Ar$e! My Telly Just Broke!!!

[dave_mc]

Indeed, we're having to carefully nurse our dwindling stock of properly calibratable CRT monitors as you cannot get replacements. The image quality on them is still better than even the best Eizo monitors which are our only realistic alternative. I am going to be very sad the day my Trinitron puts its paws up.

that reminds me, you can't put those anti-glare things on lcds either. hurts my eyes! :oops:

:lol:

I never thought of it like that!

But it was time to move up to HD, so the old set had to go.

I was actually glad to get anything for it - the main thing, in effect, was for someone to take it away because it weighed a bloody ton and I had no way in the world of moving it.

And now I have a 42" plasma I can lift myself.  :)

yeah, that's true. sometimes you just want a handy way to get rid of stuff.

are the plasmas better than the lcds? i have a feeling the picture might be slightly more like a crt than an lcd, but i could be wrong.

not sure i like HD, either. I might not have given it a fair shake, but to me it's too detailed (again, might just be my eyes). A bit like the way our ears like valve amps even though they're lo-fi, my eyes are kinda teh same :lol:

Tv's are just not worth repairing now.  generally you are talking close to the cost of a new tv for anything major

so erm, try your home contents insurance to see if they will do anything.  you never know

yeah probably not worth the repair

just be careful claiming on insurance doesn't end up being a false economy... if they crank up your premiums you could be out money...

[Philly Q]

are the plasmas better than the lcds? i have a feeling the picture might be slightly more like a crt than an lcd, but i could be wrong.

The received wisdom is that "blacks are better" on plasmas.  They also don't have that LCD thing where the picture looks all weird if you sit at an angle to the screen.

not sure i like HD, either. I might not have given it a fair shake, but to me it's too detailed (again, might just be my eyes). A bit like the way our ears like valve amps even though they're lo-fi, my eyes are kinda teh same

I love HD, but I only get to see it when watching Blu-rays.  I can get the Freeview HD channels, but my reception is weak so they keep breaking up all the time.

[Dmoney]

A lot of the viewing angle issues with LCD's have been VASTLY improved.
LCD's also use less power than plasma's making them more economical to run.
Some motion on plasma's is a bit weird for me. I'm not sure how big consumer LCDs get to now.

I wouldn't worry about HD. All the major broadcasters are scaling back their planned expansion of HD services due to the current economic climate.

I think HD is cool for certain things, 3D seems like a novelty, I don't really care about it. I'm not used to seeing it on really big screens which I think is where motion and pan & tilt can look a bit crisp. I think I like a softer picture. That said, I do watch a LOT of HD.

Philly do you know what transmitter you get your freeview from? unless you're house is in a bad spot you should be ok. what freeview HD box do you have? might be time to get freesat hd! ha

[JacksonRR]

The received wisdom is that "blacks are better" on plasmas.  They also don't have that LCD thing where the picture looks all weird if you sit at an angle to the screen.

I bought my Panasonic plasma over an LCD for exactly those reasons. However, the drawback is the glossy screen. Watching at night is amazing and much more realistic colors than an LCD, but the glare during the daytime makes it almost useless with the shades up.

[tomjackson]

What annoys me is I bought a new HD ready TV and got BT vision that is supposed to have HD and when I watch football on ITV it's utter rubbish, my CRT Tv with the analog signal was miles better.  The standard def is about the quality of dial up porn in 1999!  Fifa 12 looks more realistic than football on ITV.

Trouble is they sell the HD channels, use all the bandwith then multiplex loads of channels on what's left meaning it all comes through shitee......

Back to the telly, just chuck it.  It's a shame we live in such a wasteful society where not much is repaired but nobody fixes the things.  In fact if you want a new free CRT, just go to the tip and get one out of the TV recycling cage, I bet 50% of those work.

[Philly Q]

Philly do you know what transmitter you get your freeview from? unless you're house is in a bad spot you should be ok. what freeview HD box do you have? might be time to get freesat hd! ha

No idea about the transmitter (I know there's one at Crystal Palace, but does that broadcast HD as well?)

My TV has built-in Freeview, Freeview HD and (theoretically) Freesat.

Problem is I only have a set-top digital aerial, no external aerial or satellite dish.  :oops:

[Dmoney]

HD services as far as I know are multiplexed separately from SD ones. For example. The transponder known as DSAT4 carries BBC HD, ITV HD Meridian and BBC 1 HD and nothing else. The Freeview HD for ITV and BBC is part of the PSB3 muxs and none of them include SD service either. Virgin Media and stuff for BT vision might be compressed more. You can't actually fit that many HD services into a multiplex. Sky also has the advantage because there platform is less limited by bandwidth considerations.

Everything is also encoded with variable bitrate. Football needs a lot of bitrate to describe the detail and the motion. MPEG2 is a bit poor a zooms, and the crowd and grass contains so much fine detail that the coding will make it blocky. Smoke and rain hitting water also stress encoders really hard. If you see smoke in some digital transmission it looks like a big blocky mess. You also get motion related artifacts from interlace scanning.

I agree though. Analog on a nice CRT was better than Digital SD on a lot of flatscreens.

Philly do you know what transmitter you get your freeview from? unless you're house is in a bad spot you should be ok. what freeview HD box do you have? might be time to get freesat hd! ha

No idea about the transmitter (I know there's one at Crystal Palace, but does that broadcast HD as well?)

My TV has built-in Freeview, Freeview HD and (theoretically) Freesat.

Problem is I only have a set-top digital aerial, no external aerial or satellite dish.  :oops:

Crystal Palace hasn't been through the Digital Switch Over yet. It might improve when it does. Which I think is pretty soon. I think they increase the freeview transmission power after they turn off analog. I might be wrong.

[Philly Q]

I agree though. Analog on a nice CRT was better than Digital SD on a lot of flatscreens.

I think that's certainly true.  When I still had the CRT I would visit friends with LCD sets and be pretty horrified by the look of programmes in SD (magnified by the bigger screens, to be fair).

When I got the plasma - which was mainly because I wanted Blu-ray - I was prepared for standard-def TV to look bad, but it's actually much better than I expected.  And of course I'm used to it now, anyway!

[MrBump]

So, got a Panasonic Viera - 42 inch plasma.  Had a chat to a mate last night about which way to go, and was persuaded by the plasma over LCD/LED case.

It's pretty damn good!  Way more telly than I deserve or need, I think.  But I'll be having fun trying to wrestle control of it from the kids!

[Philly Q]

Could be the same model as mine - or maybe the next generation version!

[_tom_]

I am going to be very sad the day my Trinitron puts its paws up.

Couldn't get rid of my old Sony Trinitron telly we had at uni, even for cheap or free. Ended up having to take it to the tip to get rid of it! :oops:

[juansolo]

So, got a Panasonic Viera - 42 inch plasma.  Had a chat to a mate last night about which way to go, and was persuaded by the plasma over LCD/LED case.

Plasma's are more filmic and work better when you get to the bigger size (say over about 40"). That Panasonic (S30B) is the one I've just replaced my Tosh with. The Tosh was very good. I got it because it was the only LCD at the time I could find that doesn't motion blur (a lot of them don't now). LCDs do have their place though. They seem to do better with computer and video game sources. Backed up by me running my Mac Mini through the plasma, it's nowhere near as sharp. Conversely the plasma rips the LCD a new one when it comes to anything in Blu-Ray (I watch very little standard def stuff these days).

[dave_mc]

(a) The received wisdom is that "blacks are better" on plasmas.  They also don't have that LCD thing where the picture looks all weird if you sit at an angle to the screen.


(b) I love HD, but I only get to see it when watching Blu-rays.  I can get the Freeview HD channels, but my reception is weak so they keep breaking up all the time.

(a) thanks. I've never actually noticed the weird angle thing with our couple of lcd tvs... i noticed it with the older ones, but ours are fine :? But yeah I'm not sold on teh picture quality.

(b) ah, i only ever get to see it with teh freeview channels (through sky, our freeview reception is pretty poor, too).

I agree though. Analog on a nice CRT was better than Digital SD on a lot of flatscreens.

yeah

our analogue reception now isn't great (apart from RTE... we get a different country's analogue reception better... go figure :lol: ), but in our old house it was great.

I also think (this might be BS, but it makes sense in an evil corporation kind of way) that the older analogue technology looked awesome on older technology CRT tvs... but when it's shown on newer, "better" TVs it looks terrible. Makes me wonder it's not intentional, to try to persuade you teh newer technology is better.

[Dmoney]

Philly,

If your signal comes from crystal palace you might get a better signal after the switch over. Turns out the transmitter power is increased for DTT once the analog is turned off. thought so.

[Philly Q]

Thanks, that's something to look forward to next April!  :D