HDTVs and all that malarky
-
The Bravias, like most flat panel tvs have analogue/digitial tuners so you can use either transmission - we have several at work. A good DVD player with HDMI output will scale up nicely and the progressive output will be smoother than 567 interlaced. Forget all the HDDVD stuff for a few years. Elaine (progressive fluffy tigress)
Thanks Elaine :)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
-
Expensive HDMI cables are a con - I pay £7 for a 2 metre cable and £15 for a 5 metre, we even use them for demo setups! RS Components are your friend :-D
HDMI is digital right? Which means it doesn't suffer from analogue cable issues. It either works at the quality it is supposed to work at or it doesn't work at all. None of that "Buy gold plated HDMI for best quality." Right?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
-
I have a Sony Bravia 32" and a Sony DVD with HDMI output. Very happy indeed. Of course, I got them both dirt cheap as my wife used to work for Sony UK, but I won't depress you by telling you how much they cost... :) The Bravia comes with built-in Freeview and an analogue tuner. It only has one HDMI input though (mine is a year old, so check yours, as this may of changed) so if you ever want to hook up more than one HDMI device (console, Sky HD, etc.) you'd need a splitter, which is more cost. BTW, HDMI cables are very pricey and the DVD player won't come with one. Shop around. I have Sky HD too FWIW. The BBC HD picture is stunning (as are the various HD discovery channels), but there is still a lack of content, which is a shame. Sky are showing the latest US shows in HD (24, Lost, BSG, etc.) but they don't use as much bandwidth for their HD channels. I was disappointed to find that the new series of Doctor Who is SD - especially seeing as Torchwood was filmed in HD (and looks amazing).
Kicking squealing Gucci little piggy.
The Rob Bloghehe, I live in Ireland so I'm pretty desensitized to rip off costs already. I could almost drive over to the UK, buy the TV there, drive back and still save money. As for the HDMI ports this years 32" Bravias have two. :)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
-
If you really want a good Sony TV, go for the W2000-series. Lots of bang for the buck! The newer Samsung M8x series aren't too shabby either. :)
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
A co-worker has one of the 40W2000 and he says it is great but that in a normal or small sized room it is hard to watch. Too big and you notice all the defects in standard-def. Plus here it is a good €1000 more and costs €300 to deliver :)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
-
HDMI is digital right? Which means it doesn't suffer from analogue cable issues. It either works at the quality it is supposed to work at or it doesn't work at all. None of that "Buy gold plated HDMI for best quality." Right?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Precisely! It's still worth watching people pay £130 for a cable just to feel smug though :-O HDMI video is actually the same as DVI so think of HDMI as DVI with digital audio (and HDCP encryption of course).
-
A co-worker has one of the 40W2000 and he says it is great but that in a normal or small sized room it is hard to watch. Too big and you notice all the defects in standard-def. Plus here it is a good €1000 more and costs €300 to deliver :)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Paul Watson wrote:
but that in a normal or small sized room it is hard to watch.
Yes, that's a very good point - one which many people fail to comprehend. Oh well, it's their neck muscles. :-D
Paul Watson wrote:
Plus here it is a good €1000 more and costs €300 to deliver
It's not mega cheap, but it's not überexpensive either. You will want to shell out €1600-2000 if you want a good LCD TV. The older generations are quite crappy in terms of contrast and color, which might be a big deal if you're going to play HD-DVD/Blueray moves on it. Personally I'm waiting until after the summer. I'm hoping the prices will go down a little bit more (and by then I will also have gotten my tax return! :-D) Some people like the plasma TVs better than the LCD due to their extremely good contrast and colors. The biggest drawback with the plasmas though, is that if you want full HD (1080p), you'd probably have to sell some body parts. If 720p is good enough for you, then a plasma might just be right for you. Personally, I can't stand them. I see the pixels - it's like watching a huge matrix of tiny LEDs. People say I'm weird. :~
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
-
Thanks Mike. The upscaling in this case would be by the DVD player and outputted to the TV over an HDMI link.
Mike Dimmick wrote:
Both the S and V models have a single built-in DVB-T (FreeView) digital tuner. It also looks like they support classic analogue PAL broadcasts.
Ta. I'll have to look up this FreeView thing.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Freeview is, in the UK, digital TV through the same roof aerial used to receive analogue TV. I don't think Ireland have yet started their terrestrial digital rollout - source[^]. Here, the analogue TV signal is starting to be switched off over the next few years, starting in October this year in one area. Doing this will allow the power output of the digital transmitters to be increased, to possibly add new multiplexes (multiple channels are transmitted on a time-division basis on the same radio frequency in the DVB-T system), and to sell off some of the radio spectrum for other purposes. Currently the power output of the digital transmitters is very low to avoid interference with the analogue signal. It's pretty crowded around here![^]
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
-
HDMI is digital right? Which means it doesn't suffer from analogue cable issues. It either works at the quality it is supposed to work at or it doesn't work at all. None of that "Buy gold plated HDMI for best quality." Right?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Gold plating on connectors is simply because gold is a reasonably conductive material that does not tarnish or corrode, i.e. oxidise. Oxidised metal tends to be an insulator and therefore creates a poor contact and unexpected resistance. However, if you're creating an installation, and not constantly plugging and unplugging the connection, there's little need for gold-plated connectors. As for the conductor material, silver is a better conductor than copper, but only by a little, and that little can be adjusted for by using slightly larger cross-section area of copper. 'Oxygen-free' copper has only slightly less oxygen than 'normal' stranded copper wire, and that tends to be on the surface - it has virtually no effect on the conduction capability of the material. The insulation material does have dielectric properties - acting like a capacitor - but for even the cheapest of cables is measured in picofarads (pF) per metre. For short cable runs, it's irrelevant. Bear in mind that, for example, Serial ATA cables run at 1.5Gbps or 3.0Gbps, and the typical cables for those cost about £2.50 - here's a 36cm cable at £1.30[^] and I'm sure Dell can get them cheaper than that!
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
-
Expensive HDMI cables are a con - I pay £7 for a 2 metre cable and £15 for a 5 metre, we even use them for demo setups! RS Components are your friend :-D
Trollslayer wrote:
Expensive HDMI cables are a con - I pay £7 for a 2 metre cable and £15 for a 5 metre, we even use them for demo setups! RS Components are your friend
I completely agree. I can't believe what some places charge for HDMI cables. For those in North America, you can get cheap cables from MyCableShop[^] I've bought from them a bunch of times. Great place to get inexpensive stuff as well as some hard to find things. Cheers, Drew.
-
So we are moving into a new place and I need to buy a TV and DVD player. I've had a look around the local shops and the best bets are the Sony Bravia S and V series 32" HDTVs (720, not 1080.) A touch more expensive than some of the equivalent Samsung and Toshiba TVs but side by side the Sony was looking better in the store and Sony has that fit and finish the others don't. I buy Apple so you know silly things like that make me happy :) Right now it is a toss up between the Sony 32v at €1299 or the Sony 32s at €999. The v series has better colour apparently* but I can't find much more about the differences. One review I read though did say the v series handled standard-def sources better than the s series. Didn't see much confirmation of this but it is important as 99% of my sources are standard-def. I'm only buying HD now so that in a year or two I don't regret buying the standard-def TV. Right? The other thing is a DVD player and a standard Sony seems fine but with this fancy upscaling HDMI output dongle doo dab whatsamacallit. That worried me at first, sounds like a great source of artifacts but everything I am reading online says it is fine and better than taking standard output from a DVD into an HDTV. Obviously the marketing hype that it turns DVD into HDDVD is daft as a rubber chicken crossing a road but at least it doesn't seem to hurt. One last question; Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV. Any other advice before I go buy this thing tomorrow? (Couple things: 32" is as big as I need. Rear projector and Plasma sound nice but I want to keep this simple and LCD seems to do that. I'm not going to buy online or hunt for 1% off deals or ship it in from Japan or anything; Local, store bought, back of my car is fine thanks. The Sony's have two HDMI inputs and I doubt I'll be using both for a long while.) * the store clerk said "30% better colour" which made me laugh, how on gods green, red and blue earth do you measure colour in percentages
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside wher
Paul Watson wrote:
Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV.
The best HD signals I get come from my antenna. You don't need to buy a fancy "HD" antenna either... I put one of these[^] in my attic and auto-programmed about 50+ channels on setup. :cool:
~Nitron.
ññòòïðïðB A
start -
Paul Watson wrote:
but that in a normal or small sized room it is hard to watch.
Yes, that's a very good point - one which many people fail to comprehend. Oh well, it's their neck muscles. :-D
Paul Watson wrote:
Plus here it is a good €1000 more and costs €300 to deliver
It's not mega cheap, but it's not überexpensive either. You will want to shell out €1600-2000 if you want a good LCD TV. The older generations are quite crappy in terms of contrast and color, which might be a big deal if you're going to play HD-DVD/Blueray moves on it. Personally I'm waiting until after the summer. I'm hoping the prices will go down a little bit more (and by then I will also have gotten my tax return! :-D) Some people like the plasma TVs better than the LCD due to their extremely good contrast and colors. The biggest drawback with the plasmas though, is that if you want full HD (1080p), you'd probably have to sell some body parts. If 720p is good enough for you, then a plasma might just be right for you. Personally, I can't stand them. I see the pixels - it's like watching a huge matrix of tiny LEDs. People say I'm weird. :~
-- Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
People say I'm weird. :~
I've heard that.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
-
The Bravias, like most flat panel tvs have analogue/digitial tuners so you can use either transmission - we have several at work. A good DVD player with HDMI output will scale up nicely and the progressive output will be smoother than 567 interlaced. Forget all the HDDVD stuff for a few years. Elaine (progressive fluffy tigress)
One last question please Elaine. I want to plug my MacBook Pro into the HDTV and the chap said a DVI to HDMI connector is needed. Since you said HDMI is DVI with a bit extra I assume it will be fine? Anything to look out for or will the Sony DVI to HDMI cable at €60 he wants to sell me be fine?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
-
Paul Watson wrote:
Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV.
The best HD signals I get come from my antenna. You don't need to buy a fancy "HD" antenna either... I put one of these[^] in my attic and auto-programmed about 50+ channels on setup. :cool:
~Nitron.
ññòòïðïðB A
startMy neighbour bought a Bush 37 inch LCD last week. He has Sky (for non-Brits Sky is the major satellite TV broadcaster here). Believe it or not, when he presses the button for the Sky menu, the button push on the Sky remote also causes the TV to change channel - away from the AV channel - to snow, making him get the TV remote and change it back to see his Sky picture! Wouldn't you have thought that someone might have checked compatibility with the pretty much ONLY satellite provider which I believe is in over 50% of homes? Rich:omg:
-
One last question please Elaine. I want to plug my MacBook Pro into the HDTV and the chap said a DVI to HDMI connector is needed. Since you said HDMI is DVI with a bit extra I assume it will be fine? Anything to look out for or will the Sony DVI to HDMI cable at €60 he wants to sell me be fine?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
-
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
People say I'm weird. :~
I've heard that.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
Where? Don't believe that witch...
-
Yeah but I like to toughen my new babies up before hooking them up to the satellite feed. Give them a bit of an immune system. Have you seen the filth on satellite?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Man, talk about tough love... :)
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
-
So we are moving into a new place and I need to buy a TV and DVD player. I've had a look around the local shops and the best bets are the Sony Bravia S and V series 32" HDTVs (720, not 1080.) A touch more expensive than some of the equivalent Samsung and Toshiba TVs but side by side the Sony was looking better in the store and Sony has that fit and finish the others don't. I buy Apple so you know silly things like that make me happy :) Right now it is a toss up between the Sony 32v at €1299 or the Sony 32s at €999. The v series has better colour apparently* but I can't find much more about the differences. One review I read though did say the v series handled standard-def sources better than the s series. Didn't see much confirmation of this but it is important as 99% of my sources are standard-def. I'm only buying HD now so that in a year or two I don't regret buying the standard-def TV. Right? The other thing is a DVD player and a standard Sony seems fine but with this fancy upscaling HDMI output dongle doo dab whatsamacallit. That worried me at first, sounds like a great source of artifacts but everything I am reading online says it is fine and better than taking standard output from a DVD into an HDTV. Obviously the marketing hype that it turns DVD into HDDVD is daft as a rubber chicken crossing a road but at least it doesn't seem to hurt. One last question; Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV. Any other advice before I go buy this thing tomorrow? (Couple things: 32" is as big as I need. Rear projector and Plasma sound nice but I want to keep this simple and LCD seems to do that. I'm not going to buy online or hunt for 1% off deals or ship it in from Japan or anything; Local, store bought, back of my car is fine thanks. The Sony's have two HDMI inputs and I doubt I'll be using both for a long while.) * the store clerk said "30% better colour" which made me laugh, how on gods green, red and blue earth do you measure colour in percentages
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside wher
I just bought the 32v2500 from the local Sony shop. It was €1000 inc. (I was offered the S at €880) The V definately looked better than the S when side by side in the shop. Yes you can plug an analog aerial straight into the tv set. It also has a digital decoder built into it so you can get any free to air digital channels that your country of residence is offering. No extra freeview box or whatnot needed :) Its an awesome tv and I think worth the little extra over other brands. Go for the V and try to get the price down to €1000 or €1050 region
-
Paul Watson wrote:
the store clerk said "30% better colour" which made me laugh, how on gods green, red and blue earth do you measure colour in percentages
1300 is 30% better than 1000. the color he's referring to is the color of your money.
image processing toolkits | batch image processing | blogging
-
So we are moving into a new place and I need to buy a TV and DVD player. I've had a look around the local shops and the best bets are the Sony Bravia S and V series 32" HDTVs (720, not 1080.) A touch more expensive than some of the equivalent Samsung and Toshiba TVs but side by side the Sony was looking better in the store and Sony has that fit and finish the others don't. I buy Apple so you know silly things like that make me happy :) Right now it is a toss up between the Sony 32v at €1299 or the Sony 32s at €999. The v series has better colour apparently* but I can't find much more about the differences. One review I read though did say the v series handled standard-def sources better than the s series. Didn't see much confirmation of this but it is important as 99% of my sources are standard-def. I'm only buying HD now so that in a year or two I don't regret buying the standard-def TV. Right? The other thing is a DVD player and a standard Sony seems fine but with this fancy upscaling HDMI output dongle doo dab whatsamacallit. That worried me at first, sounds like a great source of artifacts but everything I am reading online says it is fine and better than taking standard output from a DVD into an HDTV. Obviously the marketing hype that it turns DVD into HDDVD is daft as a rubber chicken crossing a road but at least it doesn't seem to hurt. One last question; Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV. Any other advice before I go buy this thing tomorrow? (Couple things: 32" is as big as I need. Rear projector and Plasma sound nice but I want to keep this simple and LCD seems to do that. I'm not going to buy online or hunt for 1% off deals or ship it in from Japan or anything; Local, store bought, back of my car is fine thanks. The Sony's have two HDMI inputs and I doubt I'll be using both for a long while.) * the store clerk said "30% better colour" which made me laugh, how on gods green, red and blue earth do you measure colour in percentages
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside wher
The Vizio line has been getting great reviews. If you have COSTCO (www.costco.com) where you are, you can get a GREAT price on the Visio line.
-
One last question please Elaine. I want to plug my MacBook Pro into the HDTV and the chap said a DVI to HDMI connector is needed. Since you said HDMI is DVI with a bit extra I assume it will be fine? Anything to look out for or will the Sony DVI to HDMI cable at €60 he wants to sell me be fine?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Hi Paul, You don't want to be buying cables from a AV retail store. They slap a huge markup on cables, knowing that consumers consider cables to be a commodity item. Most customer are totally focused on the price of the TV, and don't pay close attention to the price of the cable that is casually added to the deal at the end. For example, at Tiger Direct (in the US) you can get an HDMI-to-DVI-D cable for US$20[^]. I expect there are similar prices available in Ireland. Cheers, Doug