No HD Ready CRT's for the UK???

[mojo]

I've heard that when the "HD Ready" labeled Tv's are rolled out this year in the UK they shall be exclusively for Plasma's, Projectors and LCD's and that there shall never be HDTV CRT sets introduced for the PAL market. Never.

This is stupidity! CRT may be big and heavy but they destroy any of the above in image quality. There is no comparison.

Does anybody know more about this? Hopefully I heard wrong.

[mid]

Even in the US, the vast majority of 'HD' CRTs only do 480p (which you can get TVs here with) or 1080i. "HD Ready" means they should cope with 720p as well.

[MartyG]

It's all about size; you'd need a tube about 3 foot long for the electrons to be accurate enough for a HD resolution on a 36" screen, and it would weight a ton. That's a big chunk of space out of your living room.

[anephric]

Are there really going to be 720p CRTs? Is there a market for them with all the relative cheapness of plasmas and LCDs now?

[mattSix]

i think you've got to be careful when exploring 'HD' CRTs full stop.

just because a tv can 'cope' with 1080i / 720p doesn't mean it'll show you the full benefit of it. if the circuitry is simply rescaling input to give you 480p or 525p quality output, you won't see the benefit of the higher resolutions... in fact they might look worse than those it can cope with natively.

something else to bear in mind: a tv can be described as 'HD compatible' if it can accept the resolutions mentioned above. but it isn't really 'future-proofed' for HD content (e.g. from Sky boxes, HD-DVD players) unless it has an HDCP compliant digital input - and i've never seen anything like this on a CRT set. even now, HDCP inputs aren't available on many LCDs & plasma tvs on the market, which is criminal!

i've heard talk of samsung releasing new HD CRT models in the uk this year, but i don't know of any specifics for these. but, in essence, the market for 'premium' CRT tv is dying rapidly. all the big money is being spent on LCDs and plasmas, which is therefore where the major advances in technology will be.

[Richard.John]

I cant believe that HD CRTs offer better image quality than modern HD LCDs or Plasma.
For moving images maybe but for clarity surely it must go to the flat panels.
I recntly saw a demo of an HD Sony LCD and was blown away by the quality, it was utterly astonishing. The colours were simply out of this world. Then again, the unit costs about five grand in UK dosh, so for that kind money it should be amazing.

Only available in Japan, but we can still dream.

http://www.yodobashi.com/enjoy/more/.../27667706.html

[anephric]

There are huuuuge purity problems on 32"-plus CRTs as well... I've never seen anything in the region of 36" that didn't have a blue patch, a pink patch etc etc.

Plus gravity starts to have a bitching effect on those large tubes...

[mattSix]

I cant believe that HD CRTs offer better image quality than modern HD LCDs or Plasma...

it's all about the input mate. feed a hi-def signal to a decent, current gen lcd or plasma & you'll be bowled over. throw analogue (or even DTT) signals at it & you'll probably be shocked... a ?200 widescreen from a supermarket can often perform better!

also, consoles aside, you're unlikely to own a hi-def dvd player for a while, you won't see a hi-def digibox signal for a year or so & you'll probably pay extra for that too... so getting hold of the hi-def input to feed your spanking new display with can bump the price of the whole package up a lot higher than you'd think. and if you don't, you'll have paid loads more for poorer picture quality + slimmer form factor in most instances.

the classic 'test case' for analogue > digital is a footie match; most lcds / plasmas really struggle to resolve the combination of varied textures coupled with high-contrast motion, even ultra-expensive high-end sets.

then again, if you want a BIG screen you've got little choice but to go digital.

[trev1976]

Im happy with my RGB scart on CRT at the mo, i do want to get into digital but i do really think its worth waiting a couple of years to gain the most from it

[gIzzE]

For a set to have the "HD Ready" logo it has to have an hdmi or dvi hdcp input, be at least 720 lines of reolution and handle 1080i/50/60 and 720p/50/60 along with all the other resolutions.

And sorry the HD CRT sets that are out there are not as good as the good plasmas, the is problems with convergance etc. at the size you need the tube to be wich makes it look a little blurred.
You could buy a widescreen pc monitor and use that with an appropriate transcoder, but you will only be able to go to around 24" wide.

Football as said above is a good way to test a digital display, look at the Pioneer sets with football, they are ****! they convert everything to 60.00Hz so with football it is adding frames, which the panel doesn't like and then colours start to smear, and this is a ?3k set that everyone raves on about!

I still think the panny 480 line plasmas are really hard to beat, I set up the panny pw6 and a Pionner 435xde together with D-Theater 1080i version of U-571 and the Panasonic beat it hands down. From normal viewing distance you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between 2 screens from the same manufacturer if one was a 480p screen and the other was a 768p screen.

[mattSix]

For a set to have the "HD Ready" logo it has to have an hdmi or dvi hdcp input, be at least 720 lines of reolution and handle 1080i/50/60 and 720p/50/60 along with all the other resolutions.

i thought that wasn't the case, but i've double checked & you're right; you need hdmi / dvi + hdcp for the 'hd ready' logo. i've edited my post accordingly...

make sure you get to see the logo though; i've had store assistants describe panels as 'hd ready' when they're not...

[trev1976]

i thought that wasn't the case, but i've double checked & you're right; you need hdmi / dvi + hdcp for the 'hd ready' logo. i've edited my post accordingly...

make sure you get to see the logo though; i've had store assistants describe panels as 'hd ready' when they're not...

most store assistants anit got a ****ing clue

[gIzzE]

i thought that wasn't the case, but i've double checked & you're right; you need hdmi / dvi + hdcp for the 'hd ready' logo. i've edited my post accordingly...

make sure you get to see the logo though; i've had store assistants describe panels as 'hd ready' when they're not...

And I bet those same stores will argue the fact and swear blind they never said it was when you return it 6 months down the line under your rights as being "misold an item"!

[Cuber001]

I have a question. I am from Australia and want a TV. Which is best, Plasma or LCD? Also, The new consoles support DVI and HDMI. What are these, and do all ne TV's have them? Can anyone reccomend a good TV with these features with the best picture quality for me?

Thanks.

[mid]

OK, quick summary:

Plasma usually looks better when powering standard-def images than an equivalently priced LCD, as plasmas usually have much better black levels and generally better contrast. The advantages for LCD are that they can make them at much smaller dot pitches, so you can get them at "sensible" screen sizes of 32" and less, and the big ones can be had at higher resolutions than those available for plasma (like the full 1920x1080 res screen I mentioned a while back). Also, the power drain and heat output for LCD is much lower, and apparently they last longer as well.

Personally, I'd recommend plasma for most people.

DVI/HDMI means you're getting a digital signal to the screen (HDCP means the signal has a copy protection bit) rather than going from digital to analogue then back to digi inside the screen electronics again.