h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just bought one and it's awful (OK in the shop where a DVD was playing a constantly looped adverts).

Dark coloured things have no detail in them.
Light coloured things have no detail in them.
Everything is too pink (people are not really that colour, they have some yelow tone)
The picture is not sharp.
The picture is too light.
There is limited tonal range (faces look like they are made up of 4 shades of pink not 104)

Adjusting the contrast, colour temperature, colour, brightness and picture sharpness makes thing worse or simply bad.

The first one that I had was returned because everything was scarlet, like everybody's faces had been flayed. And the above problems were also present.

I have set up out old (13 year old) TV next to it and the picture is far superior. I am using the same signal for both (cable box)

OK. Do I have a bad one? Are all LCD TVs like this?

PP

All the reviews of LCD screens I've read say "don't buy this technology yet - it's not ready". As well as the colour, the screen refresh and "ghosting" are still a problem. Either fork out a shed-load for a plasma screen (if it's flatness you're after) or use a HD CRT.

RF

which one do you have PP? There's a lot of cruddy ones about and very few good ones. The best are as good as plasma.
So still not up to CRT stanbdards. I am thinking of getting one myself but only the ones that get good reviews.
The amount of extra technology you need to get a good piccy is quite a lot.
All the problems you post are, I'm sorry to say, symptoms of the cruddy ones.

Long live the Cathode Ray Tube - at least it will keep you warm in winter which is more than you can say for a LCD.

"All the reviews of LCD screens I've read say "don't buy this technology yet - it's not ready"."

Exactly. When I was out at the BBC Research and Development 'open day' at the beginning of this year they said exactly the same thing. I asked about the LCD tvs and they told me not to buy one for seven years - which I assume is also giving a year or two for the price to drop from 'new technology' vastly inflated prices to something more resembling normality.

Only 6 years to go now.

Let this be a lesson.

The fact is, if you want a good picture from a flat screen, you need to spend at least a couple of grand on a decent hi resolution plasma screen, then probably another five hundred on a computer to do the signal cleanup you'll be needing.

LCD is getting there, but even plasma isn't yet as good as good old CRT. The only possible reason, right now, for having an lcd tv is to have a screen where you couldn't otherwise have one - folding down from underneath your kitchen cupboards or built into the wall of your shower for instance. But the price you pay is lack of picture quality.

The moral of the story is - do not, under any circumstances, by any display until you've seen it work under the conditions you will be using it - with a DVD of YOUR choice, connected to the TV using your type of cables, in the lighting conditions you have at home, not the bright light of a shop floor. And if you have ANY doubts about the picture quality, don't buy. Because you'll never be happy.

H.

Yes you are probably right, I don't think that I will ever be happy with this particular one.

The TV was bought from a national retailer named after spicey food. It was thier own brand and cost £700. OK a "budget" buy but nonetheless it looked OK in the shop. I had no doubts about the picture quality in the shop, it was really very good.

It has to go back. It is clearly not of an acceptible quality in the home (which is after all where I intend to watch it, not in a shop) and the shop picture was not representitive of my experience at home.

When I have resolved this I may well give it another 6 years before taking the plunge again.

PP

You really shouldn't try to do these things on the cheap, partly because it's an odd definition of the word "cheap", when you're buying a TV for "only" £700.

A mate of mine, who has to have the best stuff in A/V equipment, has just cracked and got himself a flat screen - a 43" Pioneer high definition plasma.

The interesting thing is that, out of the box, it's no better than any other plasma screen, which is to say - crap. Ghosting, artefacts, fuzzy edges, everything.

However, he feeds the signal to the telly via a PC running some signal processing software. With that on, the picture is a revelation. It's so clear it literally hurts your eyes after a while, plus you actually get more picture for your money - the signal processor scales the image to show areas normally lost off the edge of more mundane screens.

It vexes me that in order to get a decent picture from a television costing nearly £3000 you have spend an additional £500 on a computer and the best part of a whole weekend dicking about setting it up, but that's my mate's hobby and he loves it.

So far, that's the only way to get a CRT quality image in a flat screen. You really need to know what you're talking about. Just another tip - do NOT buy the cheap 42" plasmas currently being knocked out in high street computer stores. They're only 853x480 pixels (i.e pretty low definition) and have only two SCART sockets (so, you've plugged in your Sky box and your DVD player - where are your Playstation and XBox going to go?), and do not support the HDMI connection standard - the future of high definition connectivity. A 42" screen for "only" £1299 may sound good, but believe me, unless you have very low standards, you'll never be happy with the picture from one of these things.

H.