The TV Thread

The Sony is very reliable. It doesn't lag, slow down like other Freeview boxes. There is a huge supporter base for this Sony Freeview Box, but never heard much about this Pioneer box. I think the Sony has S-Video out as well.
 
ashmufc said:
The Sony is very reliable. It doesn't lag, slow down like other Freeview boxes. There is a huge supporter base for this Sony Freeview Box, but never heard much about this Pioneer box. I think the Sony has S-Video out as well.
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If it does then that well and truly seals the deal.

Jesus wept, I've got my XBOX Live subscription coming up soon and I've just spent £80 on a printer... What a digital life, eh?
 
Finally found a working Sharp 42XD TV, prices are plummeting?? Picture looked great but running a 360 game on there, some flying thing? There was no blur that I could make out though I'd love to see how a PS2 looks on it... I've heard there is no component set up which I'm struggling to find out if it's correct!
 
Yeah, sort of right. Basically you get an adapter which you connect to the VGA port then you connect component cables to it.

Its like the Scart box thingy you get with PS2. One side is VGA, the other is for the component video. Nothing to really worry about, as long as you don't use VGA for PC. Even then you could use DVI-HDMI cable from PC :)
 
Ash, just been looking at the Cinema Pro Regza range due from Tosh in May... they look fantastic, hope they are priced below 2k for the 42 0r 46".... Going back to the Sharp though, wont that mean the Pic will be worse with the PS2 than it would through component??
 
Naa don't worry. VGA can handle component video, no converting or anything is going on, just an adapter.

Yeah, those Toshs are due in May USA, and UK maybe a few months later?
 
I'm having problems with my bedroom Hitachi... :(

Within five minutes of turning it on, any black areas of the picture will become filled with flashing green lines, and any white areas with flashing pink lines. If I turn the TV off and on again, it stops for a few hours.

Any ideas what could be causing this? I don't want to take it back because it's the only TV I've seen with component inputs, 1080i support and all for £350. If I do end up having to take it back then I'll end up with a 21", which is no good with my eyesight. :(

EDIT: After looking around, it's happened to a few other people, so I'm going to have to get a refund and somehow get an extra £150 to buy a Toshiba 26" WLT66, as I presume that's the best 26" out there (from what I've read, the Samsungs seem to develop problems and the Sonys are way too expensive for me).
 
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Unlucky mate!

Also check out this LG, slightly cheaper so get a demo of both! But if you were going to buy blind I would go Toshiba, but upto you :)

Also, how fat is your wallet! LOL!
 
It's really, really not. The TV in the living room was bought with my parents' savings, there was a (really small) shares payout for one of them and so I was treated to this Hitachi for Christmas (at a cut price of £350 via eBay), and now it's all gone wrong I'm praying we get the money back, and then I will have to dig into my pockets and find £150 to make £500 and buy a decent TV that will last.

I'm really worried now though - I shouldn't have bought off eBay, but it was too tempting at almost half the price of the others. If the guy won't give me a refund and I have to go through Paypal (who ask you to get a television dealer to write Paypal a letter stating that it is actually broken - who the hell am I going to get to do that?!), then I'm going to be back with the 14", 10-year-old TV I've had for all of those years.

It seems that everything electronic has been cursed around here lately; I bought a printer that won't feed paper unless you jam the stuff into it as hard as you can, a TV that goes green every five minutes and the new PC turned out to be interfering with the TV signal around the whole house, due to the aerial cabling being not-very-well shielded. On top of that, Windows Vista is giving me no end of trouble (the back two speakers refuse to produce decent sound and make everything sound as if it's underwater), and the cherry on-top of the icing on-top of the cake; my brother-in-law's mum has just passed away.

If this is how the rest of the year is going to go, I think I'm going to take that TV money and spend it on moving to another country.

EDIT: Ash, which do you think would be better, a Toshiba WLT66 (which is of course not the latest model any more), or a Samsung 26R74BDX (which I've never seen, but was Computer Shopper's #1 choice)?
 
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My policy is never to trust magazine reviews. As for latest model, that is the "latest" 26" Toshiba. Toshiba I don't think will be releasing a 26WLT68 or they will but about 5 months after, like they did with 26WLT66 which came out some time after the other sizes.

Who is the eBay seller BTW?
 
Any thoughts on the quality of Philips 42PF5521D, 32PF7531D or 50PF7521D ?

Anyone got/used/seen one of these in action ?? Any good ?
 
I've gone mad this afternoon and ordered the Samsung LE26R74BDX (for just under £500 including P&P). I went to a few stores to compare the Toshiba WLT66 and the Samsung R74, and I felt that the Samsung just shaded it - was slightly brighter and sharper (although perhaps at the expense of showing a few artifacts on old films - which I won't be watching anyway, it's mainly for the 360). The sound was ever-so-slightly better on the Tosh, but I've read that the Samsung has "monitor out" L/R connections - I hope that means I'll be able to hook it up to my stereo, which I'm looking forward to like a kid at Christmas (I've never had that before)!

I hate the dynamic contrast "feature" though (where the background visibly flashes when going from a dark scene to a slightly-lighter screen - this TV was just made for epilepsy sufferers really, wasn't it?) but I've read that you can switch this off via the super-duper-secret service menu. If you can't then it will be going straight back...
 
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Goodmans? Hitachi you mean! ;) Yeah, the guy arranged to have it collected and I should be getting a refund soon, thank God.
 
LOL! Well thats great customer service, very cool!

So Nick, you waiting for the Sharp HD1E then or buying now?
 
Hmm Ash been away in Snowy,rainy,foggy Ireland for a week and have just come back to the dreaded bathroom brochures, looks like my TV budget is going to take a hit again!! The clouding/blurring on the Sony's is putting me off, though reading the US AV sites the latest D92 screens from Sharp may have the banding troubles the D62 have, They say the president of Sharp has got involved to sort it? I'm still sure it's the Sharp I'll go for, but wait for the 92s to be available. God the prices are falling so fast in a month they will be free with a toaster!!
 
Jack Bauer said:
I've gone mad this afternoon and ordered the Samsung LE26R74BDX (for just under £500 including P&P). I went to a few stores to compare the Toshiba WLT66 and the Samsung R74, and I felt that the Samsung just shaded it - was slightly brighter and sharper (although perhaps at the expense of showing a few artifacts on old films - which I won't be watching anyway, it's mainly for the 360). The sound was ever-so-slightly better on the Tosh, but I've read that the Samsung has "monitor out" L/R connections - I hope that means I'll be able to hook it up to my stereo, which I'm looking forward to like a kid at Christmas (I've never had that before)!

I hate the dynamic contrast "feature" though (where the background visibly flashes when going from a dark scene to a slightly-lighter screen - this TV was just made for epilepsy sufferers really, wasn't it?) but I've read that you can switch this off via the super-duper-secret service menu. If you can't then it will be going straight back...
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Will look forward to hear how the Sammy goes.
 
Didn't think anybody would be interested! ;)

It arrived this morning - Crampton and Moore are fantastic, they really are. Two days and it was here. I came to set it up, took five minutes - but straight away I noticed about ten of what I thought were dead pixels. After applying pressure to them, they disappeared, so thankfully they were stuck pixels. Is luck finally on my side?!

Picture quality is fantastic as far as SD goes. The built-in tuner produces a great picture (don't expect high-definition or anything, but it matches the quality of the Toshiba 42WLT68, which is the best LCD I've ever seen). This is after playing with the default settings and getting into the service menu though, disabling dynamic dimming and dynamic contrast - which just cause flickering and flashing. Why Samsung force users who don't know the service-menu hack to put up with this I don't know - the guy who discovered the remote-inputted code had an epileptic wife, and without being able to disable it, the TV wouldn't have been much help.

Anyway, freeview is excellent (although it's made a crackle a few times that a light-switch has been turned on in the adjacent room), and through hi-def it's great as well - brighter than the Tosh we have in the living room, and just as clear.

Downsides? Changing channel is a bit of a nuisance - if you change channel too fast, then it takes 5-10 seconds for the TV to catch up. There is a software upgrade that has been confirmed to fix this, which is being aired from Monday to Thursday next week, but if you miss that, I've read you have to get the TV serviced to receive the update - which seems mental!

Also, the sound really is piss-poor. There are two audio outputs, analogue (which seems to be slightly out-of-sync) and optical (I would test it but it's £20 for a 5m cable), which is great - but when you get used to hearing great-quality sound, and you go back to listening to the TV through the built-in speakers, it is shocking. All LCDs where you use built-in speakers aren't going to be great, but the Tosh we have in the front room (along with the official subwoofer we bought for it) sounds better by a long way - even without the subwoofer.

Overall, I'm very pleased and I couldn't have hoped for anything better. The sound is disappointing, but hopefully if I shell out for the optical cable, it will be in sync through my stereo's speakers and all will be well, but even with the built-in speakers, it's not as if you can't hear what people are saying. It's just incredibly tinny. The quality from all the various inputs more than makes up for it.

The best LCD I have ever seen is still the Toshiba WLT68. Quite how it gets such a fantastic SD picture, I have no idea, and with the subwoofer it makes a decent sound. With high-def sources it blows me away, personally, and I don't see how TV gets better. But this Samsung practically matches the freeview quality, and is brighter to boot.

Very happy - here's hoping it doesn't break after a week like the bastarding Hitachi did!
 
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So wired up to yoru 360 its a dream then? How about PS2 play? Gutted the sound is tinny, nothing bites like tinny sounds........ Been looking at the 32inch version of this as it's only 640 on Play, but not sure how good Play are as a seller.
 
I know people who've ordered off Play and got on okay, but it has to travel a fair old way from what I can tell (from Jersey, is that right?)...

360 looks like a dream with the official cables (I've got two "MadCatz" cables which will be swiftly put on eBay - nowhere near the quality of the official ones, although strangely enough I've read people say the opposite). With the VGA cable, you get a really sharp picture, but the colour looks drained. With the component cable, you get a slight fuzzy edge to things, but stacks of colour. I prefer the component - the fuzz hides some of the jaggies anyway!

The PS2 looks... Like a six-year-old console should. It's as good as it's ever looked, but still, after you've played on the 360 it's like going back in time and being attacked by jaggies (although if you get a PS2 component cable it will of course improve slightly). I'm really tempted to dig the Amiga out of the loft and hook that up... SWOS on a 26" HDTV... :D

I'm truly made up with it though - and I solved the sync issues as well. I was connecting to a PC which was then outputting, resulting in a (very) slight lag. If you bypass the PC (which I can't do permanently as I don't have enough cabling at the moment, and I need sound on my PC more than my TV), then the sync is spot on. So now I've got to buy optical cabling to go directly into my stereo.

EDIT: I'm looking at two 5m optical cables - one is £5, one is a "BlueLine High Quality Optical Cable" with gold-plated pins for £15. Is it worth spending an extra tenner or should I just get the standard one?
 
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Holio, look for the Toshiba 32WLT66, very good TV, pretty cheap as well now!

Mr. CTU, the optical cables! That is a tough one. Some people might laugh at you, some people spend like £50 on optical cables LOL! I bought on from GAME for the 360 for a few quid I think. I asume you are looking on eBay, all this fancy stuff might be a gimmick. Check out the cable ssection on AVForums for reccomendations personally, not an expert in that field.

Anyway, good to see you liked the TV. How much better than the Hitachi?
 
Well, two things - one, I've been told by somebody high-up at IBM that an optical cable isn't affected by microwaves or by normal interference, and so gold-plated pins will make next-to-no difference. Two, I don't have an optical input on my stereo... :oops: Before I ordered anything, I looked on the back of the stereo to make sure I wasn't going mad, and while I do have an optical out, I don't have an optical in. :(

I've tried plugging phono cables into my monitor (as a test), and the sound is perfectly in sync. When I plug them into my stereo, it's ever-so-slightly out of sync (and stuff like that drives me mad), so it must be the stereo. I don't know if buying a new stereo would fix it - but even if it would, I can't afford that at the minute, so I'll have to live with the slight lag!

The TV is a country mile better than the Hitachi, in every department. Freeview is excellent with the built-in tuner, the sound (when outputted through a seperate system) is, obviously, a million times better, and the picture as a whole is clearer, brighter and better. Personally, I find it exactly the same, if not better, than the WLT66. Probably not the WLT68 though - shame you can't get a 26" version of that, but even if they did, I wouldn't swap this Samsung for the world. After fiddling with the settings, I can't see how a 26" can get better. :)

EDIT: My freeview reception is 60% for BBC 1 and 2, 50% for ITV, 40% for Channel Four and even lower is Channel Five. Would it be worth me getting an indoor aerial, or it would it make no difference? I don't see much wrong with the picture, just the occasional artifacting around text.
 
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ashmufc said:
Holio, look for the Toshiba 32WLT66, very good TV, pretty cheap as well now!

Mr. CTU, the optical cables! That is a tough one. Some people might laugh at you, some people spend like £50 on optical cables LOL! I bought on from GAME for the 360 for a few quid I think. I asume you are looking on eBay, all this fancy stuff might be a gimmick. Check out the cable ssection on AVForums for reccomendations personally, not an expert in that field.

Anyway, good to see you liked the TV. How much better than the Hitachi?
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What about the 'banding' problems you were talking to CTU lad there earlier in the thread and thus advising him to jump to a 68?
 
Oh those banding problems exist only on the 42WLT66 and 47WLT66. The smaller sizes are unaffected.

Jack, do you think there is some picture processing going on in the menus. Like DNIe the Samsung Picture Processor and other things, turn all of them off and have a look.
 
Yeah, if you use the service menu hack and turn DNIe off, then you can see just what a difference it makes. Without it, it looks drab, drained of colour and not as sharp (which, to be honest, kind-of looks like the Toshiba picture now I'm getting used to it!) - with it on, it's a definite improvement. And this is coming from someone who thought it was a stupid idea at first...
 
Have you tried switching off, then jsut increasing colour/sharpness/contrast etc.?

Also does taking DNIe off take away lip-syinc errors?
 
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