KDL46W2000 and HD capability

P

Pennington

Guest
I am confused by some of the jargon on HD relative to the KDL46W2000.

In the HD Buyer's Guide it says "there are three types of HDTVs available in the market: HD ready, HD compatible and HDTV. Both HDTV and HD ready TVs have HD inputs as well as HD screen but, HDTV TV’s have built-in HD tuner which enables the user to receive free off-air HD channels via aerial/antenna"

My question is does the KDL46W2000 have a built-in HD Tuner because:
1 The image of the TV on the Sony Website shows HD1080
2 The words say 46"Full HD
3 The Logo says HD Ready
4 The spec says the model has an integrated digital TV tuner but does not explicitly say HD?
 
Hi Pennington,
Think I can answer most of these questions for you. High-Definition is a minefield of terms and misunderstandings and we all needed clarification at some point (at sometimes still do)

The number '1080' refers to how many rows of pixels(dots) the screen has.

There are a number of HD formats. These include various resolutions up to 1080 (1920 pixels across x 1080 pixels high is Full HD or '1080')
(1280 pixels across x 720 pixels high is known as '720')

The 'Native Resolution' of a TV is how many pixels it is made up of. Full HD would be 1920 x 1080 pixels.

A TV with less pixels is not Full HD.

A TV with less pixels than full HD would normally be expected to take a Full HD signal and display it on the TV, though it would do 'Scaling' (That is the term for taking a picture of one resolution (e.g: 1920 x 1080 pixels) and recalculating it so it displays on a screen of a different amount of pixels etc)

'HD Ready' means that the TV will take a 1280x720 (720P etc) signal as well as a 1920x1080 (1080i) signal and display it (but it doesn't mean it won't scale it down to run on the screen's lesser resolution. See the screen's native resolution specification on the screen you are interested in). All a TV needs for the 'HD Ready' logo wopuld be to recieve HD signals. It wouldn't have to actually display them in High Definition in order to gain this badge. This is why the Full HD logo is more important. There are TV's with completely standard (Non-HD) resolution just like old TV's but still has the somewhat misleading 'HD Ready' logo on it.

Ok, the TV you mention says '46" Full HD'. This would mean that the screen's resolution is 1920 x 1080 (Full HD). A Full HD signal would be displayed exactly as expected (Each dot/pixel on the signal's 1920x1080 image would get it's own pixel and not be scaled to fit the panel which results in loss of quality)

As the TV has an integrated Digital Tuner, it means it probably has an inbuilt Digital Freeview box allowing you to get the free extra channels above BB1, BB2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

All in all, this TV looks like a rather nice set. Of course, there's specification and reality. I woul recommend viewing the set in use at your local retailer and purchasing from there etc.

Any more questions on this and HD, please don't hesitate to ask.

Regards,

Dan.
 
Thanks that's a bit clearer but is there a difference between a digital tuner and an HD Tuner ie can a digital tuner be anything other than an HD tuner?

When Freeview starts broadcasting in HD would I receive and display HD with a digital tuner? The reason I am still puzelled is that I have SKY Digital which presumably has a digital tuner and therefore if I want to receive HD with SKY I have to upgrade to SKY HD implying the tuner is different - is it?
 
Hi Pennington,
Digital & Analogue are a differet thing to HD & Non-HD. It's like comparing engines to wheels. they're part of the same subject, but seperate from each other.

A digital tuner tunes digitally. The fact that it's digital has nothing to with whether it is HD or not.

Digital Freeview is a signal sent out across the UK which requires a Digital Freeview Tuner to read it. It contains a number of free channels that you'd normally recieve if you had Sky or cable etc (BBC3 et al).

Lets take each format and have a look at the number of pixels (dots) on-screen:

Normal (Non-HD UK TV)
- 720 Pixels across by 576 down, equals 414,720 pixels on-screen. This is now know as SD (Standard Definition)

720 HD
- 1280 Pixels across by 720 down, equals 921,600 pixels on-screen. Over double the amount of pixels of SD.

1080 HD (Full HD)
- 1920 Pixels across by 1080 down, equals 2,073,600 pixels on-screen. To have equipment that can deal with updating 2 million+ pixels 24 or more times a second takes a huge amount of computing power on a digital tuner.

A standard digital tuner like that contained in the TV you're looking at does not support High Definition TV decoding. It takes a great deal of computing power and to do that realistically takes a couple of hundred pounds of cost, and plenty of space for the cooling of all this computing power.

The Digital Tuner on your TV will not support High Definition signals coming to it. It won't even consider them. Those channels just won't appear.

Your Sky box will be based on technology that will be a few years old by now. Only recently has it become feasible to be dealing with signals of 2 million pixels from a TV signal due to the speed of computing required to ddecode that signal and display it.

You will need to get a Sky HD box. I think these are available from SKy for around the £200 mark, along with an additional subscription payment per month of £10 or so. For that £200 or so that the box costs, you're getting the equivalent of Sky+ along with the built-in computing power and storage needed to deal with High Definition TV signals sent to it by Sky.

To have made a Sky HD box 5 years ago would probably have cost Sky £1000 or more due to the fact that it is only very recently that the processing power has become cheap enough to do this sort of thing.

I cannot confirm if Freeview will start broadcasting in HD. It seems quite up in the air at the moment, but if Freeview did start broadcasting in HD, you would be needing to buy a freeview tuner (you'd get a seperate box) that has the computing power to deal with all that data.

Hope that's clear. If not, ask away. No trouble at all.

Dan:)
 
Thanks :thumbsup: You make it very clear.

But how many people are aware iof this I wonder. If as you say
"A standard digital tuner like that contained in the TV you're looking at does not support High Definition TV decoding"
the Sony product spec advertising this set as Full HD would appear misleading. Although I guess the TV will display HD pictures from an HD DVD Player .

If buyers of HD TVs will need to buy an additional tuner to the one fitted, to view HD Broadcasts there surely should be a notice on the equipment to that effect or a notice that the TV is fitted with a "Digital SD Tuner" I presume the "HD Ready" notice avoids breach of the Sales of Goods Act.

From people I talk to many interpret the logo HD Ready as meaning, its ready to receive HD but from what you say it can't without an additional tuner.

That said, what true HD TVs are available as it seems Sony don't have any?
 
As I had no response I thought perhaps my question was too vague.

My expecations regarding an HD1080 were that it had a built-in Digital HD Tuner and my reasons for this were as follows.

My 20" CRT TV has a built in tuner - I didn't have to buy another tuner to watch SD TV so having bought an HD TV I naively thought I wouldn't have to buy another tuner to watch HD TV. Its got nothing to do with who is currently broadcasting HD as Sony says the TV is future proof. Am I being unreasonable in my expectations?:lease:
 
Hi Pennington,
Sorry for the delay, just been unusually busy recently. Agreed your CRT (SD) has a SD tuner in it. The thing with HD broadcasting is that we to some degree still in it's infancy.

There's no freeview HD signal going through the airwaves, and a TV manufacturer wouldn't know if you'd be going with SKy or Virgin etc so wouldn't even know if you'd even need an HD tuner - A product for which there is no signal being broadcast for.

It makes little sense for the TV manufacturers at this point in time to make a
tuner now as Digital HD TV across the airwaves for free just isn't happening at the moment and not even sure if it's going to (There's a petition online somewhere trying to hassle the goverment into keeping some free frequency range/bandwidth for free HD service signals rather than selling off all the licences to all the frequencies:eek:).

Adding an HD Digital Tuner would be an unacceptable risk and cost for a manufacturer, though I do agree all the logo's and terminology is pretty confusiong and in some cases misleading.:suicide:

I'd say it's partly the responsibility of the retailer to ensure that the customer is aware of what the client needs in terms of equipment etc & setup in order to be viewing HD signals etc. This is one of the reasons you'd use a local retailer (Sevenoaks etc) over an online one, but many people choose to buy a product on the internet without getting an informed view over it.

I'd personally suggest that if you've bought your HD TV online then you must also take much of that responsibility of not having taken a face-to-face route by sacrificing the inherent value in a local retailer against the cost factor. Perhaps you did buy from a local retailer, I do not know. I don't mean this to come across the wrong way, but I find my retailer provides excellent support, informed knowledge and not once have I had finance, extra warranty, or even a sale even remotely pushed on me.

I do agree the whole subject is a minefield of logo's and acronyms etc, something which many do not understand which is also partly a fault of the whole HD terminology. 'HD Ready' I feel is an awful thing, in the sense that is suggests that the TV is high-definition and doesn't suggest that a TV with this logo may be missing a number of things you'd be expecting of a TV and there's nothing to suggest you need to look into further.

Hope this provides food for thought. If an HD freeview service gets launched, I would certainly expect to see manufacturers starting to put HD tuners into their TV's, although initially you'd probably pay a premium for a TV that does this, but that being said the Early-Adopters will pay the premium which allows the price to drop through economies of scale etc.

The TV you've got is an HDTV. That is to say it can recieve and display HD signals. Yes there's more to it, but yes you have to look into things more. The important thing is that you're happy with the image quality etc and the product seuits your needs. AT the moment no HD freeview service is being brodcast / or is even set up. Therfore having an HD tuner in a TV wouldn't be possible, after all the standards have not yet even been set to my knowledge.

Here's a useful link about the 'HD Ready' logo

Hope this post comes across ok, some of it is attributing responsibiility to you the buyer, but otherwise the rest is the minefield of acronyms and logos and in many cases lack of high-street large-retailer product knowledge and in some cases honesty.

I must also reflect that if you see a logo on something (ie, a builder you're considering has a 'Member of x or y guild of master somethings'), you'd be wise to take a closer look at what it is and the same goes for elctronics, a notorious area of confusing terms etc

Fortunately you're in the right place to ask these questions at AVForums. I found myself in a similiar position when I first got into proper hifi etc a couple of years ago, but I'm kind of niggly on research etc and did all of mine in advance.

I'd like to suggest now you're here you're in a much better position to find out about your next electronics purchase so there is good that comes from here.:smashin:

At the end of the day also, isn't it about product ownership satisfaction at the end of the day? There's plenty of Pioneer owners with screens that only have a resolution of 1024x768 or 1024x1024 (widescreen with rectangle pixels in case you're wondering) who are extremely happy with their products. End of the day it's the case to Demo Demo Demo, use a reputable retailer and do your homework.

I'd still be surprised if when you get an HD source (Sky HD, £200 for a box and £10/month extra. Or Virgin Media V+ Service (£75 box, some free HD channels) that you weren't impressed. HD can be great and I'm ometimes a set can produce quality beyond it's pixels would suggest and at the end of the day it's all bout the end result and not always the spec if the spec isn't full HD.

Pennington, if there's any more questions, please ask away. I'm happy to help.

Dan:)
 
Many thanks for the detailed explanation. In fact I did purchase my KDL46W2000 through a Sony Centre for the reasons you stated and because I am visually impared I wanted a home installation service. and backup in case of problems later.

It didn't ocurr to me to ask the guys in the Sony Centre about the tuner. I did ask about the HD pictures they were displaying and some where from a Blue Ray DVD Player and others from SKY HD.
Maybe I wouldn't have asked the question about HD Tuners in this forum if I hadn't have read an HDTV Buyers Guide I found on the Internet whcih seemed to imply there were HDTVs around with built-in HD Tuners.

I remember analysing the various claims about HD Ready before I purchased the set which is why I went for a 1080p model but nowhere in my serach did the blurb address the tuner issue. As you say, as there are no free HD transmissions at present, it explains why manufactures have not installed an HD Tuner in the European models.

Regarding the picture quality I am very pleased with the result although transmission quality does vary. I was amazed at how sharp some old black and white films were and how poor some old colour films were. The best quality has been from the Blue Planet series - if all broadcasts can be this good I won't need HD. And I can see the picture at last. I had to sit too close to my 20"CRT set to see any detail or use a telescope from the chair.

I don't watch sport so didn't notice motion blur until this weekend when a friend wanted to watch the football. He noticed that the advertising banners at the edge of the pitch went out of focus when the camera panned the pitch. Is this normal on a KDL46W2000?
 
I don't watch sport so didn't notice motion blur until this weekend when a friend wanted to watch the football. He noticed that the advertising banners at the edge of the pitch went out of focus when the camera panned the pitch. Is this normal on a KDL46W2000?

Hi Pennington, glad the info came in useful. As for panning issues, many screens do suffer a bit from motion-blur, but relating it to a SOny I do not know if this is normal or not (guessing probably is). Check & see if your manual mentions anything to do with sports mode or motion-blur as there may be an optio to set to improve this type of thing.

Hope fully someone knows this model can contribute regarding to the motion-blur....

Dan.
 
The UK version of this TV does not have an HD tuner because there are no UK TV broadcasts. I believe that the EU version of this TV does have a tuner that will decode MPEG4 HD broadcasts, and it might in theory be possible to upgrade the UK version. However, it is by no means certain that UK HD on Freeview, when it does come, will use the same system. Ofcom are pushing for a more efficient modulation scheme DVB-T2 which will not be available before 2009 at the earliest. So for the time beng you need either a satellite receiver or a cable box, either of which will work with your TV.
 

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