5punk

Right, the disco board is getting swamped with the discussion about my new telly so I thought I'd start a thread.

Competition thus far:

Samsung LE37R88BD - £550

Sony Bravia P3020 - £600

Both 37" and capable of up to 1080i as far as I can see (possibly use the same screen anyway). The jury's out, although I'm not going to have a poll.

personally, i'd go for the samsung.

on the other hand, i've never actually seen a sony in action, but there cameras are pretty good. tough call.

I was tempted to use Bobbins' latest disco board post as the basis for the most confusing post I could muster about the subject here, but I don't even know enough to post something viably confusing, such is my own level of confusion about the subject, so I'll not bother.

Get the shiniest one

See that makes the decision even harder because the Sony is the prettier one. I still can't find any reviews though.

I'll ask Mrs Pants what she thinks (she'll undoubtedly tell me it's my money so I should decide).

You need bigger.

Refurbed DLP projector... job done. The way to sell it to the missus? Point out to her that projectors are actually just about the smallest TVs you can buy... until you switch them on. A living room without a TV taking up a huge amount of space is all of the win (you'd think people notice the funny-looking thing on a stalk hanging down from the ceiling, but in my experience they usually don't).

Oh, and we don't like to talk about the cost of replacement bulbs.

We just ordered one of these sony bravia TVs yesterday, it was £10 more expensive at the time though

We had a look at the LCD TVs in comet and the sony TVs of all sizes have noticably more vivid colours than the other makes so that swayed us towards the sony. Comet were charging £700 though vs amazons £509 as of yesterday

We also ordered one of these upscaling DVD players, they supposedly make your DVDs look much better on HD TVs, it'll be the closest we get to real HD for a while anyway.

Get one that does 1080p.

1080i is the resolution of massive gays. - Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony Corporation

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

spoodie wrote:Get one that does 1080p.

I'd've liked a 1080p one, but you have no idea how hard it was just to get my parents to buy a decent TV instead of the cheapest one they could find

1080p seems to only be in 37" and bigger and they refused to go bigger than 32"

Yeah, 1080p is overkill for most people, especially if you don't have a HD games console. 720p will see you through into the next TV development I suspect.

Lee wrote:We also ordered one of these upscaling DVD players, they supposedly make your DVDs look much better on HD TVs, it'll be the closest we get to real HD for a while anyway.

Ohh that's pretty cheap. The PS3 has this feature and I must say, It's very, very good and noticeable.

Also, isn't 720p just as good as 1080i/p if you get a TV that's under 50 inches in size? I think you only notice the difference if you have a HDTV that's bigger then 50inches, and if you use 1080i on a small TV, It would be like having a 1920x1200 on a 15 inch PC monitor?

At least, when I stick my PS3 on 1080i on our 30+ inch HDTV, all the fonts and text tiny, but 720p seems just right with Text and everything else looks exactly the same as 1080 so 720p seems great for me.

this thread makes me want to buy a new TV. again.

eion wrote:You need bigger.

Refurbed DLP projector... job done. The way to sell it to the missus? Point out to her that projectors are actually just about the smallest TVs you can buy... until you switch them on. A living room without a TV taking up a huge amount of space is all of the win (you'd think people notice the funny-looking thing on a stalk hanging down from the ceiling, but in my experience they usually don't).

Oh, and we don't like to talk about the cost of replacement bulbs.

for fear of agreeing with Eion

that

Probably wouldn't even need to slum it with a refurb either and the bulb on mine has been going 3 years so far. Mine cost about a grand all in, but that was 3 years ago, I rekon you could do better today.

The missus wasn't convinced at first, but she soon came round. For sure we'll get another one when we finally drive this one into teh ground.

You haven't lived till you've played GT3/4 on a 120" screen. Helps to get the correct cables though as component video > RCA becomes very obvious on big screens

My real opinionses:

-Get a 1080p TV cos erm.. some stuff uses 1080p. Although you'll be hard pressed to see the difference at that screen size.

-Get a Sony, although they use Samsung manufactured screens they have better processing stuff inside, the smaller Sony's we have at work look very nice with HD content.

-SD stuff looks rubbish on HDTV's.

Hmmm.

Option are:

1) Get the Sony

2) Get the Samsung and use the £50 I save to get an upscaling DVD player. My old (Sony) player is on its way out anyway.

3) Screw the money and get the Sony and the upscaling DVD player.

I'd say 2, as the difference between the two screens is likely to be negligible, and the upscaling DVD player will make it all the better. That's certainly the most sensible option anyway.

That said, knowing me I'd likely get to the shop and say fuck it and go for number 3 anyway.

2

you could use the money for pants jr/a nice present for the missus, since she let you have it.

Dog Pants wrote:Hmmm.

Option are:

1) Get the Sony

2) Get the Samsung and use the £50 I save to get an upscaling DVD player. My old (Sony) player is on its way out anyway.

3) Screw the money and get the Sony and the upscaling DVD player.

Question: What HD stuff do you have to put into this new TV?