LCD tvs

[pnh]

Hi-new to this forum and dont know if this has been covered before.
I have been looking at 32"and 37" Lcds-it will be used for watching a lot of football via NTL digital.I keep reading about "motion lag and artefacts"-didnt quite know what this meant so I recorded 10 mins of last nights match and burned it to a dvd.I went to Currys today and asked could I see it on any LCD.
The guy had only one large Samsung feeding from a DVD player so he played it on that.I was not impressed.I watched from various distance for about 5 mins and several times I could see what I would describe as "blocking"-and this on the very latest Samsung-mind you it was a large screen-46" I think.I did a similar exercise in DID a couple of weeks ago and was not impressed with the picture either-though I did not notice this "blocking".
I have now come to the conclusion that an LCD tv would be an expensive mistake.Any views on this?

 

[Virginiaman]

Share your views, would only buy an LCD/Plasma at the minute if space was tight, ie need flat screen, CRT still better quality and alot more cost effective.
Have put off LCD purchase for a year or 2 as have most people I know.

 

[sonnyikea]

The thing I find with auditioning TV's in the electrical retailers is the setup is far from ideal. The TV is taken out of the box, plugged in and turned on. I doubt that any of the settings are changed, all the picture enhancement processors are probably on by default which can improve or harm the picture. The source that is fed to the TV is usually shared between a number of TVs thus degrading quality.

I have seen an LCD setup correctly with the colours, sharpness, contrast all perfect and I was very impressed. Ok so not as good as CRT but very, very close. The thing that LCD has going for it is the geometry which is a big bug bear of mine with regards CRT.

The blocking effect you are seeing could be to do with the image processor settings on the TV, 100 hertz CRTs have this as well. The one thing that LCDs do suffer from is 'rubber face' syndrome which is impossible to get rid of.

Wealth of discussion on this over on avforums.

 

[pnh]

thanks for comments-I agree in both cases-I just think both technologies are optomized for HD signals which is not going to be readily available here for quite a while.I wanted an idea of how the analogue and digital signals would look -thats why I brought my own dvd.The picture itself was tolerable but it was the pixel blocking effect which I couldnt live with.Manufacturers are claiming to have overcome this-well not from what I saw-I did not check out plasma but to me LCD is still only "nearly there"-and at the price thats not good enough.

I also had wondered what these stores feed this sets from on display and the helpful guy in Currys told me it was a PC feed-"not real digital" he said.
The odd one is of course from a DVD player and therefore can look better.
But I take your point about being setup correctly.

I have spent a lot of time checking out Avforums and while there is a huge amount of info-just when you think you have cracked it and got a shortlist of decent sets-someone else comes along and shoots the whole thing down.
Guy in Currys said for instance:"Sony-cracking sets -best around"

Guy in DID:Wouldnt touch Sony-Panasonic best around"
And that sums up the whole thing-there is a lot of very divided opinion.

 

[sonnyikea]

HD content will look brilliant on the screens and I was very wary of the LCDs for anything other than HD. Having seen this set properly setup I was very very surprised and up until that point had never thought of getting an LCD as I too thought the picture quality was awful for such an expensive product. I'm now on the train of thought that LCD is the way forward, if only I had the money. The set I saw was a Sony Bravia 32 inch 'V' series, I managed to have a good play with it as well. The number of picture settings is boggling, there is so much you can tweak. Hence my earlier point.

You're dead right on the divided opinion which is exactly what an audition should sort out for you. Which is where the problem lies - I've yet to find a decent place you can sit down properly and play with the sets, bring in your own material and play from a variety of sources.

If I was buying a HiFi separate this sort of audition would be the least I would expect and yet the HiFi separate would be a 3rd of the cost of the LCD TVs. Why there isn't the same audition set ups for TVs is beyond me.

If anyone knows of a shop that you can sit down and have a play, let us know as this might be exactly what pnh needs to finally decide if the LCD move is worth it.