Tom Bancroft

Just a anecdote about HD television. A pal of mine bought an HD ready TV and subscribed to the service. While round at his house he proudly showed me his new acquisition. However, as he flicked through the channels at random, he was struggling to pin point those which were in HD! I have to say that from six or seven feet away on the sofa, it was hard to see what all the fuss was about!

"I want to be a sailor - sailing out to sea"

ChristineCB

Ah, that's your problem! At the one-inch distance, I can see the pixels much better! If you swipe a jeweler's eye-glass and lean against the screen itself, the clarity is astounding.

(Of course, when you've got a rotten husband like mine who black-chalks my end of those and then challenges me to "now try it with the other eye!", the whole HD experience takes on a less-than-wonderful experience. That was so embarrassing - in a big store like that, too. I don't know WHY I ever let him out of the dungeon!)

steven haley

Before very long we r told by retailers that these lcd tv`s will be the ONLY tv u can buy!as an tv engineer for 30yrs lets get one thing straight the current 4:3 tv has a pixel count of approx 760X480 so when presented on a plasma/lcd the picture obviousley does not match up correctly and that is why they look dreadful
Yes u can buy more equipment to upgrade this old system to make it better!
BUT hang on why can`t the boffins who are desparately trying to sell these screens give us a dual system so we can select 760x480 for standard definition and then switch to 1080x960 for high definition?
In the days when everything was on the now defunct VHF system(b/w only) we got a new channel this was bbc2 which was only on the new/current uhf system
How did they manage that ,there were no microchips then,THEY MADE ALL TV`S DUAL STANDARD you used a mechaniclal switch to turn it over to watch bbc2!!
If they could do that then why not now some 39 years on?????????

knobbykins

DVD producers never fill ordinary discs with data now,so it doesn't matter how many gigs,migs or frigs a HD disc has,only the latest big releases will get special treatment and the older films enjoyed by this board will be ignored,on the whole,as they are now.
Don't let yourselves get conned by marketing,just ask yourself what's actually wrong with your DVDs now.

When the king's off his arse nobody sleeps!

orpheum

Watched the England V Russia in HD at my cousins house.He said you could see the individula blades of grass>I was unimpressed and will not be interested in investing in a new HD set.

Welcome To Highbury The Home Of Football

Merton Park

Can't really tell the difference. Who would want to see the individual blades of grass anyway? Unless you are a Gardner that is!

christoph404

Isn't it amazing how cheap large flat screen LCD or Plasma HD ready screens are? I mean only a few years ago a plasma TV was three grand plus, now they are about 500 to 700 pounds. Regarding the 16;9 and 4x3 format.....do people still buy 4x3 tvs?, if you go into a large tv store such as comet or currys almost every TV is a "widescreen" 16x9 with a few token 4x3 tvs at the back of the shop,aren't new electronics expensive to begin with then cheaper as mass production kicks in? Normal DVD discs were expensive when they came out now they are off loaded in a similar way to fruit and veg......5 for £30!.........maybe HD DVDs will go the same way eventually?...

Lord Brett

I would literally be beggared if I forked out any more to Sky!

Windthrop

Standard DVDs with an 'upscaler' are not that poorer in quality compared with HD/BLURAY and more to the point what we are not being told is that at the back of this all is anti-piracy. Apparently the HD/BLURAY discs are that much more difficult to pirate. In a sense the public are being enticed into investing in new equipment and discs for marginal quality benefit to help the companies combat piracy. They should be paying us !

marker

Flat screen tvs are imho perfectly ok as they are and give a more than adequate picture, so why bother trying to make so called improvements, only so they can screw more money out of us, I have looked at these in the shops and cant see much in the way of picture improvement.

So if the new discs are more difficult to pirate does this mean we wont be able to make a copy ???

Cheers Marker

Modular

Nope. Copies are easily achievable.

Windthrop

Serves Sony right

Modular

.

marker

well thats a relief I often like to back up expensive commercial discs if I am going to be watching them a lot and keep the originals out of harms way at least if the dog or the wife chews them I don't have to worry to much

Cheers Marker

christoph404

Oh well, I guess we should take comfort from the fact that the Hd discs are easy to copy and pirate.....
less profit for sony and more illicit cash for international gangsters to fund hardcore and child porn amongst other things....