HDTV

[Steve]

Back in the day we had a Toshiba 24 inch CRT 4:3 television with 2 surround sound speakers.

This TV had 2 scart sockets, one was for the Sky box. What Sky played through the scart the picture was crystal clear, I mean really it couldnt be any better. The same could be said playing DVDs. Great quality. It was just a cracking telly! Cost us over £700 way back when we bought it

Then we got a 42 inch Hitachi plasma screen, HD ready (albeit the cheap version of HD). Immediately we noticed a drop in quality of Sky playback even through the scart input, and the same with DVDs. The loss of quality appeared to be due to compression artefacts on the screen, and the screen appearing slow and sluggish (I guess bigger screen = picture is stretched and "enhances" errors and compression).

Then we got Sky+. Jesus this is even worse! I give in! MORE compression!

My question is, does HDTV simply give us back the quality we used to get with the CRT TVs for three times the price? Have I discovered in industry-wide secret?

 

[ninebob]

Plasma is, and always has been, rubbish - particularly on the attributes you've mentioned such as image lag.

LCD is better (if it's a good quality panel), but you're absolutely right that unless you're talking HD you STILL can't beat a CRT set.

In the lounge we have a 28" widescreen Philips CRT (mid-range-ish), and as far as I'm concerned it's the mutt's nuts.

We also have a 15" "Mikomi" (cheapo) LCD in the bathroom, and whilst it serves its purpose (catching news 24 in the morning whilst, er, well anyway) it must be said that in all honesty it's a bit pants.

 

[gcol]

Back in the day......

What day? What does that mean? I've started hearing this phrase a lot recently, mainly from American programs.

 

[Space cat]

Back in the day we had a Toshiba 24 inch CRT 4:3 television with 2 surround sound speakers

So that puzzled you too gcol! I read it initially as a clause along the lines of "When we had a Toshiba -- " but where was the rest of the sentence?

I can't say that I've ever heard it before. Is it a new way of saying "Back in the old days --"?

 

[wanabechippie]

I can't say that I've ever heard it before. Is it a new way of saying "Back in the old days --"?

Yup. Can also mean 'Back in my day...' Been using that phrase for years. 'Back in the day, Pluto was a planet'.


I replaced our old "38 (I think) CRT tv with a similar sized LCD, HD ready one. The drop in picture quality from non-HD Sky was huge! Picture seemed slower and more 'blocky'.

Mate of mine brought his PS3 over one day to play BlueRay films and hi-def games on! Blimey charlie! The picture quality on it is amazing when you've got the right, HD source! My LCD tv is only a 'cheapo' Wharfdale £300 jobbie as well.

Havn't got SkyHD, so can't comment on quality of SkyHD through HD LCD.

 

[gcol]

I can't stress enough how important it is to set the TV up correctly. TVs usually come setup for shop demo mode - usually this means that the contrast is set at maximum, any digital processing options are usually switch on too. makes for a terrible picture.
If you don't know how to setup your TV correctly, you can get setup dvds to guide you through it.
If you haven't checked, just go and have a look what your TV's contrast is set at.

 

[Belle427]

adding a decent fully wired scart cable can also boost the quality

 

[RF Lighting]

If you haven't checked, just go and have a look what your TV's contrast is set at.

Mine was set at 100%

This of course now poses the question of what should it be set to?


I get a superb picture now that I'm using the inbuilt DVB tuner.

 

[Steve]

My 32 inch LCD produces a great picture with the built in freeview tuner, but it doesn't pick up many channels, and the picture is still full of compression artefacts - its like when you save a microsoft paint file as a JPEG - theres blurry edges around everything, especially text.

I also admit that when i got my television I didn't alter the brightness and contrast, and when checked, they were set at silly levels.

Rob, the levels should be set at whatever you like.

Pity freeview isn't in HD yet.

And pity Sky isn't offering HD for free yet.

 

[chainsaw_masochist]

Then we got a 42 inch Hitachi plasma screen, HD ready (albeit the cheap version of HD). Immediately we noticed a drop in quality of Sky playback even through the scart input, and the same with DVDs. The loss of quality appeared to be due to compression artefacts on the screen, and the screen appearing slow and sluggish (I guess bigger screen = picture is stretched and "enhances" errors and compression).

Get rid of the scart lead and replace it with either component cables (and separate audio cables) or the de jure HDTV cables. For our system the former seemed to eradicate the plasma lag. Good luck.

 

[chainsaw_masochist]

Pity freeview isn't in HD yet.

There has been no confirmation from any relevant source rhat it ever will be. The topic was covered a few weeks ago
here

 

[Diyisfun]

well if you signed the petition, there is a chance..did you all sign it?

 

[Steve]

Sky playback even through the scart input

Get rid of the scart lead and replace it with either component cables (and separate audio cables) or the de jure HDTV cables.

Plain old Sky box? No HDMI or component outputs.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

SD signals into an flatscreen HDTV will always look a bit crap. Something to do with the upscaling not to mention flat screen tvs are still in their infancy compared to CRT sets. I'm lucky, managed to get a Samsung CRT HD jobby which does both well.

 

[Shutpa]

We have a 32in Panasonic flat screen TV. It may be plasma but then again it could be LCD. Who cares? Mrs B said earlier this evening that we couldn't get a better picture. Thank goodness for that because I was totally lost with the jargon of earlier posts.