First time HD TV buyer

[Jumpstart]

Simple question for you tech guys
Believe it or not but only now am I finally getting round to buying an HD TV.

My questions are:

1) Can I play an HD avi file on a standard DVD player and will it play on an HD TV?

2) What's the difference between Bluray and HD quality?

3) What's the best HD TV screen to get?

Thank you.

 

[Huevos]

1) Mine can't and even if it could it's just getting sent over scart connector so it would never display in HD (some new DVD players do have HDMI interfaces).

2) Depends on the source, but both are capable of 1920 x 1080 @ 25 fps interlaced.

3) One that is capable of displaying true 1920 x 1080 resolution. Always go for "Full HD" not "HD Ready". According to Wikipedia "Most "HD ready" sets do not have enough pixels to give true pixel-for-pixel representation without interpolation of the higher HD resolution (1920x1080)". Personally I have a decent quality LCD. Television that are currently sold as LED are not LED displays. They are just LCD displays that use LED light to backlight an LCD display rather than using cold cathode fluorescent light. In other words there is zero difference in the quality of the display between LCD and LED. LED is supposed to be lighter on power consumption but when I bought mine I took my energy monitor and tried quite a few different models and with some the LED model used more power. LED will start to use less power when the screen is illuminated with LEDs that allow local dimming where the screen is dark. The only other big difference between LCD and LED is LCD has a full range of sockets and they come out the back, whereas with LCD there are usually less sockets and they come out the side of the television rather than the rear in an attempt to make the slim design even slimmer. I my opinion though cables coming out the side, rather than the rear, are an eye-sore and unless you are going to flush mount the television they are a fiddly nuisance.

 

[Captain Jack]

In my experience, plasma TVs are more "natural" looking than most LCD sets. For gaming, pick LCD. For watching predominantly SD TV - pick plasma. For watching predominantly HD TV, either one.

Best thing to do is go to a specialist and get him to demonstrate you a few TVs. Especially on SD content, that the majority of channels are... Panasonics make very good plasmas.

 

[Jumpstart]

Excellent. Thanks. Very helpful.

So it's possible to play an HD file through my laptop onto an HD TV? Sorry to be dumb, but I desperately need to get wise here.

Thanks. ;)

 

[shamonee]

Over VGA yes (PC input) also if there is a USB socket and inbuilt divx it will play files over pendrive/external hard-drive.
If not a lot of DVD/blu-ray players or surround systems have inbuilt divx so the same can be done.
Also when HD first come out alot of people were sucked into buying HD READY TVs that don't display full HD (1080p) which is the resolution 1920 x 1080. They just have HD inputs then downgrade the image to a lower resolution.
720p is a lower resolution HD and each to their own is fine. But for full HD for Blu-ray 1080p (full HD) is needed for the best results

 

[Jumpstart]

Over VGA yes (PC input) also if there is a USB socket and inbuilt divx it will play files over pendrive/external hard-drive.
If not a lot of DVD/blu-ray players or surround systems have inbuilt divx so the same can be done.
Also when HD first come out alot of people were sucked into buying HD READY TVs that don't display full HD (1080p) which is the resolution 1920 x 1080. They just have HD inputs then downgrade the image to a lower resolution.
720p is a lower resolution HD and each to their own is fine. But for full HD for Blu-ray 1080p (full HD) is needed for the best results

My laptop is the highest HD resolution and I can play HD movies on that through a pen drive. Good to know I can watch HD movies through the pen drive on the TV. Thanks.

 

[AlphaOm]

Excellent. Thanks. Very helpful.

So it's possible to play an HD file through my laptop onto an HD TV? Sorry to be dumb, but I desperately need to get wise here.

Thanks. ;)

Yes, playing an HD file through your laptop or any media streamer is straightforward, using the VGA/DVI port of the TV. You'll just have to adjust the definition so as to get the best results and correct picture ratio for the images provided by your PC. As to your first question re. HD avi files, doing so is not really the norm but you might want to have a quick look at something like _http://www.hdvideoconverter.org/hd-avi-to-dvd-converter.html, though I've never tried that myself and thus cannot comment on the outcome.

Huevos is absolutely right when it comes to the so-called LED tvs (which are not LED at all). The connectors on most of those sets are just plain stupid and quite fragile in some cases. I'd personnally go with a standard LCD screen whenever possible.

The best HD TVs is a question of taste, money, and luck. In terms of picture quality, well... It depends on what you want to do with them. Captain Jack's advice is very pertinent.
LG TVs are usually a bit cheaper than the rest, offer a decent quality picture with bright colours, but I usually don't like them because they tend to be very very limited when it comes to the options menu, which is something I personally can't stand. In that respect, Sony TVs are quite good, with more options than you'll probably ever need. Panasonic and Toshiba have enjoyed a good reputation for years.
The response time, usually expressed in ms, is quite an important feature when choosing your tv set - the smaller the better, and the smoother too. Some TVs offer a refresh rate of 100Hz or sometimes 200Hz, which retailers sometimes refer to as "smooth / natural motion...". It can indeed make a difference when it comes to fast moving objects or pictures, but the hardware and software matter a lot here as it can also sometimes create a totally unrealistic picture, which can seem to be moving "too fast" (although clearly it's not...). Some people don't mind and can't see the difference, some people do a lot. Some people can't tell the difference between SD and HD either, mind you (yes, mum, I'm looking at you!).


If you can, do try to compare them before you buy so you can find the picture that suits you best. Not always easy with high-street retailers though, as for some reason most shops find it a good idea to display the most horrible quality SD pictures on their shiny HD sets hoping to convince people that they need a new TV. Weird.

Finally, there's the 3D sets - and for those, you definitely need to try them before you buy as they are definitely NOT all the same.

 

[Huevos]

Excellent. Thanks. Very helpful.

So it's possible to play an HD file through my laptop onto an HD TV? Sorry to be dumb, but I desperately need to get wise here.

Thanks. ;)

Yes, all modern HD TVs have a VGA socket as stated above but that is not HD, only 480 lines, not 1080. If you want HD you need a tele with a DVI socket (looks identical to HDMI and normally is HDMI1). Most PC video cards have a DVI socket and you plug the PC sound card into the tele audio socket for the sound. Many high-end laptops also have the DVI socket but if not you can buy a USB to DVI converter plug from Amazon.

Also if you intend to use a Linux satellite receiver (Dreambox for example) you can just stream the file direct to the satellite receiver across your home network and watch it on the tele just the same as you do with satellite broadcasts.

 

[Jumpstart]

All a fantastic, brilliant help. Thanks once again. I am gonna copy and paste on the replies into my WordPad document. Cheers.

 

[shamonee]

Yes, all modern HD TVs have a VGA socket as stated above but that is not HD, only 480 lines, not 1080. If you want HD you need a tele with a DVI socket (looks identical to HDMI and normally is HDMI1). Most PC video cards have a DVI socket and you plug the PC sound card into the tele audio socket for the sound. Many high-end laptops also have the DVI socket but if not you can buy a USB to DVI converter plug from Amazon.

Also if you intend to use a Linux satellite receiver (Dreambox for example) you can just stream the file direct to the satellite receiver across your home network and watch it on the tele just the same as you do with satellite broadcasts.

you can get 1080 over VGA. I Have my laptop outputting & the TV displaying 1920 x 1080

 

[Huevos]

you can get 1080 over VGA. I Have my laptop outputting & the TV displaying 1920 x 1080

That's "Super VGA", but yes you're right about getting higher resolutions down that cable. The real downfall of using VGA though is it is an analogue format and, unlike digital, uses voltage to represent the image being sent down the cable. My own experience is the picture quality, especially the colour, is much lower than using the DVI socket.

 

[Jumpstart]

Thanks for the updates. Much appreciated.

 

[PaulR]

When I bought my HD TVs a year of so ago I did a lot of research into which ones gave the best picture from SD sources. As Captain Jack says above most viewing is still in SD, although the amount of HD content is rapidly increasing.

At the time I came to the conclusion that the top end Philips TVs gave the best SD picture and were still pretty good with their treatment of HD so that's what I bought - see my sig to the left.

Time has moved on and I'm sure that other manuafacturers have caught up but the best advice still remains to try to see one in action. Don't be subverted by a good HD picture - most 1080 TVs will give good pictures when fed with a 1080i/p source, especially if it can do 1:1 pixel mapping. I find that a great many 1080 TVs give a very smeared, soft picture on an SD source.

I'm still extremely happy with both my Philips TVs.

 

[Huevos]

I find that a great many 1080 TVs give a very smeared, soft picture on an SD source.

I think a lot of that is what they are fed with. For example you can watch SD channels with an SD Sky box, sent across to the TV via a scart lead (with the usual accompanying dot crawl) or you can use a Foxsat HD and upscale to HD in the satellite receiver and then send it across the HDMI to the TV. That way even TVs that are crap at SD still produce a fantastic picture.

The other problem that really causes SD quality to be noticeably bad is people always buy a TV that is too big for the resolution and viewing distance.

 

[PaulR]

I think a lot of that is what they are fed with.

Agreed, which is why I say that you need a TV which can get the very best out of an SD source. Both the Philipses (plural of Philips?) do this magnificently and some of the really dire channels can be cleaned up no end, turning rubbish into just-about-watchable TV.

But it does depend on the quality of the upscalar. I have a DVD player which can output 576i video as 576p over component leads and the quality is poorer that way. The TV treats the 576i picture better than the DVD player.

If you're using a scart lead then the box should be set to RGB rather than PAL as this noticeably improves picture quality and reduces dot crawl.

I've done back-to-back tests on the TV comparing its own rendition of 576i up to 1080 and Humax's upscaling to 1080i and found the Philips to be slightly superior. I suspect their anti-aliasing algorythm is better but the Humax is not far behind.

If the TV is too big then you're bound to see pixels. Having said that I found that when the 32" CRT TV in the living room in the UK died I thought that a 37" would be the right size. I couldn't get what I wanted and bought a 42" with the thought that if it WAS too big I could always take it to France. To my surprise the 42" was not too big and that's why we went to 47" for France. It could be that the Philips is just so damn good that any lesser TV would seem too big with its poorer picture, of course. We even had the 47" in the UK living room temporarily before taling it to France and it was surprisingly acceptable.

 

[Terryl]

As an old TV guy I have no answer to the first question, but on the second one the big differance is the sound, I play some DVD/BlueRay combo packs (program comes on DVD and BlueRay) you play the DVD the picture looks great, the surround sound is good, you play the same show on BlueRay, the picture looks a bit better but the surround sound blowes you out of the house, this is because they have far more room for uncompressed audio on the BlueRay disk then on the DVD.

If you have a good surround sound system now it will be even better after you get the BlueRay hooked up to it.

So now for question #3, in my opinion the best HDTV is in the eyes of the beholder, (and your pocket book) go down to the local (large) HDTV store and sit down (or stand) at about the same distance from the TV that you will be viewing at your house, this will give you an idea on what size will suit your needs the best, some large home entertainment stores have media rooms, this will allow you to dim the lights a bit (like at home) and try to get the visual feel of the TV, find one that looks good to you (and your spouse) not the salesman.