Bone HD question

[J4MES]

So, after a conversation with a salesman in Comet, I'm confused... if I buy an LCD TV but don't have a HD input (or the £40 scart cable) then the picture will be a bit pants? Some of the teles in the shop were showing HD content which clearly looked good, but the ones which weren't looked fuzzy and a bit sh8t really...

Am I missing something? I've got ntl: TV for what it's worth..

And if I'm wrong, what should I look for in a 32" LCD telly (or is anyone selling an old non-HD one if I'm not)?

[directhex]

the problem with HDTV with non-HD sources is the scaling required - take a source like freeview, decode it (it's MPEG2), scale it from the original resolution to TV resolution... it all gets a bit blurrier

whether it matters or not is another question. if looking at sets in person, ALWAYS stand the same distance away that you'd be sat from the set at home

[Howard]

The feeds to the non-HD stuff in Currys is usually through a crappy RF antenna feed, SCART (or even low-def Progressive scan through Component) can look good, depending on the hardware involved. Unless you sit right up close to it, it'll look fine

[Alex]

Not all sets will be able to cope with non-HD material as well as each other. A non-branded one will generally be not as good, whereas some brands will be very good with non-HD material.

FWIW, my housemate has a Samsung LCD, which I have heard are one of the best with non-HD inputs, and it really is fine, with a cheapy SCART cable. It may be worth getting a £10-15 scart cable from the likes of here but never really worth getting a £40 one, unless you want it to be like 10m long.

I wrote a guide a while back on here about cables here which may help to have a look at, but basically summarised is a follows:

If you have the available connections, then in order of preference you should connect your gear with the following:

HDMI/DVI>Component Video>RGB Scart>S-video>Composite video.

So if you have any consoles, connect them up with component if possible, but for most things SCART should be OK if using a decent TV. Don't ever bother with extremely expensive cables (is my personal view, before I get flamed) but I wouldn't buy the cheapest Tesco Value one's either - the cheapest branded ones seems to be a good rule of thumb.

Does that clear anything up?

[J4MES]

That's all really helpful - thanks... Comet had a manager's special Samsung 32" for £599 which we might now go for.

[DR]

Originally Posted by J4MES

That's all really helpful - thanks... Comet had a manager's special Samsung 32" for £599 which we might now go for.

I'd get one from Play.com - they have a sale on and some killer deals

[Avalon]

The samsung is nice Unless yu have V+ your (old NTL) V Box won't output HD anyway so SD upscaling is going to be rather important for you. The Samsung has VGA in though so it's possible to download HD content and play it back via PC