Another help me but a telly problem

[Steve H]

I am not asking for help to choose between LCD/Plasma as I know this has been done to death here. I have some Comet vouchers and have decided to spend them on a new TV. I currently have a Philips 42 Plasma (which I have recently found out is not full HD ready as it has a DVI input!) I do not want to be at the mercy of a Comet salesman and so I put forward the following question to the PH experts.

I have £750/£800 to spend in Comet and would like a minimum of 42". We sit approx 12ft from the TV and will be getting SKY HD, I also have PS3. Could someone point me in the right direction. I do not mind either Plasma or LCD (whatever would be the best for the above usage)

I get confused as some adverts say "HD ready" and some say "1080p HD ready" and I am not sure if there is a difference.

Thanks
Steve

[SXi Lad]

Steve H said:

I get confused as some adverts say "HD ready" and some say "1080p HD ready" and I am not sure if there is a difference.

There is no differenc although you want the 1080p as it has the highest quality
My dad bought this for his flat and it has a realy high contrast and brilliant with the PS3
http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/501484/SA...

[trooperiziz]

SXi Lad said:

Steve H said:

I get confused as some adverts say "HD ready" and some say "1080p HD ready" and I am not sure if there is a difference.

There is no differenc although you want the 1080p as it has the highest quality

Of course there is a difference. HD Ready TVs are 720p, 1080p HD Ready are 1080p.

Whether you need 1080p is completely dependent on whether you have a 1080p source, how big your screen is and how far you sit from it.

[Steve H]

trooperiziz said:

SXi Lad said:

Steve H said:

I get confused as some adverts say "HD ready" and some say "1080p HD ready" and I am not sure if there is a difference.

There is no differenc although you want the 1080p as it has the highest quality

Of course there is a difference. HD Ready TVs are 720p, 1080p HD Ready are 1080p.

Whether you need 1080p is completely dependent on whether you have a 1080p source, how big your screen is and how far you sit from it.

Sorry, your post was a bit confusing to me (I am a technophobe)

Source?? does this mean SKYHD/Blueray etc?

[JustinP1]

For 12 feet away I would certainly get one which is at least 1080i.

1080p isnt going to be coming through your satellite or your cable probably for the life of the TV so I wouldn't get too het up about it unless you can get one in your price range.

It's not all about the spec - you will see a lot of difference for example between an LG and a Panasonic or Samsung for example.

As a second point, have you tried your TV with an HDMI to DVI cable? About £6 on ebay!

[LeoSayer]

You can get a lead with HDMI at one end and DVI at the other, or a conversion plug.

I would recommend trying that on your existing plasma before ditching it. You might be pleasantly surprised.

[trooperiziz]

Steve H said:

trooperiziz said:

SXi Lad said:

Steve H said:

I get confused as some adverts say "HD ready" and some say "1080p HD ready" and I am not sure if there is a difference.

There is no differenc although you want the 1080p as it has the highest quality

Of course there is a difference. HD Ready TVs are 720p, 1080p HD Ready are 1080p.

Whether you need 1080p is completely dependent on whether you have a 1080p source, how big your screen is and how far you sit from it.

Sorry, your post was a bit confusing to me (I am a technophobe)

Source?? does this mean SKYHD/Blueray etc?

Aye, BluRay is 1080p, so if you want to get the best out of one of them you might need a 1080p TV (might, because as I said it depends on how big the TV is and how far away you sit, you won't be able to see the difference between 1080p and 720p if you sit quite far back, Plotloss will be along in a minute to tell you the measurements )
Sky HD is only 720p/1080i so you don't need a 1080p TV if that is all you are going to watch.

[Steve H]

Good advice re the cable but at present I watch normal SKY through a scart and that is the shocking bit. The PS3 (blueray) through the HDMI cable is much better (only have the SKY picture to compare it with though). I was more interested in improving my TV picture and spending my vouchers (in case they go the way of Woolies Zavvi etc)

Edited by Steve H on Friday 20th February 13:21

[skoff]

At 12 feet from a 42" TV you aren't going to be able to tell the difference between an 'HD Ready' 720p TV and a 'Full HD' 1080p tv so I think you would be better buying a better quality 720p TV that has better video processing etc. I'd go Pioneer or Panasonic (if Pioneer are out of budget).

You will be fine feeding pretty much any HD source to an HD ready TV, the clever electronics in the box sort it all out and down/upscale accordingly.

[Steve H]

skoff said:

At 12 feet from a 42" TV you aren't going to be able to tell the difference between an 'HD Ready' 720p TV and a 'Full HD' 1080p tv so I think you would be better buying a better quality 720p TV that has better video processing etc. I'd go Pioneer or Panasonic (if Pioneer are out of budget).

You will be fine feeding pretty much any HD source to an HD ready TV, the clever electronics in the box sort it all out and down/upscale accordingly.

So would it be fair to say that my current TV (philips 42" Plasma purchased approx 3 yrs ago is possible 720p HD Ready? I dont have the model number with me, because if this is the case then all I will be getting is some HDMI sockets instead of 1 DVI socket and i just have a really rubbish set up

[Steve H]

Found the model on the philips website, its a 42PF7520D/10 and in the instruction manual it says I have different display resolutions when using in HD but I cant cut and paste to show you grrrrrr

[skoff]

Steve H said:

skoff said:

At 12 feet from a 42" TV you aren't going to be able to tell the difference between an 'HD Ready' 720p TV and a 'Full HD' 1080p tv so I think you would be better buying a better quality 720p TV that has better video processing etc. I'd go Pioneer or Panasonic (if Pioneer are out of budget).

You will be fine feeding pretty much any HD source to an HD ready TV, the clever electronics in the box sort it all out and down/upscale accordingly.

So would it be fair to say that my current TV (philips 42" Plasma purchased approx 3 yrs ago is possible 720p HD Ready? I dont have the model number with me, because if this is the case then all I will be getting is some HDMI sockets instead of 1 DVI socket and i just have a really rubbish set up

I would say it's fairly likely that it is indeed a 720p 'HD Ready' set.

All TVs are not created equal, don't get too caught up in the numbers, it's a bit like the megapixel thing on digital cameras, more doesn't always mean better. A newer TV if purchased carefully will give you better video processing, so both SD and HD sources will look better. If you go out and spend £700 on a tv that has a 1080p sticker on it, it doesn't mean you are going to get anything better than you have already, in fact at that price bracket it could be a big mistake.

Trouble is once you start to upgrade bits of your AV system it's a bit of a vicious circle - New TV with HDMI inputs, so now you need a video source with HDMI outputs, then you want to take advantage of the surround sound options, so new amp needed, and it just goes on... I would look into the cable options first, then decide what you want to do with the TV most - sky? sky HD? Console gaming? Watch mostly movies?

[skoff]

Ok it looks like it's a fairly early HD Ready set (actually a bit of a glorified PC monitor) with a native resolution of 1024 x 1024. To get the best out of it you are definitely going to need to feed it a signal through the DVI socket. It will happily display 720p signals, and will process a 1080i input according to the specs.

What sources do you want to watch through it? BluRay? Sky HD? I would investigate your cable options before spending money on a new TV.

[Steve H]

Skoff

Thanks for all of your help, I want to watch blueray and play games on PS3 which is fine using the DVI connector but I will look at getting a HDMI-DVI lead to see if that improves it more. The real problem is SKY, the picture is rubbish and I would like to improve it and thought about SKYHD but I dont have enough sockets. Is there anything you can think of that I may have missed in the set up of SKY. I have Cambridge Scarts and so I am not just using the basic black ones that come with it.

Edited by Steve H on Friday 20th February 14:37

[skoff]

Well there is a limit to what you can do with an SD source on an HD TV.

The trouble is that SD broadcasts are 720x576 pixels and your TV is 1024x1024, so to fill the screen it needs to upscale the picture, which in effect means filling in the extra dots.

The effect of this is that the picture quality suffers as the image looks a bit blocky, and with bad quality broadcast on the lower-rent channels this can be a horrible effect. It's not the fault of the TV, all it is doing is magnifying the fact that the broadcast image is low resolution.

The newer and more expensive TVs get around this by clever electronic trickery processing the image to look better, but it still isn't as good as feeding it a better resolution picture in the first place.

You could play with the settings in the Sky box, but I would recommend sky HD, especially if you get movies or sport with your sky package. There is only so much you will be able to achieve changing the settings.

There is a good offer on at the moment for Sky HD which is £50 for the box, plus £30 'installation' and an extra £10 per month for the HD sub. You would then be feeding the TV a digital source, which is what it wants to work at its best.

Then to solve your input problems, get a switch box / splitter and HDMI to DVI cables, none of which are too expensive (a lot cheaper than a new TV)

Hope that helps.

[Steve H]

Skoff, thats really good advice and thanks for your time today. Just to make sure I understand, I can get a splitter which will allow me to use the 1 DVI socket to run both PS3 and SKYHD? My only concern is that I beleive DVI doesnt give audio and I have to use the audio socket next to it and if so, will I need a splitter for this socket as well?

Cheers

Steve

[skoff]

Steve H said:

Skoff, thats really good advice and thanks for your time today. Just to make sure I understand, I can get a splitter which will allow me to use the 1 DVI socket to run both PS3 and SKYHD? My only concern is that I beleive DVI doesnt give audio and I have to use the audio socket next to it and if so, will I need a splitter for this socket as well?

Cheers

Steve

Yes the DVI only carries video.

You have a few options: Your TV looks like it has a 3.5mm jack audio input (DVI audio in) and 2 phono inputs. You could use phonos for PS3, and 3.5mm jack for Sky; or splitter cables for all going into the two phonos. A bit Heath Robinson but it should work ok.

A more expensive option would be to buy a surround sound system including amp and speakers that would take the digital audio outputs from the PS3 and Sky box (optical or coax), and then you would get (with enough speakers) the full Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound experience. Though in my experience such exploits need approval of SWMBO first...

[Steve H]

Now its getting complicated. I do have a DAV500 (sony system). But, my god, I have enough wires coming out of the back of the eqpt to confuse a rocket scientist!

[GregE240]

Steve H said:

Now its getting complicated. I do have a DAV500 (sony system). But, my god, I have enough wires coming out of the back of the eqpt to confuse a rocket scientist!

They are all colour coded Steve, to be fair!

[skoff]

Oh right, well in that case I would be running all your audio to the Sony amp (I am guessing it has optical inputs) and don't bother running audio through your TV at all. If you haven't done this before you are in for a treat!

The optical cables will carry all the audio (full DD 5.1) from the PS3 and Sky box, plus will be neater than multiple phonos and splitter cables. Optical cables are also pretty inexpensive too.

I think that amp will do video mixing too, but for your purposes I would still send the video signal direct to the TV as already discussed.

DVI switch box:
http://info.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?C=SO&U=st...

HDMI switch box:
http://info.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=9871...

HDMI to DVI connector:
http://info.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=9790...

Optical audio cable:
http://info.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=4424...

I am sure you can get better prices if you shop around...