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Hd Gear A Waste Of Money!


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Wow, just went through all the replies. Most of them sound like dogey salesmen trying to part you from as much of your hard earned as possible!

I'm definately no saleman, nor expert. I went into my purchase of my Plasma wanting a TV (CRT, plasma or LCD) that showed the best quality picture for FTA, Foxtel and DVD for my viewing. I looked at a lot of different models both SD and HD from a variety of sources, and with all due respect, there is no way that you have perfect vision if you cannot see the difference between SD and HD on a 42" plasma. For you to say different is just showing that you obviously haven't gone out and done the research yourself (Choice mag is far from being a definative guide). I wanted to buy the best TV that gave the best quality picture, for a reasonable price across the board and on the whole HD quality was superiour to SD.

The sad TRUTH is that the only reason to buy a HD screen and any other HD equipment is if you have to sit so close to the screen that you can't even see the whole image.

Or that you prefer a higher quality image. Or that you use it in a home theatre environment where you want to be immersed in the movie (ala the cinema).

I know it is easy to get caught up in the whole HD hype but you are only throwing away money. Then I suppose you have to try to justify it to yourself and everyone else.

It only comes across to me that you are trying to justify your purchase to yourself, through your obvious lack of any hands on research. :D

I did the research and I found the choice easy. I picked the TV that gave me the best quality picture overall and for me that was the Pana 42" HD. If I had found that a SD TV gave me what I was after, then I would now own it. Non did. :P

Cheers and Merry Christmas to all. :P

Cheers and ditto. :blink:

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After much deliberation and testing I ended up following Choice magazine's advice and bought a SD plasma. I got the a Panasonic 106cm TH-42PA60A because the picture was superior to the other SD plasmas. Couldn't be happier and saved a fortune that would have been wasted on HD gear. At a comfortable viewing distance far enough away that you are not constantly having to move your eyes/head to follow the action (very tiring) of around 3-4m, there is NO difference in picture quality to full HD gear, and SD pictures are far superior on a SD plasma than a HD plasma. This is true whether you have perfect vision (as I do) or not. Don't waste your money on HD gear and don't buy an LCD tv, they can't display black properly and all have a narrow viewing angle no matter what they claim. LCD's are only useful as a computer monitor. :blink:

anyone that can't spot the difference from SD to HD with sources like xbox360 not only doesn't have a perfect vision but they got to be very close to total blindness.

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anyone that can't spot the difference from SD to HD with sources like xbox360 not only doesn't have a perfect vision but they got to be very close to total blindness.

I couldn't agree more.

I bought my new Sony Bravia X after doing a fair amount of research for the very reason I wanted true HD for the Xbox360 and even more so for the up and coming Sony PS3 which I will use as my Blue-Ray player.

Like has been said above if you can't notice the difference between SD and HD coming from sources such as a 360 or PS3 you really! need to get your eyes checked, the difference is night and day.

To a lesser extent it's not hard to tell the difference between HD and SD on something like that morning show on channel 10HD, "Dave & Kym" is what the show is called from memory and I can clearly see the difference between both HD and SD especially when they have the kitchen in the background.

I view my T.V from 2meters away.

Edited by PCmon
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After much deliberation and testing I ended up following Choice magazine's advice and bought a SD plasma. I got the a Panasonic 106cm TH-42PA60A because the picture was superior to the other SD plasmas. Couldn't be happier and saved a fortune that would have been wasted on HD gear.

Although Choice do a great job they are by no means the last word on electronic equipment. Their reviews lack some technical expertise and that is sometimes embarassing.

At a comfortable viewing distance far enough away that you are not constantly having to move your eyes/head to follow the action (very tiring) of around 3-4m, there is NO difference in picture quality to full HD gear, and SD pictures are far superior on a SD plasma than a HD plasma. This is true whether you have perfect vision (as I do) or not. Don't waste your money on HD gear and don't buy an LCD tv, they can't display black properly and all have a narrow viewing angle no matter what they claim. LCD's are only useful as a computer monitor. :blink:

You must really hate going to the cinema and watching movies as all the head and eye movement involved watching that huge screen would surely cause a debilitating injury to your good self. If you cannot distinguish between SD and HD at 3 metres then a sore neck or eyestrain is the least of your problems.

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This discussion has gone off track.

It all comes down to screen size v viewing distance boys and girls.

A 42” screen viewed from 4 meters plus, HD displays are a waste.

Conversely a 42” screen viewed from 2 meters, a HD display is mandatory IMHO, due to the visible pixel structure of the SD Plasma at that distance.

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In my situation I will building a home sometime in 2007 and the home theatre room / lounge hybrid, furniture and decor will be greatly influenced by the size of new display. In this case I am going for the 1080p based Sony new light engine powered beast of 70".

Can I come and live at your place :blink:

by the way this whole thread is starting very much to read as a work of a common troll !

Is that the garden variety troll or the lesser-spotted troll?

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Myer had the SD and HD Panasonic side by side and at 1 mtr you could tell the difference but at 3 I couldnt,

I own a SD and if I had the money would have bought the HD only because it says HD :blink:

sorry just my 2 cents

But the feed may have been SD so you're not gonna see any difference. Give 720p or higher feed and I'm sure at that distance there would still be a difference, especially on 50" or bigger screen.

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Could I summarise, then, as:

If you are going to get a 42" screen, view it from >3.5 metres and feed it SD material (e.g. VHS, DVDs, Foxtel and FTA SD TV) then you may as well get a standard definition panel because you won't see the difference with HD.

How's that sound?

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Could I summarise, then, as:

If you are going to get a 42" screen, view it from >3.5 metres and feed it SD material (e.g. VHS, DVDs, Foxtel and FTA SD TV) then you may as well get a standard definition panel because you won't see the difference with HD.

How's that sound?

In a general sense yes that's true, yet as I said in my first post in this thread
It's an interesting and much discussed topic but I was at a wholesalers display show awhile ago and saw the 42 inch Panasonic SD with a Hi Def source and most reckoned it was about 15% better than the same plasma with an SD source. I don't understand this but there you have it.

But, bangs for buck you got a good deal. Enjoy.

A lot of people, hundreds, walked by this display and commented on how good it was and expressed real surprise at it being (only) a 42" SD screen.
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In a general sense yes that's true, yet as I said in my first post in this thread

A lot of people, hundreds, walked by this display and commented on how good it was and expressed real surprise at it being (only) a 42" SD screen.

Yes, even an 852 x 480 display can benefit fom an HD feed [if it can process it]. (Of course a 1366 x 768 display can extract more picture goodness from an HD feed.)

An SD feed at 720 x 576 can be mapped onto an 852 x 480 display but the conversion is necessarily rough, leading to artefacts or blurring. There is a mismatch: the source has a few too many pixels vertically and not quite enough pixels horizontally. It is like looking through two layers of screen door mesh, with mismatches in the size and shape of the holes.

An HD feed at 1280 x 720, or 1920 x 1080, can be more smoothly mapped onto an 852 x 480 display. For example, each horizontal line of the 480 display could be the weighted average of the content of three horizontal lines of the 1080 transmission.

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Could I summarise, then, as:

If you are going to get a 42" screen, view it from >3.5 metres and feed it SD material (e.g. VHS, DVDs, Foxtel and FTA SD TV) then you may as well get a standard definition panel because you won't see the difference with HD.

How's that sound?

It does not matter if the source is SD or BluRay 1080, at 4 meters a SD 42” will look as good as a HD 42”, all else being equal.

No use having more resolution then your eyes can see.

Even at 3.5 meters the advanatge of a 42" HD screen is small.

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It does not matter if the source is SD or BluRay 1080, at 4 meters a SD 42" will look as good as a HD 42", all else being equal.

No use having more resolution then your eyes can see.

Even at 3.5 meters the advanatge of a 42" HD screen is small.

And yet there are quite a few people here that have a 42" HD screen and have now bought Hi Def players. I wonder how many of them would agree with you? Alebonau?
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And yet there are quite a few people here that have a 42" HD screen and have now bought Hi Def players. I wonder how many of them would agree with you? Alebonau?

If the owners are determined to stand or sit 4 metres from their 42" HD screen, it will leave space for their visitors (wanting to see and appreciate detail) to view the screen from 2 metres or less.

The visitors will then be able to pass on wonderful comments such as "This HD-DVD disk does look more detailed". And the owners will be pleased, and will take their visitors' word for it. :blink:

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And yet there are quite a few people here that have a 42" HD screen and have now bought Hi Def players. I wonder how many of them would agree with you? Alebonau?

And if they normally view them from 4 meters or more, they are not seeing the extra detail they paid for, simple as that.

Go have a look at 1080 HD being displayed on a mix of SD and HD 42” Plasmas.

If you can see a resolution difference at 4 meters, then more power too you mate, you have exceptional vision.

At that distance and screen size other aspects of performance will dominate picture quality, not resolution.

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The visitors will then be able to pass on wonderful comments such as "This HD-DVD disk does look more detailed". And the owners will be pleased, and will take their visitors' word for it. :blink:

HD DVD’s will look better then normal DVD’s, even on an SD Plasma at 4 meters.

The quality of DVD’s is generally poor, and HDDVD offers lower noise, less compression artifacts and better colour, as well as unleashing the full visible resolution of an SD display.

DVD’s being compressed, don’t deliver their nominal pixel resolution as visible resolution.

I don’t think I would like to view a 768p 42” Plasma at less then 2 meters, as I can see the pixel structure at that distance.

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...

I don’t think I would like to view a 768p 42” Plasma at less then 2 meters, as I can see the pixel structure at that distance.

I was thinking of a 1080p screen, as to me that is the appropriate screen resolution for viewing 1080i high-definition DVDs. Though a 768p screen will give access to a lot of the "picture goodness".

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