Telly

[pilchardthecat]

After 18 years of fault free ownership, my trusty JVC 25" CRT 4:3 telly (with dolby surround sound) has decided to give up the ghost

I am therefore going to purchase one of those new-fangled flat screen high definition thingys for my small children to break / smear with jam / whatever.

It needs to be 37" in diagonal girth, and have exactly one thousand and eighty peas.

I rarely watch tv (probably only once or twice a month), but i do watch films quite often. I was hoping to spend no more than £400.

Any thoughts on what i should look out for, other than ensuring it posesses the correct number of peas? There are so many different ones with wildly different prices, but they all look equally shiny and spangly and so forth. How on earth does one choose?

[LukeBird]

1080p on a 37" will be largely irrelevant, the difference between 1080i and 1080p is only really noticeable at mid 40s+.
720p/1080i will be fine.
As to what to buy, can't help there I'm afraid. I just picked the one that had the right amount of plugs for me and which one I liked the look of in store.

[plover]

Good point about connections as this Toshiba looks good at £350 for 37" and Freeview HD built in; but looks to have no SCART connections only 4 * HDMI connections.

Are you expecting to connected other devices and do they have HDMI connectors or SCART only.

[CDP]

It's probably worth looking for one that supports 24P and Sony now do a set that includes a DVB-T2 receiver which receives high definition signals. I'd certainly want the T2 receiver as at some point they will drop the SD signals (at least on the current compression algorithm) and then you'd need a set top box.

[bobthemonkey]

Panasonic 37X20.

Job done.

[CatherineJ]

brickwall said:

What Hifi have a good archive of reviews on TVs, and also 'best buy' recommendations.

I've just bought a 37" Sony EX503 as a 2nd TV - seems good enough. IIRC it was slightly more than £400 though.

Have been to see one of those today. Sony were doing it for £799 but it did come with a "free" blue ray player, 5 year guarantee and installation.

[Deva Link]

bobthemonkey said:

Panasonic 37X20.

Job done.

I would second that too - I went from an old 4:3 29" Sony that I won in a competition about 15 years ago which had a fantastic picture quality, to a 37" Panny Plasma and I very pleased with the Panny. Use it for watching standard definition Freeview.

I think LCD looks smeary. You don't get that at all with Plasma.

[pilchardthecat]

plover said:

Good point about connections as this Toshiba looks good at £350 for 37" and Freeview HD built in; but looks to have no SCART connections only 4 * HDMI connections.

Are you expecting to connected other devices and do they have HDMI connectors or SCART only.

I have actually bought one of these. It hasn't turned up yet obviously, but according to the site i bought it from it does have 2 scart thingys.

Looking forward to arriving (belatedly) into the 21st century

[CDP]

pilchardthecat said:

plover said:

Good point about connections as this Toshiba looks good at £350 for 37" and Freeview HD built in; but looks to have no SCART connections only 4 * HDMI connections.

Are you expecting to connected other devices and do they have HDMI connectors or SCART only.

I have actually bought one of these. It hasn't turned up yet obviously, but according to the site i bought it from it does have 2 scart thingys.

Looking forward to arriving (belatedly) into the 21st century

Looks really good value to me and it's got that all important Freeview HD. They are bound to change the codecs, the new data rates mean they can get far more channels through a multiplex or run HD. MPEG4 is massively more efficient than MPEG2 for example and bandwidth is (a lot of) money.

[Glosphil]

CatherineJ said:

brickwall said:

What Hifi have a good archive of reviews on TVs, and also 'best buy' recommendations.

I've just bought a 37" Sony EX503 as a 2nd TV - seems good enough. IIRC it was slightly more than £400 though.

Have been to see one of those today. Sony were doing it for £799 but it did come with a "free" blue ray player, 5 year guarantee and installation.

Buy it from Amazon for £579.99 and Sony will refund the £86.38 VAT so the final price is £493.61 .Normal 1 year Sony warranty andd no free Blu-ray player - you can purchase the Sony 370 Blu-ray player for £119.99 and Sony will refund the VAT element, so £102.12 . Think you can buy an extended warranty from Sony?

[CDP]

Glosphil said:

CatherineJ said:

brickwall said:

What Hifi have a good archive of reviews on TVs, and also 'best buy' recommendations.

I've just bought a 37" Sony EX503 as a 2nd TV - seems good enough. IIRC it was slightly more than £400 though.

Have been to see one of those today. Sony were doing it for £799 but it did come with a "free" blue ray player, 5 year guarantee and installation.

Buy it from Amazon for £579.99 and Sony will refund the £86.38 VAT so the final price is £493.61 .Normal 1 year Sony warranty andd no free Blu-ray player - you can purchase the Sony 370 Blu-ray player for £119.99 and Sony will refund the VAT element, so £102.12 . Think you can buy an extended warranty from Sony?

I thought Sony now include 3 years warranty these days?

[Parabola]

bobthemonkey said:

Panasonic 37X20.

Job done.

That's what I just did. £350 from Richer Sounds (if you take in any old telly)
We are very happy together!