LCD TVs & terrestrial Reception

extopia said:
I would not buy an LCD TV, period. Samsung/Toshiba will have new sets on the market soon using new SED technology. The clarity of CRT in a slim case. Worth waiting for, and the advance reports are very positive.
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Toshiba will apparently not now have sets until and even then they will probably carry a price premium for a few years while production scales up. To be honest when buying electronics something better will always be available in a few years, I would not be holding off just waiting for SED (impressive as it sounds).
 
You may be happy enough - but the fact is that LCD is an inferior technology to CRT for displaying video pictures, as far as motion, sharpness, color and contrast are concerned. They look good though, no doubt about that.
 
dam099 said:
I would not be holding off just waiting for SED (impressive as it sounds).
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I wouldn't hold off either, unless there was a problem getting a new CRT TV, which there isn't! The popularity of LCDs mean that CRTs are pretty cheap.
 
extopia said:
You may be happy enough - but the fact is that LCD is an inferior technology to CRT for displaying video pictures, as far as motion, sharpness, color and contrast are concerned. They look good though, no doubt about that.
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I have had a 32" LCD now for a week-and while the above comments may have been true of older generation sets it is not true of the current crop-and certainly not the one I bought.I am very pleasantly surprised with it and the picture is -to my eyes-at laest as good as my older CRT.
I dont know what u base your comments on.As an owner I now believe much of the adverse views are from people who do not have a good source and consequently blame the set.
If u had a good picture on CRT -you will also on LCD.:)
 
I believe Extopia's comments are based on the technical constraints of LCD technology. While the TV picture may look good, LCD image quality currently falls short of CRTs in terms of refresh rate, response times, contrast, etc., all the impartial measures of picture quality.

Oh, and I have a 42" plasma, my parents a 26" LCD, and while I'm happy with the picture quality of both, I honestly can't say it's the same or better than a half decent CRT. Not far off to my untrained eye, but still not there.
 
Yes I take your points but I have to say-from what is now first hand experience that they have this LCD technology at a stage where it is now acceptable-and much of the stuff I have heard and read about motion lag-response times-contrast ratio etc.etc. is no longer a major problem.
Not enough emphasis is given to quality of signal and the source is very important.
Fo instance on ordinary NTL analogue I get a great a picture on RTE and BBC1-but BBC2 is not good-but-the same applied to my CRT .
I will concede however that some of the digital channels could be better but again my understanding is that compression and bandwidth are issues on some of these channel-so LCD is less forgiving-but overall I am very happy with it.
 
I agree, in fact I think it's more than acceptable. Many of the channels on Sky use a lower bit rate, so the quality isn't as good, but I still think it's better than UHF/VHF signals.

Also, an important consideration is the quality of the cables you're using. I was sceptical of this until I saw the difference it made to my own set up.
 
Yes connections are something I may get around to-using cheap Scarts at present although I have a DVD connected with Component cables-or is that Composite-a red white and yellow?
Scart connections can be irritating to connect if you are fumbling around the back of equipment
 
That sounds like composite. Component sockets are usually coloured red, green and blue, and labelled Y, Pr, & Pb, and you need a further audio connection (red and white or a stereo jack). Component is better quality if your DVD and TV support it. S-Video is better than composite, and component is better again.

Look on EBay for interconnects, I got IXOS scarts for around €35 including shipping, Peats have these for €66 in store.
Leo
 
I am actually a little confused by Component cable/connections-presumably
to use them you need Component Out from your equipment -cable box /video.
If you dont have these-which I dont can you get a Scart adaptor-I seem to remember seeing something like that some time ago-or would this defeat the purpose?Dont know if I am making myself clear there
 
No, you can't go from scart to component, though you can go from scart to composite. Component in/outputs are generally only found on higer end equipment.
 
Yeh I actually have a Scart to Composite adaptor which came with a DVD player-took me a while to work out what it was for -no mention of it in manual.
I was raeding earlier a review of a new digital version of a HD recorder I have and I see that has Component out-so I guess I'm future proofed:) Maybe...
 
pnh said:
Yes I take your points but I have to say-from what is now first hand experience that they have this LCD technology at a stage where it is now acceptable-and much of the stuff I have heard and read about motion lag-response times-contrast ratio etc.etc. is no longer a major problem.
Not enough emphasis is given to quality of signal and the source is very important.
Fo instance on ordinary NTL analogue I get a great a picture on RTE and BBC1-but BBC2 is not good-but-the same applied to my CRT .
I will concede however that some of the digital channels could be better but again my understanding is that compression and bandwidth are issues on some of these channel-so LCD is less forgiving-but overall I am very happy with it.
Click to expand...
I have to agree - each succeeding generation of LCD comes with shorter and shorter refresh rate - a number of manufacturers now have LCDs with refresh rates of 8mm, which compare favourably to 100Hz CRT TVs. (See [broken link removed] for a chart of LCD millisecond refresh compared to a CRTs refresh rate in Hertz.)

LCDs with resolutions of 1280 x 768 and above are optimised for High Definition displays of 720 progressive lines or 1080 interlaced lines. They typically upscale Standard Definition to fill in the extra pixels. This usually works quite well with good quality sources such as NTL Digital (on the high bandwidth channels anyway) and DVD. They don't work so well on lower bandwidth signals and in fact show up just how poor the quality is - I was watching a repeat of Only Fools and Horses on UKTV Gold this evening and it looked appalling on my 32" LCD.

While there is a compromise with LCDs over high end CRTs, I think it is generally accepted that recent generations of LCD compare favourably on a price performance ratio, bearing in mind the convenience of the flat panel.

(Having said that, it is certainly true that CRTs are cheaper, so if money is the limiting factor, some good deals can be had on CRT technology, if you can find a premium brand making them!)
 
Yes I'll go along with that-but the thing that does surprise me is how well they handle SD.I have NTL analogue and digital and the main channels such as RTE,BBc;ITV etc are to my eye as good as any CRT.
Hopefully my "friends" in NTL will maintain the signal-we have had "exchanges"
in the past;)
I notice they are laying new cable in my area -I wonder what that will bring?
 
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