Aria.co.uk are fantastic for all things LCD. They were the cheapest non trade place to buy a LCD/TFT monitor for many months, don't know if they still are, but they're good.
The LCD panel itself is usually made by one of a (VERY) few manufacturers, so you're likely to get the same LCD unit in 7 or 8 TV's by a whole range of companies like Panasonic, Samsung, TECO, HannSpree, Hyundai etc.. It's not about the name much anymore, because not many companies make their own stuff any more.
Aria do a fab TV, with a Samsung panel (I know, hopefully not contradicting my self with the above!), in either 32" or 37" sizes, but the rest of the telly is made by someone else so it's pretty cheap, and very good on image quality.
What ever you do though, make sure you've got a decent 2/3 year warranty, and most importantly ****check the warranty fine print on dead pixels.**** This can be a big pi$$er to have 4/5 green/white/black pixels on your screen but the manufacturer says it can have 'up to 8' or something before they consider it faulty. For about 25 quid, aria sell a checking service so you can be sure.
...and no, they don't give me any commision!!!
Tv's
Started by
screech
, Nov 16 2007 08:05 PM
17 replies to this topic
#18
Dan
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- TMF+ Member
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- 21,354 posts
On Sabbatical
Posted 21 November 2007 - 12:52 AM
A couple of things we should all bear in mind at the moment when buying TVs:
ALL TVs with a scart or RCA video input (and possibly even an RF input now) can receive digital TV through a seperate tuner. You don't NEED a TV with a built in digital tuner.
Yes after 2012 in theory all the analogue transmitters will be turned off but expect them to come back on again along the south coast in 2014 when the French start their digital broadcasts, their system interferes with ours and ours with theirs. There WILL be problems and many areas that can't receive a digital PAL signal at all once the French system is up and running.
Not everyone will be able to get the digital signal through an aerial as (very nearly) all of us can with the analogue.
Digital picture quality is worse than good analogue PAL, by definition. Digital looks awful on CRT TVs (unless they are Trinitron) and analogue looks awful on LCD TVs. Broadcasters are currently downgrading the analogue quality on purpose in order to make digital look better than it is. LCD and Plasma screens are simply not very good, they are very very rarely used professionally for anything other than framing. We would rather lug big heavy tubes around that actually produce a good picture.
Almost every LCD and Plasma screen cartridge in the world that is sold by whatever TV manufacturer is made by LG. They have the largest factory for LCD and Plasma production and nearly all screens are made there nomatter what name is on the TV. ALL OLCD screens are made by LG as they own the patent. There are very very few exceptions to this.
There will NEVER be a major broadcast of HD over the air in Britain, you will be still able to get it on cable or sattelite but not through an aerial. The HD signal takes up an awful lot of bandwidth and there would only be room for very few channels in the space available. There would only be roughly a third of the currently available digital terrestrial channels. There is no way they could force broadcasters to close channels. There is currently a very small scale HD test going on from Crystal Palace by the BBC, it isn't going well. The HD that will be transmitted in not very different from analogue PAL anyhow, they will use 720 I and only 4-4-2 colour depth at a pretty low bit rate. Roughly 7% better than analogue PAL but a LOT better than digital PAL and far better than any NTSC (which is why Americans love HD). There is currently not enough HD equipment in the world to make enough programmes in full HD to fill a channel and what is available costs a fortune to buy or rent. Roughly 50 times as much as the analogue equivalent. Don't believe SKY, everything that they transmit as HD was NOT originally shot in HD.
Hardly anyone will need a new aerial to receive digital through it. Those big gold birdcage things are junk and don't work. If you've got good line of site to a nearby main Tx, use a log periodic antenna. In any other case use a Yagi (which is probably what you already have). Almost nobody has to use the wideband type that people keep trying to sell us all on, and they don't work very well.
It's all a big con to make everyone buy a new TV.
For picture quality at the moment my personal favourite LCDs are from Polaroid. I believe they are one of the few companies making their own screens and they look very good to me.
ALL TVs with a scart or RCA video input (and possibly even an RF input now) can receive digital TV through a seperate tuner. You don't NEED a TV with a built in digital tuner.
Yes after 2012 in theory all the analogue transmitters will be turned off but expect them to come back on again along the south coast in 2014 when the French start their digital broadcasts, their system interferes with ours and ours with theirs. There WILL be problems and many areas that can't receive a digital PAL signal at all once the French system is up and running.
Not everyone will be able to get the digital signal through an aerial as (very nearly) all of us can with the analogue.
Digital picture quality is worse than good analogue PAL, by definition. Digital looks awful on CRT TVs (unless they are Trinitron) and analogue looks awful on LCD TVs. Broadcasters are currently downgrading the analogue quality on purpose in order to make digital look better than it is. LCD and Plasma screens are simply not very good, they are very very rarely used professionally for anything other than framing. We would rather lug big heavy tubes around that actually produce a good picture.
Almost every LCD and Plasma screen cartridge in the world that is sold by whatever TV manufacturer is made by LG. They have the largest factory for LCD and Plasma production and nearly all screens are made there nomatter what name is on the TV. ALL OLCD screens are made by LG as they own the patent. There are very very few exceptions to this.
There will NEVER be a major broadcast of HD over the air in Britain, you will be still able to get it on cable or sattelite but not through an aerial. The HD signal takes up an awful lot of bandwidth and there would only be room for very few channels in the space available. There would only be roughly a third of the currently available digital terrestrial channels. There is no way they could force broadcasters to close channels. There is currently a very small scale HD test going on from Crystal Palace by the BBC, it isn't going well. The HD that will be transmitted in not very different from analogue PAL anyhow, they will use 720 I and only 4-4-2 colour depth at a pretty low bit rate. Roughly 7% better than analogue PAL but a LOT better than digital PAL and far better than any NTSC (which is why Americans love HD). There is currently not enough HD equipment in the world to make enough programmes in full HD to fill a channel and what is available costs a fortune to buy or rent. Roughly 50 times as much as the analogue equivalent. Don't believe SKY, everything that they transmit as HD was NOT originally shot in HD.
Hardly anyone will need a new aerial to receive digital through it. Those big gold birdcage things are junk and don't work. If you've got good line of site to a nearby main Tx, use a log periodic antenna. In any other case use a Yagi (which is probably what you already have). Almost nobody has to use the wideband type that people keep trying to sell us all on, and they don't work very well.
It's all a big con to make everyone buy a new TV.
For picture quality at the moment my personal favourite LCDs are from Polaroid. I believe they are one of the few companies making their own screens and they look very good to me.
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