32” smart tv for 8 year old
Discussion
Budget creep? How much is that TV now? I paid under £200 in 2020 (Richer Sounds).
Not sure about the 1080p vs 720p, but I can say that even on the 32 inch screen the difference between BBC1 in SD and BBC1 in HD on freeview is very noticeable.
Not sure about the 1080p vs 720p, but I can say that even on the 32 inch screen the difference between BBC1 in SD and BBC1 in HD on freeview is very noticeable.
Edited by Scrump on Thursday 16th June 12:37
[quote] Not sure about the 1080p vs 720p, but I can say that even on the 32 inch screen the difference between BBC1 in SD and BBC1 in HD on freeview is very noticeable.
[/quote]
The difference in picture quality between BBC 1 SD and BBC 1 HD has very little to do with the screen resolution and is almost entirely down to the differences between a standard definition broadcast signal and one at HD.
Although a TV might be labelled '720p HD Ready' the pixel count of the screen will be something like 1366 x 768. The alternative Full HD screen will have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. On the face of it most folk would pick the higher resolution as an obvious choice because 'more is better, right?', but that's not always the case.
At this screen size, and unless someone is sitting on top if the screen rather than sitting a little way off, then the pixel resolution of the panel doesn't make much difference in the overall scheme of things. What's more significant is the quality of the video processing and scaling - and that applies even with a 1080i/1080p source because the scaling and processing is always active - and the quality of the panel and its drivers.
With 32" TVs I've looked at in the past, it wasn't uncommon to find that the 1080p screen gave a worse result with SD source material because the maths involved in upscaling 576i to 1080p involved a lot more calculations.
1366x768 is about 1 million pixels. 1920 x 1080 is about 2 million pixels. That's a lot more data points to calculate every 50th of a second for a 50Hz TV picture. The TV is trying to best-guess what half a million and 1.5 million empty pixel spaces should be for 768p and 1080p respectively when upscaling from SD at just over 0.4 million pixels per frame of video.
Downscaling 1080i to 768p is less of a task because because the pixels of the source image already have data. The TV just has to decide how to merge some of them in reducing the resolution, and that's an easier job.
Ideally you'd go see the TVs side-by-side to choose which is best and whether scaling is still a problem. Chip technology improves over time, but currently there's a shortage of silicon and it's pushing prices up or causing corners to be cut in the same way that we see shrinkflation. Going to these lengths for a demo at this level is not really practical for a number of reasons. Aside from finding a dealer that has both set up on demo side-by-side, you'd need to go through the settings of each TV and switch off a lot of the picture processing that operates by default in Shop Demo mode. Stuff such as contrast and colour enhancement, motion smoothing, any ambient light sensing etc. You'd then need to disable overscan and set the picture controls including sharpness to the correct levels so that each TV was working optimally. Unless you have access to something with test patterns on it, and the correct knowledge to know what to look for, then setting up this kind of A:B comparison is just too much work for a one-off purchase, especially where the difference is £20.
This size of set is seldom reviewed professionally any more either. Most purchases are made on price and availability because these go in to bedrooms or kitchens. They're rarely the family's main TV.
What's left then is to look at how the set will be used. If it's mostly streaming then the screen's pixel count won't matter. However, if there's going to be console gaming then I'd suggest going with the 1080p set.
[/quote]
The difference in picture quality between BBC 1 SD and BBC 1 HD has very little to do with the screen resolution and is almost entirely down to the differences between a standard definition broadcast signal and one at HD.
Although a TV might be labelled '720p HD Ready' the pixel count of the screen will be something like 1366 x 768. The alternative Full HD screen will have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. On the face of it most folk would pick the higher resolution as an obvious choice because 'more is better, right?', but that's not always the case.
At this screen size, and unless someone is sitting on top if the screen rather than sitting a little way off, then the pixel resolution of the panel doesn't make much difference in the overall scheme of things. What's more significant is the quality of the video processing and scaling - and that applies even with a 1080i/1080p source because the scaling and processing is always active - and the quality of the panel and its drivers.
With 32" TVs I've looked at in the past, it wasn't uncommon to find that the 1080p screen gave a worse result with SD source material because the maths involved in upscaling 576i to 1080p involved a lot more calculations.
1366x768 is about 1 million pixels. 1920 x 1080 is about 2 million pixels. That's a lot more data points to calculate every 50th of a second for a 50Hz TV picture. The TV is trying to best-guess what half a million and 1.5 million empty pixel spaces should be for 768p and 1080p respectively when upscaling from SD at just over 0.4 million pixels per frame of video.
Downscaling 1080i to 768p is less of a task because because the pixels of the source image already have data. The TV just has to decide how to merge some of them in reducing the resolution, and that's an easier job.
Ideally you'd go see the TVs side-by-side to choose which is best and whether scaling is still a problem. Chip technology improves over time, but currently there's a shortage of silicon and it's pushing prices up or causing corners to be cut in the same way that we see shrinkflation. Going to these lengths for a demo at this level is not really practical for a number of reasons. Aside from finding a dealer that has both set up on demo side-by-side, you'd need to go through the settings of each TV and switch off a lot of the picture processing that operates by default in Shop Demo mode. Stuff such as contrast and colour enhancement, motion smoothing, any ambient light sensing etc. You'd then need to disable overscan and set the picture controls including sharpness to the correct levels so that each TV was working optimally. Unless you have access to something with test patterns on it, and the correct knowledge to know what to look for, then setting up this kind of A:B comparison is just too much work for a one-off purchase, especially where the difference is £20.
This size of set is seldom reviewed professionally any more either. Most purchases are made on price and availability because these go in to bedrooms or kitchens. They're rarely the family's main TV.
What's left then is to look at how the set will be used. If it's mostly streaming then the screen's pixel count won't matter. However, if there's going to be console gaming then I'd suggest going with the 1080p set.
MJNewton said:
I’d suggest any TV that takes your fancy and a Firestick with the bonus of it always remaining uptodate and the remote is as simple yet effective as you could wish for (make sure you get the one with TV power and volume buttons so they can ditch the TV remote entirely)..
That's my logic. TV companies are in the business of selling TV's, so their smart offerings tend to stop being updated after a while, and stop working.We have Chromecasts everywhere and even the first one we bought are still working fine.
Ntv said:
I've generally slightly preferred Samsungs to LG. Very little in it, but slightly more user friendly for a kid (I have an 8 year old also!)
I'm starting to get disappointed with Samsung after being a fan for many years. We bought a expensive 65 inch Samsung a few years back and within a year there was a very slight discolouration on it. Now it has a very noticeable dark patch.My brother also has a large Samsung and you can see what looks like the back light LEDs through the screen. It's like a regular grid of very bright spots.
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