the picture quality is excellent.

[Brunty]

Thanks for all your thoughts guys.

HD, for me, is limited to what is available on Virgin Media (BBC HD and some VOD/PAYG) so most of my watching will be SD.

With this in mind I've been to have a look at a number of HD sets (plasma and lcd) and the one I've actually decided on is the Samsung Slimfit HD Ready CRT - which I'm intending to use as a cheap (very cheap!) stop gap while HD technology settles down. Saw some incredible panels but none really impressed on SD feeds and many left me thinking my old Sanyo had a better picture.

Hopefully this set will keep me happy for a number of years. Thanks again.