LCD or Plasma?

AGroucutt

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I currently have a Hatachi 42PD5200. I may sell this and get a new Plasma or LCD but not sure which. I may get SKY HD so thinking of something that will do 1080i/1080p.

Any suggestions?
 
What's your budget?
What size are you looking at or what distance can you sit at the screen from, at most?
What other eqpt. are you looking to hook up to it?
 
Budget I could probably stretch to £1500 it depends how much i can get for the hitachi 42pd5200.

At least 40" will be sitting about 12 feet from the screen when we move house that is.

Panasonic DVD-S97 - Panasonic SAXR-70 - SKY+ - Wii - hopefully SKY HD soon.
 
i keep saying this :) panasonic 50ph9 is an absolute bargain available currently at arounf £1350 (ish) great screen - arguably the best on the market within this price range - the dogs danglies... and it's a 50 incher
 
oh.. . also it's debatable how much better a screen is at this size at 1080, personally i can't see a definable difference and am happy at 720p - on larger screens (projectors etc) it's more worthwhile but that said my 720p picture on a 7 ft pj screen looks almost as good as at 1080 anyway!!!

edit as far as i know sky doesn't broadcast at 1080 anyway on hd so it's only gonna be good for ps3/blueray etc
 
more than that - it'll be stunning - do a quick forum search and read a bit more about it :smashin:
 
oh.. . also it's debatable how much better a screen is at this size at 1080, personally i can't see a definable difference and am happy at 720p - on larger screens (projectors etc) it's more worthwhile but that said my 720p picture on a 7 ft pj screen looks almost as good as at 1080 anyway!!!

edit as far as i know sky doesn't broadcast at 1080 anyway on hd so it's only gonna be good for ps3/blueray etc

sky broadcasts all hd content at 1080i
hence the engineers recommending you to set the boxes to 1080i
 
oh.. . also it's debatable how much better a screen is at this size at 1080, personally i can't see a definable difference and am happy at 720p - on larger screens (projectors etc) it's more worthwhile but that said my 720p picture on a 7 ft pj screen looks almost as good as at 1080 anyway!!!

edit as far as i know sky doesn't broadcast at 1080 anyway on hd so it's only gonna be good for ps3/blueray etc

Sky HD DOES output at 1080i - thats what mine is set up to do - it can also be set at 720p. I tried both a can see a clear difference on my Pioneer 50'' at about 10 feet.
 
:D you're eyes are better than mine, i can't - if anything i prefered 720p- and i should have made it clearer i meant 1080p hence the ps3 blue-ray comments :smashin:
 
sky broadcasts all hd content at 1080i
hence the engineers recommending you to set the boxes to 1080i

Are you sure?
I thought 720p was better for sports or anything fast paced/action.
It's one less process the TV has to do before displaying the signal, which can't be a bad thing.
 
Are you sure?
I thought 720p was better for sports or anything fast paced/action.
It's one less process the TV has to do before displaying the signal, which can't be a bad thing.

I'm sure - tried with my own set, in my own home. Its not day and night but I saw a better all round picture on HD sources on 1080i than 720p. Might be a matter of personal taste but it works for me.
 
:D you're eyes are better than mine, i can't - if anything i prefered 720p- and i should have made it clearer i meant 1080p hence the ps3 blue-ray comments :smashin:

That could well be down to your TV not processing 1080i very well.


Are you sure?
I thought 720p was better for sports or anything fast paced/action.
It's one less process the TV has to do before displaying the signal, which can't be a bad thing.

Ah but the Sky box still has to do it, and it's crap at it
 
It wouldn't have to do it - it's the bitrate used by the channel being broadcast.
The box is only the means of decoding the signal for viewing?
If Sky HD has an option for outputting @ 1080i, then it would seem to suggest it's taking a less than 1080i signal and manipulating it into 1080i.
I guess I've this all to look forward to with the V+ box later this month.
 
It's not the bitrate being used, it's the resolution of the content, which is 1080i for all HD channels on Sky. It's all 1080i at source, and the bitrate policy (for want of a better word) for that channel merely decides how much it gets compressed.

So if you choose to output 720p, then the Sky box has to decode the signal to create a 1080i stream, then deinterlace it and scale it down to 720p. And it can't really. Most TVs are better at it, and certainly all HD video processors are.


720p is indeed better for sport, as long as that's what it's recorded at, but Sky chose not to use it. I don't imagine it will be more than 3 or 4 years before we get the best of both worlds with 1080p.
 
So the Sky HD box is 1080i passthrough then? (save decoding the signal of course)
Then as you say, if it's having to manipulate to output a 720p signal, it makes sense to let the TV do that.
I was under the impression each HD channel was simply passed through, and it the type of activity being broadcast varied the signal type being output.
I'm surprised to learn Sky feel 1080i is acceptable for sports broadcasts, etc. when research (from the USA) have shown 720p works better, IIRC.
This would suggest then that Virgin is likely to be 1080i too, unless they decide which type is best suited and do the change themselves with broadcast grade convertors.
Looks like more research is needing to be done.
 
is it HD ready? if so not much unless your worried about the quality of the TV. I don't know how good it is but my Hitachi LD7200 was a great HD ready tv and looked good with Sky HD
 
Ok so what will I miss if i keep my 42PD5200 over buying a new HD ready LCD or PLASMA?

I think that can take DVI with HDCP can't it? And it's 1024x1024 if I remember correctly, should be pretty respectable with SkyHD. Only supports 1080i not 720p which is fine for SkyHD, but is why it's not officially HDReady.
 

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