£983.98 to spend on new TV, but which on ??
Hi all I have got some vouchers coming to me over the next week of the value of £983.98 with this we are planning on getting a new TV was thinking 42" but we are slightly confused on which TV to get should we get Plasma or LCD, ? The TV will be used for watching Cable Digital TV, DVD`s and playing on my Xbox360, any advise welcome, many thanks. Oh forgot to mention these vouchers can only be used at Dixons store groups i.e. Curries, Curries Digital & PC World.
The "F" Samsungs seem very good - but we've only reviewed the 46in model so far (which was truly excellent).
The Panasonic is also great for the money - not such an up-to-date spec, but fantastic plasma quality (deep blacks, contrast, motion-handling), and two more inches for your money.
Why not check them out in your local Currys, as that's where you can spend the money? Don't forget to take a favourite DVD or two, and to check scrolling text on Sky Sports News on Freeview (and to remember that LCDs look initially more impressive than plasmas in shops cos of extreme factory-setting screen brightness to cope with retail lighting...)
When ever I go to check out TV`s in the retail stores I am always slightly confused because the picture quality on most of the TV`s are pretty poor
That's because they're usually running analogue TV from a loop aerial. If you've got a decent Freeview/cable/Sky set-up at home, and we've rated the TV tuner performance of a set, you're going to be OK on the TV front (poor bit-rate digital channels notwithstanding), but why not take your DVD player (and HDMI cable) in, with some of your favourite discs and at least get an idea of how it could look?
Once I was looking at tvs in Currys (I think) and asked one of the staff why the picture quality on most of the sets was so terrible (it really was goddamn awful!) and he said that they were showing a demo dvd which had "worn out" over time. Now I know this to be utter, utter rubbish because the tvs were all suffering from all kinds of analogue style distortion, not the sort of digital artefacts and break-up associated with a corrupted digital source. Anyway, I find the fact that these poor quality images are on display astounding, as surely these stores want to sell their products. If I ran a store I would have all the tvs showing their absolute best. I mean, what's the point in having 'HD Ready' logos everywhere when the sets are just showing rubbish standard-def, which is distributed to each of the tvs in such a bad way that it causes quite astonishingly bad levels of image quality. If I had tvs on display in my store that were supposed to be displaying Freeview, I would actually have the tvs showing a standard-def channel (one that is available on Freeview of course) from a Sky HD box, via HDMI, and sent through a video upscaler with HQV.
Does anyone have any experience of the two TV`s I mentioned, as anyone seen them running side by side and can recomend one over the other ?
Once I was looking at tvs in Currys (I think) and asked one of the staff why the picture quality on most of the sets was so terrible (it really was goddamn awful!) and he said that they were showing a demo dvd which had "worn out" over time.
Ah yes, that old problem of DVDs wearing out. We've all experienced that!
If I ran a store I would have all the tvs showing their
absolute best. I mean, what's the point in having 'HD Ready' logos
everywhere when the sets are just showing rubbish standard-def, which
is distributed to each of the tvs in such a bad way that it causes
quite astonishingly bad levels of image quality. If I had tvs on
display in my store that were supposed to be displaying Freeview, I
would actually have the tvs showing a standard-def channel (one that is
available on Freeview of course) from a Sky HD box, via HDMI, and sent
through a video upscaler with HQV.
You'd think, wouldn't you...? 
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Ok I am getting more and more confused, I was looking at the Panasonic TH42PZ70B but then someone recommended the Samsung LE40F86BD which also looks very impressive, so which one of these two TV`s would you guys say is better ?