~%90 will play these games on regular TVs. Which has better

all those cheap LCD screens and plasmas i see everywhere (what 80% of the people buy) have only scart and svideo connections and some of them have a VGA connection

i dont hink they are real HDTV's ..

but yeah, the quicker the better it gets accepted

 

Yeah that's what i said in my past very informative post

 

true its monday morning for me also

 

Basically if people buy those cheap 800x480 plasmas, if they're lucky (in their ignorance), they might get the ones that "accept" a HDTV signal, but will scale it down, making things a little bit better, but still not being able to diplay a true HD image.

the whole HD-Ready thing will make things better, although greedy manufacturers and especially the shop assistance need to make the public aware of what's coming and what is going to be compatible with what.

Because come next year, when Sky only accepts HDMI or DVI-HDCP, there are going to be a lot of pissed off people.

 

Yeh the worst retailers are people like Dixons and Curry's. Not that I would ever buy any electrical goods from them anyway.

Anyway the cost of Plasma's is still pretty high for the average Jo atm.Even the sweet pioneer 435 XDE which is "only" 720p and thats a cool £2500.

I think its great and all that Sony are forward looking but I dont think its really gonna be a big boon with all that 1080 output for the vast majority of normal peeps.

 

Well that Pioneer is one of the top of the range ones!!

You know what's funny though, Sony are pushing the whole HD thing with PS3, but none of their HDTVs released in the UK have digital inputs. I'm sure they'll release Media Boxes (you know, the boxes with the inputs and outputs, which you then plug to the Plasma) with HDMI or DVI, so you'll only have to change the box and not the whole screen, but it's very strange, considering Toshiba and Samsung already have very affordable HDTVs with HDMI or HDCP-compatible DVI.

You can find very good HDTVs for much lower prices, you should try "What home entrtainment" chain site, they have all the reviews they've ever written in pdf format, and each review has links to online retailers with really really good prices (sometimes £1000 cheaper than high-street retailers).

I was looking to buy a Toshiba DLP HDTV but i changed my mind when i discovered about the viewing angle. The thing is 46", amazing picture quality (at the right viewing angle) and only £1300.


Besides, why do you say "only 720p"... 720p is the target resolution of Sky HD, and most probably also X360 and PS3.

1080p should not be an issue for UK people for a looong time. It took years to get to 720p/1080i, you really shouldn't worry 1080p, which is still a trouble standard anyway.

 

Yeh I'm with you London. A few months ago I was about to get that pioneer, but with a baby on the way I'm gonna hold on and save for a bit.

Only reason I mentioned "only " 720 is that most people here think its underwhelming not having 1080 support. Then again people on here are not really representative of the normal population.

Funny you mention Sony displays. I dont think I'd get one in the UK, the Hitachi, pioneer and panny's all look better imo.

Cheers

Ims

 

Well, even in the US today, there are a very few panels capable of 1080p, and they're all very expensive.
For the UK, 720p will be the standard for the next 30 years, knowing how things progress here

 

Your "little better" comment gives me the impression that you belive normal PC text would be next to unreadable at 720p on an ED screen, eh?

 

Not sure what you mean, but an ED can't display 720p...?

And ED could "accept" a 720p image but it wont be able to pisplay it, instead it will downscale it to 480p.

On a true 720p display, PC text could be readable, depending on the size obviously...

My "little bit better" wasn't very clear i must admit, comment just means that a plasma displaying a downscaled image (from 720p to 480p) is better than a normal 480i image, or even a straight 480p by itself, but still not even close to a true HD image.

Not sure how it came off though.

 

Yeah, 720p as in the designation for the signal. I suppose we could claim that a 42" HD plasma can't display 720p either as those screens are physicaly 1024x768 and hence require the image to be resampled. Heck, we could even claim that the highest end LCD screens can't display 720p as they are 1920x1080 native and also obviously require resampling. However, isn't all that just nitpicking, considering 720p is a designation for signals?

But my question is; what do you think a 720p signal would be like on a 852x480 ED dsplay with normal PC text like we find here on this forum?

 

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I was saying that downsampling a 720p image to 480p doesn not give you a HD image.
To be honest i'm not too sure how Plasmas with a 1024x768 handle 720p since 720p is actually 1420x720 (widescreen). Different sets will handle it differently.

A 720p signal with text downsampled to 480p wouldn't look too pleasing on the eye (see: blurry mess). But it really depends on the size of the text.

 

Both systems should easily be able to output a very nice signal at 480i/480p. What will probably be more important at this resolution is the quality of the AA and Anisotropic implementations, and other aspects of the graphics (like texture resolution, color depth, # of polygons, art direction, etc).

Nite_Hawk

 

If the cables come in the mail today to hook my pc up to my projector I could tell you what it looks like. The Avalaunch dashboard at 720p looked fine though.

 

I am trying to get across the fact that I never claimed that it does.

They all handle it well enough to be clasified as HD. (and 720p is not 1480x720, but rather 1280x720)

Again I'm speaking of normal font size such as found by default on this forum. I think you are dramaticly overestemating the degegradation in such a situation as well. Obviously, it isn't going to be as sharp as native resolution, but I wouldn't consider it a "blurry mess" by any means. See for yourself:
http://sunflower.com/~kyleb/720ponED.jpg

 

Not quite.
They actually said that by 2010 all of their programmes will be broadcast in High Definition. Alot of the main shows should be HD before then. They have already recorded some HD programmes for BBC America, so it shouldn't be too long before we get some.

I don't have space for a plasma screen, so until I can replace my 32" CRT for a 32" HD CRT I won't be going HD. I think the Xbox360 and PS3 will be the main reason why people start buying HD TV just like the PS3 helped DVD become so popular.

 

What I hate is you walk into a mass commercial outlet like Walmart and they have all these "HD TVs" and NONE of them mention what resolution they support. And after checking around they seem to label some of their Standard Digital TVs as HD TVs which is not right.

While it is above most consumers heads, the goal should be to familiarize them. Right now in the US all they would need to do is: HD TV 720p and HD TV 1080i.

That would take minimal effort and let consumers at least have a BASIC idea of WHAT they are buying.

Not that I would EVER buy a tv at Walmart, but people do all the time. I hate the idea that they are overpaying and/or not getting what they THINK they are getting.

 

That is just marketing though, and it happens everywhere. Just like Nvidia passed of the Geforce4mx as "DX8.1 compatable" which it is even though it is DX7 level hardware. I doubt we will ever see a stop put to tricks like that, be it in videocards, TVs or anything else.

 

I find it ironic that someone says they don't have "space" for a Plasma, but do for a super-bulky 32" CRT (assuming its a good one, like a WEGA, it'll take up 36" wide, and alot more depth) Whereas a 42" plasma can be had as small as 40" wide, and much smaller vertically and depth wise.

Not to mention that the options for placing a flatpanel are way more flexible than CRT. You can hang it on wall, fix it on a swivel mount, put it on a stand, etc.

 

You can also get 37" plasmas which are only 36" wide, but I'm guessing he wants to use an in-wall entertainment center nook which barely fits a the width of a 32" CRT without the side mounted speakers like the WEGAs have. My parrents are in exactly that situation in their home, and hence were very limited in options when replaceing the TV they had die on them a few months back.