Non-believer converted...

Indio

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Firstly I want to thank AVForums and the forum aficionados who take the time to provide their honest views and share their knowledge with newbies like me. The forum has certainly enabled me to make a well-informed decision and helped me avoid falling into the marketing men’s “LED trap”

I have been lurking on the forum for some time now to establish whether it is worth ‘upgrading’ from my trusted (but rather old) 36” Panasonic 100hz CRT TV. To be honest, having seen a few LCD/Plasmas at Currys/Comet I was rather cynical about ‘upgrading’ as I felt the SD content on my CRT could not be beaten.

Having read through posts on the LCD & Plasma TV forums, it quickly became clear that the general consensus is that the Panasonic Plasma range is one to consider. I went to Currys a couple of times to take a look at the V10/G10 but they were unable to show me SD content in the shop. The HD content was clearly superior but I was unable to satisfy myself that SD content would at least be on a par with my CRT. Consequently I missed out on the £669 M&S G10 offer.

Last week I went to John Lewis and a (what I would consider) rather knowledgeable salesperson showed me the 46” V10 and the 42” G15 in both SD and HD. I very was impressed with both units, but was completely put off with the reflections on the screen of the V10. I suspect the reflections may have been a result of the well-lit shop environment – but there were no reflections on the G15, so I decided the G15 was the way to go. The sales assistant also showed me a slightly older Panasonic Plasma (I can’t remember the model number) that simply did not compare.

Having read about the Costco £798 46”G15 offer on AV Forums I pulled the trigger (fortunately they had a delivery of 12 the same morning) and bought one in the comfort that if I did not like it, I could take it back. I was a little concerned the TV would be too big but decided to take a leap of faith. The viewing distances in my living room (depending on which sofa you sit on) ranges from 9-14 feet. Like a kid with a new toy, I took it home and replaced my 36” CRT with the Plasma - and was quickly reminded of how heavy the CRT is!! Setting up the G15 was a relatively straightforward affair.

All I can say is that the picture in the G15 is fantastic both in SD and HD and I am extremely pleased I upgraded. Anybody who is uncertain about the SD capabilities of the Panasonic Plasma vs. CRT need not be in my opinion (although I would imagine viewing distance has allot to do with it). In my, rather non technical terms, the colours on the Plasma are much more vibrant and the HD content (via Freesat at the moment) is simply stunning. I have truly been converted to Plasma!! Unfortunately I will now have to spend much of my hard earned on a blue ray home cinema system to get the most out of my TV!!

In the interim, have a couple of questions for those more knowledgeable than me (feel free to tell me if I have inappropriately posted in the incorrect section).

1) I want to use Feeesat (I find the SD content superior to SKY) and sky but I have to keep switching the satellite cable between my sky box & TV. Is it possible to buy a ‘splitter’?

2)Is it worth/possible to use an HDMI cable rather than Scart to connect my Sky box to the TV?

3) As I will be upgrading to a HD box sometime in the near future, is there a difference in the quality of content provided by SKY vs. Virgin HD

Your thoughts would be much appreciated.
 
The Freesat channels are the exact same channels broadcast by Sky, same Satellite , same signal , same channels. You can't use a splitter. you need another feed from the dish
Unless you have SkyHD , the best you can do it RGB scart.
As for SKY v Virgin ........................
 
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No, the satellite receiver uses the cable to feed the lnb, select the polarity and the band (i.e. it's kinda of a two way communication), so a splitter won't work.
Maybe you could use a switch, but I don't know any.
Another option is to use a twin lnb (or another dish) and lay another cable.
You dont need two dishes, if your current LNB doesnt have a spare socket, then upgrade the LNB to a quad one.
 
For reference, a quad LNB is less than £20 and is easy to fit. Then you just run an extra cable from the dish. No realignment or special tools are required.

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if you are getting sky hd wait till then a they will have to put up a quad lnb for that and run another cable so just bung the installer 20 quid and if hes nice he'll run a 3rd cable for the freesat.sorted
 
With regards to the refections on screen could this be down to the location or angle of the G10. I would of thought the panel would be the same (ish)???

Glad your happy, I have a 50" G10 on the way :). Hope I'm as happy as you.
 
if you are getting sky hd wait till then a they will have to put up a quad lnb for that and run another cable so just bung the installer 20 quid and if hes nice he'll run a 3rd cable for the freesat.sorted

:eek: £20!! A fiver at most, but you already have an existing cable run from your current Sky set-up, just tell them to leave that in place & run the two extra feeds for your Sky HD. So really, should cost you nothing

Last year I bought a quad LNB kit from Ebay, which included 20 metres of shotgun coax cable & 4 F-plugs for under £20, Took me less than half an hour to swap the single LNB for the quad & route the cable down to my Foxsat PVR. And I'm a mere woman.
 
Hi, your questions
1 Has been covered
2 You cant connect it to the tv via hdmi unless you get a sky hd box (unless there is some kind of scart to hdmi i know nothing about then it would only be the same quality anyway so pointless)
3 You get more hd via sky hd than you do via virgin +, the sd quality is good on the virgin + it has a good upscaler for sd.
Sky upscales sd ok too but is dependant on the bit rate of the sd channel in the first place itv sucks on both, itv hd is very good the sky channels are excellent and are transmitted in a higher resolution than bbc hd and itv hd too.
 
Thank you for your respective thoughts and feedback.

I was not aware the freesat channels are all available via Sky. There therefore seems to be little value connecting to freesat separately. On reflection, I suspect the reason I feel freesat produces a superior SD picture to SKY, may be because the SKY connection is via scart and freesat is directly connected to the dish

I will compare the HD content on SKY to that available on Virgin to help me establish whether the difference in content is material to me.

Question: If the TV also has an upscaler, would the fact that Virgin has superior SD upscaling capability be immaterial?
 
Read again:I didn't say that a second dish was necessary, I said "a twin lnb (or another dish)".
Of course a quad lnb will work too.

A 2nd dish is still a bizarre suggestion

I suspect the reason I feel freesat produces a superior SD picture to SKY, may be because the SKY connection is via scart and freesat is directly connected to the dish
Yep

And SkyHD wipes the floor with V+ although Virgin's OnDemand is currently way better than the very limited content on Anytime - time will tell what Sky offer in that area when they roll out their service later this year.

Question: If the TV also has an upscaler, would the fact that Virgin has superior SD upscaling capability be immaterial?
Only if the TV's scaling is better than or similar to the Virgin box.
 
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Firstly I want to thank AVForums and the forum aficionados who take the time to provide their honest views and share their knowledge with newbies like me. The forum has certainly enabled me to make a well-informed decision and helped me avoid falling into the marketing men’s “LED trap”

I have been lurking on the forum for some time now to establish whether it is worth ‘upgrading’ from my trusted (but rather old) 36” Panasonic 100hz CRT TV. To be honest, having seen a few LCD/Plasmas at Currys/Comet I was rather cynical about ‘upgrading’ as I felt the SD content on my CRT could not be beaten.

Having read through posts on the LCD & Plasma TV forums, it quickly became clear that the general consensus is that the Panasonic Plasma range is one to consider. I went to Currys a couple of times to take a look at the V10/G10 but they were unable to show me SD content in the shop. The HD content was clearly superior but I was unable to satisfy myself that SD content would at least be on a par with my CRT. Consequently I missed out on the £669 M&S G10 offer.

Last week I went to John Lewis and a (what I would consider) rather knowledgeable salesperson showed me the 46” V10 and the 42” G15 in both SD and HD. I very was impressed with both units, but was completely put off with the reflections on the screen of the V10. I suspect the reflections may have been a result of the well-lit shop environment – but there were no reflections on the G15, so I decided the G15 was the way to go. The sales assistant also showed me a slightly older Panasonic Plasma (I can’t remember the model number) that simply did not compare.

Having read about the Costco £798 46”G15 offer on AV Forums I pulled the trigger (fortunately they had a delivery of 12 the same morning) and bought one in the comfort that if I did not like it, I could take it back. I was a little concerned the TV would be too big but decided to take a leap of faith. The viewing distances in my living room (depending on which sofa you sit on) ranges from 9-14 feet. Like a kid with a new toy, I took it home and replaced my 36” CRT with the Plasma - and was quickly reminded of how heavy the CRT is!! Setting up the G15 was a relatively straightforward affair.

All I can say is that the picture in the G15 is fantastic both in SD and HD and I am extremely pleased I upgraded. Anybody who is uncertain about the SD capabilities of the Panasonic Plasma vs. CRT need not be in my opinion (although I would imagine viewing distance has allot to do with it). In my, rather non technical terms, the colours on the Plasma are much more vibrant and the HD content (via Freesat at the moment) is simply stunning. I have truly been converted to Plasma!! Unfortunately I will now have to spend much of my hard earned on a blue ray home cinema system to get the most out of my TV!!

In the interim, have a couple of questions for those more knowledgeable than me (feel free to tell me if I have inappropriately posted in the incorrect section).

1) I want to use Feeesat (I find the SD content superior to SKY) and sky but I have to keep switching the satellite cable between my sky box & TV. Is it possible to buy a ‘splitter’?

2)Is it worth/possible to use an HDMI cable rather than Scart to connect my Sky box to the TV?

3) As I will be upgrading to a HD box sometime in the near future, is there a difference in the quality of content provided by SKY vs. Virgin HD

Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

Shame you couldn't reward them with the sale. Were they unable to be competitive?
 
JL were way off the mark in terms of price for the 46" G15. I did give them the opportunity to price match Costco, but unfortunately they could not given Costco is members only.

I am a big JL fan in many respects and they will continue to get business from me in the future:thumbsup:.
 

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