New TV - Help Needed! (1 Viewer)

[PaulHolden]

OK guys- bit of a newbie question but after some research I'm still not sure of the way to go!

I'm looking for a new TV and would like a LCD (looking at a Sharp Aquos 32) however where I live (Cayman Islands) we don't have High Def via our cable provider at the moment though this may change some time in the future, however this being the Caribean it could be any time within the next few years!

My question is what sort of picture quality would I be looking at should I go down the LCD route - same as a normal CRT, slightly better or as I have heard, possibly slightly worse! If the last bit is true I guess I would be better going for a flat screen CRT (Panasonic 32 HD ready). I am lead to believe hooking up using S-Video leads will help things along but to what extent?

Also bear in mind that things are pretty pricy here and we dont have the luxury of Best Buy or CC etc so I dont have a great deal of choice!

Oh yeah - forgot to add what about PS2 quality on an LCD - do they handle this OK?

Any help greatly appreciated
Cheers
Paul

 

[Nick:G]

Unfortunately if you're stuck with analog TV only, there isn't a digital TV on the planet that will display analog as good as a CRT will. LCD, plasma, and microdisplay TVs have a set number of physical pixels, like say 1280x720, for example. What this means is when NTSC resolution (648x486) is fed to it, the TV's internal scaler has to upconvert that information to its native pixel array so everything fits. This always introduces video artifacting and fuzzy edges. Whether these are visible and/or annoying to you will depend on the quality of the TV's internal scaler and of course, your eyes. CRT's never have this problem because they don't have physical pixels; they draw lines based on what the source device (TV tuner, DVD player, satellite, etc.) gave them instead.

S-video and component video connections improve color accuracy and sharpness over a composite connection, but they will not help with the problem I described above.

I'd see if you have access to Sony Bravia LCDs, too. They're a little more expensive, but look WAY better than the Sharps.

 

[PaulHolden]

Thanks Nick - I forgot to specify that our cable is digital at the moment but not HD, which we can only get via Dish Network and the attendant hassle of fining somewhere to put the dish!

From the units I've looked at I can mostly see some fuzzy outline on pretty much picture which hasnt inspired a lot of confidence in the LCD/Plasma TV's however I can never seem to get a straight answer from the showroom guys as to what network they are feeding from or what connex being used. If I'm honest I'm probably leaning toward the Panasonic simply cos of the size/price and obviously I can expect a pretty good quality picture!

Cheers
Paul