My first 100hz Television

[bonzobanana]

I bought a Thomson 28WX411S from the clearance section of skybuy including a dvd/vcr unit for £250. Not got the dvd/vcr unit yet though.

Anyway its an older model probably 18 months out of date. Presumably stored up for a while and forgotten about. Definitely new and pristine when I opened the box.

I'm not normally a fan of 100hz sets and to be honest it was more or less a lottery as the skybuy description was so vague. I knew it was 28" had a totally flat screen and virtual surround and that was it. I was expecting it to be 50hz with 2 speakers and the near useless dolby virtual surround using just the 2 speakers.

Turns out this model has four forward facing speakers and a rear up facing subwoofer. The virtual surround actually works well. Its about 20 watts per channel plus the subwoofer. The tv features 3 scarts of which 2 are RGB compatible and 2 are s-video compatible. There are front av inputs too. If you plug something into AV3 and the front AV sockets they interfere with each other as they are electrically connected. So have to turn off the AV3 device when using the front av sockets. Not a problem.

Anyway compared to my old Sharp tv the difference between RGB, S-video and composite is less dramatic. The Thomson does a much better job with s-video and composite and I was surprised how much better this is. The sharp was pretty awful it has to be said in this regard. When it comes to RGB there is no doubt that the Sharp delivered slightly more picture detail. Not much but enough to notice. However the Thomson provides near perfect geometry, total ntsc compatibility and a flicker free image that is very watchable. The sharp was awful for ntsc and it was occasionally flickery, mainly on ntsc material.

One annoying thing about 100hz is it makes ntsc to pal dvd conversion more jerky. Only slightly but again noticable.

To be honest I would have prefered the set to be 50hz with everything else being equal but then thats not possible as I would lose the 2nd rgb scart socket, excellent geometry and numerous other little features they've added to this model over the more basic offerings.

I'm very happy with the set and have already enjoyed a few qames and films on it.

One things for sure I've never heard a tv set without satellite speakers sound better than this one. The subwoofer is capable of a some real impactful bass sounds.

time to ebay my saturn, playstation and dreamcast lightguns I suppose.

[Cynthia 7]

Wow, Bonzobanana,

That certainly is a bargain. I have often looked at the Sky AV items for sale in the monthly magazine but they don't mention the manufacturer so I have ignored them.

I am a great fan of 100 Hz, having had a top of the range Grundig television for thirteen years which had this feature. We never noticed any of the problems encountered on today's (perhaps overprocessed) 100 Hz models. We have three other televisions in the house, all 50 Hz but none have ever matched the Grundig picture.

What is amazing with your incredible purchase is that the sound is so good. That is extremely important and if I can get away without a home cinema system with my next purchase I would be happier. My Denon hi-fi system (including subwoofer) has been disconnected as the cables looked such a mess although most were flat, under carpet, cables.

We stayed with French friends, who had a three year old Thomson flat screen, and the picture was quite stunning. It had been trouble free too.

Enjoy your bargain of a lifetime!

[bonzobanana]

Thanks. Now that I've owned a 100hz set for a few days and lived with it I can see the appeal but I still think 50hz has the edge in picture quality at least for fine detail. I've said previously that I thought 100hz sets weren't worth considering and your better off going for a 50hz set or a tv with a progressive processed image like Philips Pixelplus or Panasonic's Acuity. I still stand by that but have to say the Thomsons fringe benefits being a high end model make up for it. Certainly the Thomson massacres the Sharp in almost every way except for fine detail on pal rgb images. Even then the Sharp would have worse geometry and images that go from white to black cause a small momentary resizing of the picture on the sharp which is common to a lot of sets nowadays. The Thomson seems immune to this so far. Generally construction is very impressive. It even uses teletext information to tell you what programs are next, its a very clever telly.