A potentially expensive mistake - LCD television

i've wanted one for a while, and redecorating the lounge seemed like the perfect reason (excuse) to buy one. i did all the research, and the new toshiba regza range appeared to be the best for the £.

so i went after the 32" list price is £1100, i bought one from a retailer for £900.

beautiful unit, very sleek in black, i took my panny 28" crt and hid it away, and plugged in the tosh.



absolutely awful. i couldn't watch it. here we have a 5* rated lcd with a PQ i simply could not live with. yes it might be perfect with HD (blu ray or what have you) and if you subscribe to Sky and pay the extra £10 to get (occasional) HD programs, you'd be very happy indeed. or even with an xbox 360 with a native output of 720p. over the moon you would be.

but feed this "fantastic" lcd regular freeview (via built in freeview receiver) and the smearing made it unwatchable. and i couldn't get a decent picture from my pioneer 737 dvd player. component signal was better than rgb via scart, but the image was far too dark; even adjusting all the controls seemed to make little impact.

so it had to go back. under the distance selling regulations, i cancelled my order, and the tv was posted back to the shop by courier. i await my refund less £25.

so a £50 "experiment" in how not to buy a television.

trust me on this, if you have freeview and an average dvd player, do not under any circumstances buy an lcd or plasma screen unless you will make the jump to Sky HD and get a dvd player with hdmi or dvi.

i'm now considering buying a 32" CRT before they all disappear. (seems panny have stopped making them and it's going to be hard to buy the model that was given 5* just 6 months ago).

 

Hi Robert.

I would agree wit you regarding SKY TV. When I first got my LCD I though 'christ this is awful' I looked around the sky set up and saw that signal strength and quality were at 50%

SO I phoned them and they sent and engineer. The first words he said when walking through the door was 'wow great picture'

My heart sank. He found nothing wrong. And yes LCD Pictures on even the most expensive units are a million miles from CRT. HD just seems to be a way to fix this problem.

However on my unit I have zero smearing that I can detect, even in footy matches etc, its just up close its pixalated.

And DVDs seem lovely, I play them through my iBook. I have seen my very same LCD with a naim DVD and the picture was nothing short of stunning.

The long and short for me was a 26incher for £550 (Good at the time) replaced and aging TV and as I don't watch a lot of it anyhow ultimate quality is not an issue. So much so that I got one for the bedroom as well. They are a lot less bulky.

 

I'd love to get a flat pael TV ( of whatever variety), but just can't justify the cost at the moment. I have a 32" widescreen Panasonic CRTat the moment and it is greatalthough it does take up a large chunk of my small living room floor space.

Whenever i've had the need to pop into my local Currys superstore I was quite surprised at how much difference there was between different LCD and Plasma TV's on display ( probably about 50 -100 ).
Rather than relying on rave reviews Robert you might be better off poppig down to an out of town Currys , or Dixons and check out your new telly in person.

I went to the Scottish sound and vision show a couple of years ago in a hotel near Edinburgh. There was a company there that sold a box of tricks that helped to calibrate their dispaly Flat TV. The difference in PQ between the treated and the untreated TV was quite huge and unlike subjective sound testing you could actually see the difference with your own eyes...

 

Link to a PFM thread of mine gives this topic a bit of thought. Content is king while product advertising is suspect at the best of times. We have the advertising but not the content

 

What causes this problem? Is it do with the low resolution and vertical scan lines of normal PAL TV?

I am perfectly happy with my 21" Philips CRT, it may not be wide screen but the colour is brilliant.

I have been very unimpressed with a lot of plasma TVS I have seen.

 

it's partially to do with sky / cable / freeview squeezing too many channels into too little bandwidth - same as dab. also most lcd's now are 720 lines vertical resolution wheras standard pal is 576 lines so you have to have some sort of non integer interpolation to convert a 576 line signal to 720 lines. hdtv is natively 720 lines so looks far better on lcd's.

 

The PQ doesnt have to be awful. We use a Panasonic PWD6 42" plasma (standard def) on sky with a JS Technology RGB to VGA convertor feeding the plasma a VGA signal. The PQ is very good on Sky, its almost as good as DVD.

If you are not bothered about high def, you can pick up the latest model Panny 42" SD plasma for £1080 from AV sales so it isnt an expensive solution either. The high def panny can be picked up for £1850. People should see this set up before writing off flat panels with non HD material.

If I get some spare time tomorrow, I'll try and do some screenshots.

 

if you've got no intention of adpoting hi def sources in the near future then you can find 42 inch plasmas for under 800 quid
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=96187
this would work better with conventional sources but hi-def would look kak.

 

In February I took the plunge and purchased a Pioneer 506XDE 50" plasma display/media box, having lived with a Panasonic 36" Tau flatscreen CRT TV for the past six years.

Initially I was disappointed with the picture quality from Sky+ and DVD but two months on, it has settled down considerably and I have now applied my preferred picture settings.

I watch Sky+ transmissions via a QED RGB video only scart cable and DVD (Meridian G91A DAB) is connected via a Chord HDMI cable.

PQ from Sky+ can be variable, but given a good film or many of the new American series (Bones, West Wing, Invasion etc) pictures can be vivid and detailed.

Last night I watched the DVD of King Kong and was stunned by the quality of the picture on the plasma display. Animated films such as Monsters Inc, Shrek and Finding Nemo can be breathtaking.

I have not succombed to Sky HD yet, preferring to wait until there are more HD channels available.

I think once you accept that the presentation offered by plasma/LCD/projectors is different from viewing a top quality CRT TV display then you stend to stop analyzing the PQ and start enjoying the content.

Steve

http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y76/crystalref/

 

here's what the tosh can do (not my photos, stolen from avforums)
i couldn't get the tosh to give me a picture like these.

 

oooh might have found a compromise !

samsung HD ready 32" CRT ! (and apparently might be about £350)

 

Rob the Samung is a good unit

 

Gents, this is very interesting for me. I've been toying with the idea of an LCD/plasma TV for a while. Do I understand the situation correctly that they haven't yet matched the standard of CRT-based units and that I'd be better waiting?

 

That's probably a fair assessment tones - if you've got a decent CRT then I'd probably not be in any hurry to replace it just yet, unless you've got some HD sources sitting around. That said, with a decent flat panel and a bit of faffing around with colour and contrast levels you can get a very good picture - rather too clear, in fact, for some of the UK's Freeview low bitrate digital TV.

 

Doing 'all the research' should includ watching one prior to purchase next time. IME, LCD are dire. A decent plasma from either Pioneer or Panasonic is the only solution

 

I have an 'old' LCD that gives a super picture through the PC input but dire through any other, though you do get used to it. My low def plasma gives an adequate picture through all it's connections.

I prefer both to a CRT as the fixed pixel displays have good/excellent geometry, bendy lines on CRT TV's really annoy me.

PeteH is right, flat panels do show up the lousy quality of the Digital sources we have these days.

 

That is what I find surprising. I would think it is not that difficult to find a good LCD/Plasma TV and get it to work as it is so much more easier to set up compare to just a few years back.

Same here. After eyeing at them for a few years finally got one a few months ago. I think we have finally reach a point where there are at least 3 viable types of direct-view monitors. It is all a question of knowing what are the advantages and limitations of each with respect to your requirements and needs. However, if your present widescreen CRT is still in good working condition it is probably not wrong to wait as the 'new' types are still improving and evolving very fast like 6-12 monthly both in terms of performances and user friendly features.

 

i dont have hdmi or dvi, just rgb over scart and component.
component was clearer than rgb, which looked quite "edgy" and worse colour definition.
component was way too dark, and messing around with thx optimiser and adjusting backlight, tint, brightness, contrast, switching on and off dnr and mpeg off low med high etc etc didnt seem to bring improvements.
toy story dvd was ok but not fantastic
new king kong was smeary, and the dark scenes were tinted blue (but that's a known lcd thing)

bottom line was normal freeview was utter pants, and i couldn't justify a new dvd player with hdmi so it had to go.

 

I suppose you could consider that for the price of a few CDs you have hire a TV for a few days to play with. At the same time you had a golden opportunity to try one of these new generation of wonder flat TVs in the comfort of your own home to your satisfaction that you like CRT after all or at least for now. Perhaps you are one of those who like older toys like LPs vs CDs kind of thing.

 

if that samsung really does come in at 350 quid then i reckon i'll be bending the plastic on one in the near future - seems to do everything i want for the price i want. anyone know an eta?