Opinions sought re HDTV

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isnowi

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#24963 7-Aug-2008 22:42

Hi all, new poster on here, a little behind the eight ball in terms of knowledge of HDTV.

Righto, question, am i going to see major benefits from upgrading to mysky HDi with my current television? It is a year old philips lcd, 32pf9531 to be exact, it is 1366 X 768 resolution 1080i, currently running component video through sky.

I was told that i needed a 40" screen to reap the rewards of HD, is this true? or mere hype to try and make me upgrade something that doesn't need to be upgraded?

Any help, even informed opinions is welcomed, thanks.

stuzzo

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#155086 7-Aug-2008 23:57

isnowi: Hi all, new poster on here, a little behind the eight ball in terms of knowledge of HDTV.

Righto, question, am i going to see major benefits from upgrading to mysky HDi with my current television? It is a year old philips lcd, 32pf9531 to be exact, it is 1366 X 768 resolution 1080i, currently running component video through sky.

I was told that i needed a 40" screen to reap the rewards of HD, is this true? or mere hype to try and make me upgrade something that doesn't need to be upgraded?

Any help, even informed opinions is welcomed, thanks.

Hi isnowi, You will definately see a big difference to the picture on your 32" LCD with either Freeview HD or the SkyHDi. I have a 32" LCD so I can speak from experience.

You don't need 40", just an HD capable TV that has HDMI. You will benefit from both the resolution and the greater bitrates of the HD channels. The 40" arguement probably relates more to resolving 720 video resolution versus 1080.

If you are a big TV1 person then Freeview might be the best bet otherwise Sky for Sport . I don't know how much of TV1,2 is true HD content but the good bitrates make most of it similar to DVD quality, certainly a huge improvement on the Sky feed.

isnowi

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#155103 8-Aug-2008 06:56

Thanks for the reply, truth be told we barely watc tv1 at all, only sometimes 2 and never sport, will be solely for movies and whatever else Sky choose to add to the HD feed in the future, I don't want to go down the freeview path as i simply do not have room for 2 boxes. As it is the current sky decoder resides underneath and behind the 'built in' LCD panel, amp and dvd are relegated to the floor, tucked away in the corner.

sbiddle

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#155107 8-Aug-2008 08:00

isnowi: Thanks for the reply, truth be told we barely watc tv1 at all, only sometimes 2 and never sport, will be solely for movies and whatever else Sky choose to add to the HD feed in the future, I don't want to go down the freeview path as i simply do not have room for 2 boxes. As it is the current sky decoder resides underneath and behind the 'built in' LCD panel, amp and dvd are relegated to the floor, tucked away in the corner.

There is no need to buy a seperate box for Freeview|HD as there are now several brands of TV's that come with built in tuners.
Reastically by Xmas most large screen TV's in the marketplace will all come with integrated tuners.

bazzer

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#155111 8-Aug-2008 08:19

sbiddle: There is no need to buy a seperate box for Freeview|HD as there are now several brands of TV's that come with built in tuners.
Reastically by Xmas most large screen TV's in the marketplace will all come with integrated tuners.

I got the impression the OP didn't want to buy a new TV, didn't you? His TV is only a year old. Realistically, most people don't upgrade their TVs that often and if they already have HD ready, even having a builtin tuner is probably not enough incentive to upgrade just for the sake of it.

freitasm

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#155145 8-Aug-2008 10:01

I have a 32" Sony Bravia. I also run a Windows Vista on a small Mac Mini with a DVB-T receiver. This setup gives me access to Freeview|HD - with some restrictions due to the Mac Mini low CPU power and bad video graphics.

We decided to buy a Freeview|HD box so that my parents-in-law could just have something "easy" when baby-sitting here.

Of three Freeview|HD boxes, two were dead on arrival and one stopped working after a week. So now we are just waiting for our renovations to finish before buying a TV with a built-in receiver.

old3eyes

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#155188 8-Aug-2008 12:49

Of three Freeview|HD boxes, two were dead on arrival and one stopped working after a week. So now we are just waiting for our renovations to finish before buying a TV with a built-in receiver.

What brand of HD box were they??

Regards,

Old3eyes