Big TV's to HD or not to HD

[Mario-C]

Soooo I am in the market for a new goggle box.
Want at least a 40 inch
Is this HD business really worth it?
Not wanting to spend much more than 2.5k
Tv is used for watching sport and coronation street
What have you guys got? are you happy with it.

[Clive]

I have a 46" LCD tv , HD etc etc.
Awesome tv, the clarity is great. I have the other gear like surround sound / sub etc which really makes it complete though, I dont know how happy i would be with just the tv

[MENTL1_CHB]

Myself wouldnt buy an LCD id buy a plasma 42" HD ready or full HD its not going to make to much difference at the moment as nothings coming out in full HD just yet anyway (its just upgraded to HD) and http://www.consumer.org.nz" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; just did test with HD ready tvs and full HD tvs and said there was no real diffence. Just make sure its a high resolution tv you get.

The reason for why i would have the Plamsa would be for the sport Id watch, as plasmas dont have the comet tail effect.

You could get a bloody nice 42" plasma to 2.5k or less.

[CJRacing]

Hey i have a 40" tv and its wicked! clear as! i payed $1800 for mine its a sony HD bravia. i mainly play playstation3 on mine is wicked for games. gets every bit of detail

[hellboy]

Ive got 46inch tv. HD and all. i play rfaccy on it when i can. mean for gaming xbox etc..

I paid $400 for mine..

[Bull]

Plasma's are no good, for anything other then watching TV. If you ever plan on playing a game whether its Sega or Playstation 3, LCD wins. That and Ive heard horror studies of Plasmas that haven't been level and over time the plasma's moved.

[Mario-C]

wont be used for gaming at all,purely watching sport and other tv

[hellboy]

Personally i think HD are good. But thats just me..

[Blenderer]

The reason for why i would have the Plamsa would be for the sport Id watch, as plasmas dont have the comet tail effect.

You could get a bloody nice 42" plasma to 2.5k or less.

I've never ever seen any comet tail effect on my 40" LCD

I have a 40" Samsung LCD - HD Ready and it looks far better then my mate 42" Samsung Plasma purchased at the same time, much brighter and sharper picture. Looks great with the HD Sky channels.

[Clive]

mine is a samsung LCD 46" LA46S81 is the model, i havent noticed any comet tail effect either. maybe its a chb thing?

[MENTL1_CHB]

Nah just my eye sight must be better than yours then, you know what they say about what causes bad eye sight aye boys.

I sell tvs so I do get to see the diffences in them all

[Prometheus]

wont be used for gaming at all,purely watching sport and other tv

The only way current way you can watch HD sport is via Sky Sport and their HD package, or channel P2P. Eventually it'll trickle down to TV3 & TVNZ.

While HD is great, bear in mind a lot of people upgrade their TV every 8 years or so. If you can, get a tv with a built in Freeview HD tuner

[Heppy]

I've got Mysky HDi and a 50inch Panasonic Viera Plasma $3,500 - $4,000, Full HD 1080P (1920 x 1080)totally awesome.

My mate has just bought the model down from mine 50inch Plasma HD ready 720P (1366 x 768). $2,200

The reason he got this one was because in Harvey Norman they had them both playing beside each other and my mate couldn't see the difference, neither could I(Playing Sky HD sports - although I had a suspision it wasn't an HD recorded program). So they put on a 1080P Blu-ray. I was impressed with the HD ready tv, it was very very good, and the Full HD was just a little sharper. The biggest difference was the frame rate. The expensive one was smooth as, whereas the cheaper one was quite choppy. This is because the Full HD plasma has the Blu-Ray 24FPS engine and intelligent frame creation which add extra frames to the source to make smoother motion.(A bit like Philips pixle Plus and Sony's DRC stuff.)
My mate still couldn't tell the difference So I pointed him towards a very cheap rear projection LCD. He bought the plasma.

If you can't tell the difference don't buy the expensive one.

However I bought the expensive one and I wouldn't go back. Sport is unreal Watching a recorded Bledisloe Cup match my Aunty commented "That's clearer than real life" It's just awesome! It also gets used for my Media center, all good and I also have gaming nights on it when the missus goes out for her girly nights, all good too

To get the most out of your new HD TV you need to have.

Mysky HDi (1080i on 4 channels) (recordable)
or
Blu-Ray Player (1080P)
or
FreeviewHD (TV3 Rocks! 1080i and DD 5.1 Sound)
or
Media Center with FreeviewHD (recordable) and Blu-Ray Player,(Although still quirky, and not quite compatible with Girlfriend)

SD inputs sux.

[Flyboy69]

If your are going to but either plasma or LCD (I'd recommend LCD, you don't see ghosting now in the new LCD's) make sure you get freeview (or mysky), either built in or a set top box. I guarantee, that if you don't, you won't be happy with the picture, plus there is no point buying a wide screen as standard def TV is not broadcast in wide screen. You need freeview or sky for that, so you will end up with distorted picture.

I'd buy full HD (1080), because you will want it in 6-12 months. By the way, on freeview, TV3 are broadcasting in 1080 and their programs that are HD look far better than TVNZ HD programs, the best has to be CSI: Miami, it looks amazing. All other standard def programs are upscaled to 720 on TVNZ and 1080 on TV3

I problem I then had after buying my LCD, was that when I watched a DVD, it looked like sh#t compared to TV, so then had to go Bluray, as that also upscales to 1080. Bluray is absolutely brilliant, and you will need 1080 to full advantage of it.

[Heppy]

If you are buying it for HD TV, Blu-Ray get Plasma over LCD.
Plasmas are solely designed for TV.
New Plasmas are still better than new LCDs.

But don't take my word for it, go and have a look.

Although big plasmas are a bit power hungry.
My 50inch consumes 500W and has cooling fans

[Nodnerb]

Yep what Heppy said. All of it is spot on advice

If you weant larger than 40", go Plasma
If you want to watch mostly Movies and sports, go Plasma
If you prefer warmer colours and depper balcks, go Plasma.

If none of those apply go LCD.

There are technical reasons why LCD's are not able to perform at higher screen sizes, that are a result of the switching technology that is currently used.

What ever you decide, make sure you get a HD source like freeview to get the best TV picture you can. Don't scimp on resolution size and ideally make sure that the screen can upscale natively.

In time LCD's will catch up to Plasma, but today for what you want I would go Plasma.

[BAZZIL]

Mario,

I spent a while looking around at TV's, plasma/LCD, Full HD/Half Pie HD before getting mine.

What I found was:
1. LCD is so close to Plasma now there isn't much to argue over (as long as you're buying current models), get what fits your budget and use best. The plasmas still have slightly better blacks but that's only an issue if you watch movies in a dark room. I was looking at around the 40" screen size tho, so as mentioned above, it might be different for say 50"

2. You only really notice 'Full HD' over HD if you sit close enough to your TV, it depends on the size of your TV of course, for anything over 40" you should try and get Full HD, for anything 40" or under, you don't really need to worry, unless you sit within about two meters of your TV. Get Full HD if your budget allows, but I still don't think it's anything to break the piggy bank over.

I got a 40" sony LCD as it suited a home theatre PC better for my use (and I find it great, for TV and Movies).
I also went LCD over Plasma, because they have a longer life expectancy, emit less heat, use less power and are half the weight of a Plasma, and have a higher resolution (I think the latest plasmas have a higher res now tho), there is also a lot less that can technically go wrong with a Plasma over an LCD just because of the amount of parts in a Plasma TV.

I would recommend you do get something with HD tho, even if it's just 720p.

[Mario-C]

ahh cheers guys..
I went to Noel Leeming to have a look and bugger me if I aint more confused now.
I was stuggling to see much difference between any of the larger sets tbh.
Of course they were all only running a standard freeview signal.
My dilemma is this,take the 42 Pana plasma for example.

Hd ready = 1499 or thereabouts
Full HD = 2500

Its not far off twice the price plus then the extra cost of Mysky and the HD content.
However this is something I am likely to keep for 10 years or so .
I assume Hd content will become the norm.
Buying a TV used to be much easier

[Nodnerb]

If your only going to use it for watching TV, then go the HD model and save your money. They don't film telelvision in Full HD (1080p) yet and is probably still a number of years away. The Panny is a classy monitor and you won't be dissapointed.

Only if you are wanting to get into Home theatre and utilise a Bluray player or similar to watch Full HD content will the Full HD come into its own, but even then you may not notice much of a difference.

The other way to look at it is if you can't see a reasonable difference in the two models on the shop floor then the extra grand ain't worth buying something you can't see

[Heppy]

I concur. Get the 50inch pany full HD plasma

[Sulley]

Sky have announced that TV1 and 2 will be in HD via MySkyHDi next week, does this mean that now would be a good time to upgrade to Mysky??

I got a HD capable LCD (Viewsonic 37") and Sky Digital at the moment, planning on PS3 at Xmas maybe, current DVD does upscaling to 1080...also thinking about Iomega ScreenPlay for my HD avi playback on the TV..if I can save up for it....

Thoughts........

[Prometheus]

Short answer - no. TV1,2,3 have very few programmes that are natively shot and broadcast in HD. Everything else is just upscaled SD only.

[Sulley]

Short answer - no. TV1,2,3 have very few programmes that are natively shot and broadcast in HD. Everything else is just upscaled SD only.

I'd be better off getting my media playing on TV in HD easier than via DVD player and millions of discs

[Prometheus]

Yes, absolutely You can access for example Mythbusters in HD for a long time before SKy will be showing Discovery channel in HD.

tbh, there's very little native HD content available in NZ, apart form sport, it's just not worth it IMO. And hell I work in the industry !

[Sulley]

Cheers, thought that was the case, now just gonna research the playing HD options, WD and Iomega have a player without HD that takes your various USB devices, that could be the way to go so I can reuse existing USB drives rather than buy a player HD combo. Then the player can stay attached to telly, but as TV has only one HDMI input I'll probably get a HDMI switch, so I can control multiple input devices without messing with plugs on back of the LCD.

I found DSE have a 5 port HDMI switch, which would do the trick for a bucket of devices, DVD, PS3, HD Media Player, Sky etc.

Was considering wireless content serving from PC to dedicated device like a Dvico or Netgear Entertainer, but not so sure now, separate USB drives more flexible..