LCD/Plasma/CRT/DLP - questions

[andrewfee]

I'd personally avoid Philips and go for one of the better Sony / Toshiba sets.

[Lyris]

Yeah, get a TV you can adjust the backlight on, which rules out Philips!

As for 32" 1080p - Sharp are producing one in Japan. It'll be the norm sooner or later, I'll bet.

[bash]

As for 32" 1080p - Sharp are producing one in Japan. It'll be the norm sooner or later, I'll bet.

Is there any point in anything smaller than 40" having 1080i-p? Is there enough extra detail gained over 720p on say 37" or smaller?

[Lyris]

Depends how far you're sitting, but for HD DVD and Blu-ray it will always be preferable to have the screen show the same resolution as the content on the disc (without overscan).

You heard a LOT of "1080p will only make a difference on a 70" screen!" a few years ago and I never bought the argument. You hear even less of it now but it's still kicking around, but trust me, you'll hear none of it when 1080p is affordable for everyone. The point I'm making is that although resolution isn't the be all and end all, most people who dismissed it were the ones that didn't think they'd be able to get it too soon.

[bash]

Depends how far you're sitting, but for HD DVD and Blu-ray it will always be preferable to have the screen show the same resolution as the content on the disc (without overscan).

But not every tv gives you the option to turn overscan off, does it? Is this a highend feature found on more expensive sets?

I think I might fancy a 32" TV more in my bedroom more than a 50" in my 2nd living room if thats the case.

[funkydan]

Hi, I've got a Samsung 28" CRT and I came home today to find a rather disturbing horizontal white line towards the top of the screen and I don't seem to be able to turn it on at the main power switch. Now this sounds like it has died a death - am I right (I really hope not). We've had trouble in the past with not being able to turn on the main button but it always worked eventually. The TV worked fine this morning and switched off to standby when we left today. Although we've had the power button problem before, we've never had this evil looking line, so anyone know if it is ****ed? I'm guessing it is

[Lyris]

Your guess is probably right :/

[funkydan]

arse

[Lyris]

But not every tv gives you the option to turn overscan off, does it? Is this a highend feature found on more expensive sets?

Well, not many 1920x1080 TVs are out just yet, but both Sony and Sharp's offerings do, so there's hope that this common sense feature gets kept and becomes standard.

[funkydan]

Ooh, I'd left it for a bit and tried turning back on and it fecking works - woo, and indeed: hoo

[Kotatsu Neko]

Well, not many 1920x1080 TVs are out just yet, but both Sony and Sharp's offerings do, so there's hope that this common sense feature gets kept and becomes standard.

My Toshiba has an exact scan mode too, but it only works in 1080i and not 720p. This actually makes for another good reason to run the 360 in 1080i, as I lose a decent chunk of picture to overscan when in 720p. (the other good reason to get the 'full HD' experience with HD DVD.

[Tychom]

The Toshiba 37WL66Z has dropped down to within 50eur of the 32" Toshiba's in my area it seems to I'm considering putting money down on one today. How are the 37" Toshiba's in general? This particular model has no digital tuner not that it bothers me too much as I can get TV through my ISP (should it though?), other than that it seems to be lacking only s-video (2xHDMI, 1xYUV, 2xSCART (1 RGB), AV, VGA). Are there any gaming particular issues with the TV I should know about?

[EvilBoris]

I think the only biggies were the viewing angle not being the best and only being able to display 1024x768 VGA properly

[revisedgenocide]

My settings are:

Back Light = 75, Contrast = 92, Brightness = 45, Colour = 40, Tint = 0, Sharp = 0, Black Stretch = OFF, MPEG NR = LOW, DNR = LOW, Colour Temp = WARM.

And in Base Colour Adjust:

Colour Hue Sat Bright
----------------------------
Red +6 -6 0
Green -8 0 -9
Blue 0 0 0
Yellow 0 0 0
Magenta +10 -10 0
Cyan -10 -7 0

I lower the back light to around 15 or so when watching in low light.

Quoted for anyone else with the same set since for me those settings do the business. Thanks to everyone else who gave advice too. Much appreciated

edit-Downloaded a few HD-WMV clips to my pc and streamed them via my 360 to the TV. Dl'd a very nice National Geographic one which would impress the missus more rather than seeing GoW in HD. There doesnt seem to be much in the way of wmv-hd stuff about though which is a shame.

[Lyris]

That's because the guys that concentrated on that are now working on HD DVD releases (I think it's the same team, anyway).

In fact, there's a National Geographic one coming in March (28th, I believe).