LCD TV

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 26th, 2007, 18:05

Probably nothing (is a Wii HD? I suspect not), but my last TV lasted me 6 years and is still going so I plan on keeping the next one for at least as long. The DVD player sounds like a really good thing, as I'm in no rush to upgrade to HD/Blu Ray (and have 400+ regular DVDs).

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » November 26th, 2007, 18:11

Dog Pants wrote:Probably nothing (is a Wii HD? I suspect not), but my last TV lasted me 6 years and is still going so I plan on keeping the next one for at least as long. The DVD player sounds like a really good thing, as I'm in no rush to upgrade to HD/Blu Ray (and have 400+ regular DVDs).

No the Wii's not HD.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » November 26th, 2007, 18:17

i got a HD component cable for my wii. i haven't really noticed the difference yet, though. i suspect mario galaxy will change this.

Post by **HereComesPete** » November 26th, 2007, 18:17

I have to say, after wandering around in the back of the store the other day, the people who sell them can mostly turn them on, but not much else. Also the people who doknow what they're doing make the pictures on the cheaper tv's (that look just as good as the more expensive ones) look shit, so people will shell out more.

1080p is always best.

I'd personally go with the samsung, I like the look of them, and I've dropped a few now, and I'm impressed with build quality.

Stuff like pixel plus and 100MHz may seem like marketing ploys but they do work, it's just that they add shiny to shiny, if you go from SD to HD, the extra shiny gets lost and isn't worth paying for.

In the end, most of the boxes we get in with different manufacturers names on are all stamped with a Chinese manufacturing crest, one frequent example is hangsheng, a lot of tv's arrive from that city. So it's really just name/style/price not innards that separates them. Seems only the really cheap stuff, like umc and swisstech are built elsewhere, and they come from slovakia.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 26th, 2007, 18:32

Apparently Galaxy supports HDTV (so it says on the box).

Pros and cons:

Samsung
1) A luddite like me won't be able to see the difference between the two, and they're both pretty good.
2) I can get the DVD player too.
3) I'm hearing lots of good things from everybody (not just on 5punk).
4) I've had bad experiences with Sony.

Sony
1) Somehow Sony is a cool name still, and the TV is pretty.
2) I'll be buying the Sony DVD player either way. This way it'll match the telly.
3) Bobbins is a man in the know and goes for this one.
4) Those adverts are really good. Y'know, with the balls and the paint and the rabbits.
5) I have to buy the Samsung from Dixons.

I can't help but feel like the reasons for buying Sony are mostly superficial.

EDIT: Ah. I've just seen that the Samsung doesn't support 1080i. That swings things quite drastically towards the Sony.

thewombleofdeath · Post by **thewombleofdeath** » November 26th, 2007, 18:42

spoodie wrote: I ordered this one this morning: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-37X3030 ... 156&sr=1-1

looks like a nice TV, however I doubt that it actually changes the picture as much as they say because you dont get pixelated pictures on non-HDTV's, even small ones:

Post by **HereComesPete** » November 26th, 2007, 18:44

It's not Dixons, it's Currys.digital dammit!

Like Bobbins said, sony is a shade better, you can tell the sony apart in that price range, but imo until you start looking at a philips that costs a lot more, you can't really see much difference. I say samsung, and if your worried about brand names, buy a samsung upscaling dvd player, again they all arrive from china in brown boxes, they just have different exteriors and minor differences in part quality.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 26th, 2007, 18:55

I'd pretty much settled on the Samsung after looking objectively at my reasons for buying both, until I went to check that it did do all the same things and found out it doesn't do full HD. I'm not so vain to buy anything on name - my current telly is a Beko - but sometimes I try to kid myself into buying the more impressive one. Even so, the futureproofing of getting the full HD rather than the lower HD is probably worth the £50 to allow me to wait 8 or 9 years for a new telly rather than 4 or 5.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » November 26th, 2007, 21:42

let us know what it's like, i'd like to buy another, bigger tv to put in the basement one day, and turn it into a home cinema. when i win the lottery or something.

Post by **FatherJack** » November 26th, 2007, 22:34

I'd go with the the one spoodie got, as I wouldn't want Sony's CEO to think me a massive gayer. Also, the Wii does 480i (4:3), but does output 480p at 720x480 16:9 with a component cable.

The i means interlaced, and the p means colloquially pure or pixels, but correctly progressive. PC monitors are [your vertical res]p and it's most likely the future for LCD TVs.

I call hax on the DVD upscalers, the images are only encoded on a standard DVD at an SD resolution - the best they can manage is to antialias the pixels, not sure but the TV should have an option to do this itself and even if it doesn't the picture's no better, just smoother.

Post by **deject** » November 26th, 2007, 22:44

FatherJack wrote:I'd go with the the one spoodie got, as I wouldn't want Sony's CEO to think me a massive gayer. Also, the Wii does 480i (4:3), but does output 480p at 720x480 16:9 with a component cable.

The i means interlaced, and the p means colloquially pure or pixels, but correctly progressive. PC monitors are [your vertical res]p and it's most likely the future for LCD TVs.

I call hax on the DVD upscalers, the images are only encoded on a standard DVD at an SD resolution - the best they can manage is to antialias the pixels, not sure but the TV should have an option to do this itself and even if it doesn't the picture's no better, just smoother.

The quality of a DVD upscaler depends entirely on the quality of its algorithm. some do a mind-blowing job of the upscaling, while some are utter pants. finding a good one should be worth the money you'd save not having to re-buy all your movies.

Post by **FatherJack** » November 26th, 2007, 22:49

deject wrote:The quality of a DVD upscaler depends entirely on the quality of its algorithm. some do a mind-blowing job of the upscaling, while some are utter pants. finding a good one should be worth the money you'd save not having to re-buy all your movies.

Interesting - I'd be keen on seeing them in action, as it sounds a bit illogical - making an image better than the one on the disk sounds as impossible as restoring a JPEG to a lossless format, but maybe they use some clever techniques to trick the eye.

Post by **deject** » November 27th, 2007, 0:30

FatherJack wrote: Interesting - I'd be keen on seeing them in action, as it sounds a bit illogical - making an image better than the one on the disk sounds as impossible as restoring a JPEG to a lossless format, but maybe they use some clever techniques to trick the eye.

well it's more like making a jpeg bigger than its original size. there are some algorithms that can blow it up to a certain degree while being mostly unnoticeable.

Post by **TezzRexx** » November 27th, 2007, 9:22

deject wrote:
The quality of a DVD upscaler depends entirely on the quality of its algorithm. some do a mind-blowing job of the upscaling, while some are utter pants. finding a good one should be worth the money you'd save not having to re-buy all your movies.

The PS3 is a good one

if you're willing to spend 300+ on a upscaler...

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 27th, 2007, 12:38

Well I need a new DVD player anyway because my 6 year old Sony has been skipping about for a while now. I'm actually rather pleased with how it's performed, just a pity it's so adamantly region 2. So I'm going to go for the upscaling one that Lee posted. It's had great reviews and is only £50 on Amazon at the moment - they seem to be going for about £80 everywhere else, whichever brand. Also, since I've got hundreds of DVDs I won't be replacing my collection with HD or Blu Ray.

From what I've read the results of upscaling vary with the DVD, but basically the player takes an educated guess as to what should fill in the gaps. As Deject said, the better the algorithm the more accurate it's likely to be. It isn't going to make all my movies look HD, some won't even look any different, but apparently some of them (probably newer films) get pretty close. Don't forget that the human eye uses the same method to fill in the blank spot where the optic nerve joins to the retina, so it can't be that bad.

I'll let people know it turns out, although with a new TV and a new DVD player at the same time it might be difficult to gauge which has caused the improvement.

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » November 27th, 2007, 12:43

Well for the sake of scientific posterity, why not try the new TV with the old DVD player first, and then the new upscaling one and see how it works? Try with an old and a new film too if you're feeling really adventurous.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 27th, 2007, 12:44

I plan to

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » November 27th, 2007, 12:54

I feel I should mock you, although I know that undoubtedly I'd do the same, as would most people here I imagine.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » November 27th, 2007, 14:34

It looks like I already have an upscaling DVD player. I use my 360 for DVD playback (it's far better than cheap DVD players) and if you use a VGA connection, which I do, the 360 should upscale DVDs.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » November 27th, 2007, 22:02

Just got the TV today, the colours are amazing and it feels strange watching it, everything seems more... real. There is some pixelation at SD but you don't notice it unless you get close. Our old TV used to cut off the edges of everything and this one doesn't so that's win.

I cant comment on the upscaled DVDs yet though, turns out it doesn't come with an HDMI cable and you need one for the upscaling. Seems wierd not including one, you aren't going to buy it unless you have an HD TV to plug it into. I should have the cable on thursday or friday so I'll let you know if it does much.