Cheap televisions

[Ken L]

Just ordered myself a new TV.

There are some fantastic offers on big tellys at the moment and the two best ones by a long way are a Panasonic and an LG - both at £550.

 

I opted for the Panny and thought I'd post up the offers in case anyone else is tempted.

 

The Panny is only 760p against the LG's 1080p but the reliability and 5 year guarantee swung it for me.

[hembo]

cheers ken .i am going to tempt fate but i have too wait for my current tv to die first.you are absolutely right that there are incredible bargains around and hopefully that will be the case when i have to take the plunge.

[Ken L]

Keep an eye on this site. Most of the best deals arround get flagged up on there - and not just TV's either.

[Vagabond]

Won't these become redundant when digital becomes the only option ?

 

I'm putting off buying a new one as long as possible.

 

..or are modern TVs readily convertable to digital?

[chesters1]

"digital" is a misnomer ,any telly with a suitable set top box * can receive digital channels (either via freeview or sky or freesat) so your old TV is fine

 

*the box can also be a digital recorder but ensure its a twin tuner version (one tuner will go to your telly one to the recorder) they tend to be freeview but you can record satellite etc on them if its a decent machine.recording HD of any type is expensive at the moment compared to "normal" telly

 

you can record "digital" on a video recorder but it will need a seperate set top box for itself .the set top boxes are about £15 a pop for the cheap versions ,tuner sensitivity is what you want our old pace Ondigital box gets signals far superior to our telly and two set top boxes

 

HD tellies usually have freeview built in but its not (at the moment) going to produce HD pictures only upscaled "HD" as freeview is not HD so the tuners are obselete in an HD tv,freesat can be HD as can sky and ordinary satellite boxes get freesat and more and in HD if you buy an HD version of satellite reciever (above my means but the prices are dropping).beware of seemingly high pixels as well ,a 900 pixel tv wont show 900 bits of film so will be better than 720p it will just show 720p stuff only 720p and 1080p (or i) are used .the 900 pixels will work if the tv is used as a monitor on a PC but wait is there a 900 resolution?

 

you may though need a better aerial to get good freeview ,even with our superdooper tri dooda aerial freeview is intermittant.

what will disapear are the analogue channels from your local transmitter in my mind a great step backwards for some veiwers who will never get good digital signals.

 

 

720p Tv's are already obselete (but you will find it hard to get 1080p on a smallscreen telly at the moment) 1080p (or i) are the minimum you want as the "HD" specification is rising all the time ,soon i expect transmitted 720p will quickly disappear once tv transmitters find how much power is needed to transmit 1080p and above so will grab the 720p bandwidth to bolster the 1080p bandwidth

 

Freeview = comes down your aerial via a freeview set top box or built in freeview tuner in a telly

 

freesat = a name that describes free satellite i.e you get the box then pay nothing.humax is a common maker

 

sky freesat = you get a sky box then pay £20? for a couple of channels all the rest are unscrambled but the sky box scrambles them .the card then unscrambles them

 

satellite receiver a box that gets satellite (including freesat),with a decent dish and motor can get thousands of channels but you need to like foreigners to appreciate them

 

HD better pictures but be wary of upscalers that merely interpolate ordinary pictures (dvd players and set top boxes and recorders also do this unfortunately)_,humax make HD freesat boxes and HD sat receivers are available ,sky supply HD versions of their progs for a price! but to appreciate HD you will need an full HD (not HD ready) TV otherwise you'l regret saving money buying a cheap 720p telly when you see a full HD telly playing full HD programs.

 

blueray the DVD player you will need to play HD movies ,ordinary HD players didnt catch on but are available so beware

 

at the moment TRUE HD cannot be transmitted nor are any DVD's TRUE HD the technology cannot cope with the huge amount of data needed to film and store it ,the technology in use at the moment does not grab every pixel in every frame so does nothing more than interpolate it.at the moment HD tv is inferior to any CRT tv ,the pixels maybe there but the refresh rate is rubbish so motion blur occurs

Edited May 8, 2009 by chesters1