OT: TV Repair??

[dennis]

They don't. If they did why has almost everyone switched to lcd for computers? It depends on the source driving them.

[Dave Liquorice]

The times I've wandered around a shed or shop with tellys on display they all appear to be fed via RF sometimes SCART but normally SD and crawling with MPEG artifacts. Rarely (make that never) have I seen full HD from Blu Ray fed correctly to all the sets on display so you could compare them properly with a true HD signal.

HD Ready is a pretty low spec anyway. "Full HD" would be better to aim for

1080 progressive or there abouts. It's a rather technical mine field out there and very easy to get bogged down in figures and and marketing puff. The important things are the native resolution of the panel, ie how many physical pixels it has and what resolutions and modes the electronics can cope with.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

manufacturers are distressed by something which will require the purchase of new hardware? Pull the other one... ;-)

I could be wrong, but I thought the current FreeView system has no provision for HD. At the moment most of the minor channels transmit on reduced data rate anyway.

I've been involved in HD tests when choosing new cameras and although a sound man took a great deal of interest in it. And to be perfectly honest the difference between SD at its best and HD isn't as great as some think. Of course it's very easy to produce a demo which makes it look stunning - but on the sort of thing most view you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference. But then few broadcasters make sure SD is at its best...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

At the moment there is no suitable alternative to Grade 1 CRT monitors. Which is causing problems for location stuff as small Grade 1 CRT monitors are no longer made.

[Man at B&Q]

They can, but, like most things these days, they tend to be made down to a price rather than up to any particular quality level.

Power consumption, desk space, cost...

And on the quality of the tube or LCD panel being used to display said source.

MBQ

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Fashion and the fact they're smaller, lighter and cheaper to make. Have you ever tried lifting a decent 21" CRT computer monitor?

Computer derived signals ain't the same as broadcast ones. Oh - and 99.9% of the time the only high quality stuff you're looking at on a computer is still frames.

A pal who is a graphic designer refuses to get rid of his CRT monitor. And cost doesn't come into it.

[Rod]

Thanks for the response.

So everything will be adjusted using old (and hence, implicitly, possibly knackered) CRTs. :-)

Doesn't there come a point at which it might be desirable to change (e.g. to LCD) because that is what most people are viewing the end result on? (I know, the reductio of that is to use a 2" speaker in a bean can to monitor Radio 1 output.)

[dennis]

They are with digital.

That is because he is caught up in a myth. The myth is that CRTs display more colours and better black levels so display the images better. Which to some extent is true. However the image is then displayed on an LCD or, worse, printed. Then it doesn't matter at all if the graphic artist used better kit. In fact he may have produced better results using the target display.

Its quite a common belief that you have to have the best to do professional work, which is obviously untrue. You have to have better/same than the intended audience.

[DIY]

Exactly right. Although there are extremely good lcd and plasma sets out there that match, if not exceed, the picture quality of the best crt TVs, there is still a lot of dross. To get a good quality picture on a flat panel TV you have to spend money on a top brand such as Panasonic, Sony, LG, etc. These are the firms that spend the most on research and top quality components.

DIY

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually you can adjust an LCD to be just about anything you want.

I went through about an hour of doing just that here on this Mac,as color photos were looking 'odd'

But mostly people don't. They want bright vivid colors not true rendition. I found the same with the new digital camera. I followed one guys recommendations. He lives i california. The result on a grey english afternoon were ridiculous, so I went back to the defaults, and suddenly I was out of kodak gold mode, into kodachrome mode...

Remember when the Beeb transitted test cards?

Long gone.

[Mathew Newton]

On the contrary - they still do on Freeview, although it's not the best quality and doesn't work on all receivers:

- Go to channel 105 (BBCi) and press Yellow

- Switch to any other channel, then back to 105

- Press Green and wait for the word 'Secret' to appear, followed by transmitter/receiver info

- Press in order - 3, 3, 5, 8, 2, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue

Mathew

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not knackered. They can be kept going quite well for the time being.

Would that be LCD, Plasma, DLP, or one of the other techniques in the pipeline? ;-)

Indeed.

[DIY]

Couple of grand? Where have you been recently? You can get an HD ready Panasonic 42" plasma for £612 and a Full HD for £1,300. (And most Home Cinema mags reckon that the difference between Full HD and HD ready sets of

42" and below is virtually undetectable - so the £612 set would be an excellent buy).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Eh?

No he's not. He's a very picky professional.

Neither of these is a myth.

Then why call it a myth?

Not worse. Being a pro he knows what fiddle factors are needed for printing.

That is a myth. You might as well say broadcast should use domestic cameras and cheap microphones etc as the 'target' audience won't know the difference. And I've seen it tried by bean counters with disastrous results. The correct way is to originate the highest quality and let the end user degrade it if that's what they want.

Are you a bean counter in another life?

[DIY]

Most Home Cinema mags reckon that the difference between Full HD and HD ready sets is virtually undetectable on sets of 42" screen size and below. When the new Panasonic Full HD sets came out recently, most reviewing mags said they were excellent but very little better than the earlier HD ready sets - and because of that and the big price difference, recommended buying the HD Read sets.

DIY

[Adrian C]

Me thinks BBC should stop this nancying about hiding it, and make this page normally viewable for us mortals.

In the old days of analogue teletext anyone could pull up the 'clock cracker' and other test pages. Didn't need things like the launch codes for nuclear missiles entered...

... unless you actually *can* launch nuclear missiles by a hidden page on DTT freeview and HM government is keeping stumm about it...

[John]

> The manufacturers are distressed by something which will require the

A LCD or Plasma may just keep you happy until OLED TVs are commonly available:

3mm thick!

[tony sayer]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus

Yes well ... the broadcaster does quite well degrading it for final delivery both Sound Radio and Vision;-!...

[Dave Liquorice]

Just be careful if random button pushing brings a screen up with the words "Do you want to play a Game?

[dennis]

But these mags would be the same ones that recommend O2 free cables and junk like that.