[scotw]

Originally Posted by ShereKhan

If any of you chaps can get membership of Costco www.costco.co.uk they have a good range of LCD TV's with 3yr warranty included. Only prob is that you have to collect no delivery. Been a member for over 7 yrs never had problems with customer service.

I'll second that.

On the subject of HD over freeview, read this today, not good. Can't say I'm shocked that our Government wants to take the cash and waste it somewhere.....

[RichardM]

Originally Posted by ShereKhan

If any of you chaps can get membership of Costco www.costco.co.uk they have a good range of LCD TV's with 3yr warranty included. Only prob is that you have to collect no delivery. Been a member for over 7 yrs never had problems with customer service.

And great fun I had trying to get a 42" LCD in its box into the BMW.

Costco are great if you change your mind too. I originally bought a Toshiba 42" LCD and we weren't happy with the picture when I got it home so I went back and bought a Sony and compared the two side by side at home for a week before taking the Toshiba without any problems.

[Cafe.Racer]

I had to de-box the 37" Samsung I orded for my Dad to get it in the Herse. Mind you, I had the kids in the back seat...

Going off topic, what do you all have for surround sound? I'm thinking of getting a receiver and speakers, but so far I've managed to sneak up to £460 with a cheap(ish) set of sepakers and a few cables.

Not sure it's worth it...

[330cdsport]

I bought a good surround system a few years ago. All seperates from Pioneer, Monitor Audio, and Yamaha.

Pioneer VSX-AX3 Receiver, DV-757 DVD
Monitor Audio Speakers: S10 fronts, Sfx Rears and Slcr centre
Yamaha YST-SW800 subwoofer.

When you listen to a DTS film, SACD, or DVD-Audio thru the system, the quality is amazing.

I have recently added a Mediagate MD-350 HiDef wirelless box which upscales everything to 1080p. It has its own HDD too for playing downloaded HD movies from BitTorrent as the wireless cant hack the bandwidth.

[Cafe.Racer]

Thing is, I'm spending more on a receiver than I budgeted for, just to get the connectivity I "need" plus a bit of futureproofing. I already need 3 opitcal connections with what I have now.

I'm a bit bothered about buying "cheapo" speakers that don't do the receiver justice...

I have a media center PC and that does my upscaling for me

[mjh93sa]

Surround wise I've got all the periphal components running into a H-K A/V amp that also switches the video on to a single scart to the TV. Monitor Audio S5s for the front and centre, with KEF "eggs" for the rears. I may not have Logic7 in the car, but I do have it in the house Digital links for video devices, but a thumping great pair of coax analogue connections for my tunes (Arcam CD player) as I prefer the warmer sound they give.

As 330d says, DTS sounds brilliant. Gladitator is a good one for that.

[E92Fan]

Surround wise - I have a Rotel DTS decoder, running into six active Genelec monitors, and a B&W subwoofer. In the process of changing over to an Infocus 1080p projector - just waiting for the screen to be made now. Going for a six foot wide fixed wall screen... can't wait to watch Seven again, which IMO in DTS edition still demonstrates the totally absorbing atmosphere that a great surround system can create.

[Cafe.Racer]

Well. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend "all that money" (although by the sounds of it, you lot have got a tidy sum tied up in your kit.)

I had a thought about somehow using the Media Center and a Sound card, but the only ones I could find that had optical/digital in were still around £200 and then they only had one input, two at a push, and didn't actually do decoding.

I came across an, apparently, discontinued Creative decoder which sounded good (7.1, DTS, DTS-ES, Prologic II, Neo 6, Upmixing and stuff), nice and small and has 8 inputs (inc 3 optical, 1 coax digital) - still near £200 though.

While I was googling for info, I stumbled on a sale of one bundled with a set of 7.1 Creative Speakers from http://www.itcsales.co.uk/. For £90 + VAT

The decoder seems to be as "rare as rocking horse shit" reading on avforums and people are still looking for them, there are three of the decorders alone on ebay for between £140-£210.

A couple of good reviews, and one "excellent for the money" one written by a guy who confesses to be fussy about sound quality. Speakers not that powerful, but the room is small and I'm not going to be turning it up to 11 anyway.

Might be crap, might be alright. Seems like I can't really loose.



Edit2: Bugger, arse - a guy from ITC has just rung to say that they've dropped it and smashed it!

[E92Fan]

Originally Posted by Cafe.Racer

Well. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend "all that money" (although by the sounds of it, you lot have got a tidy sum tied up in your kit.)

I had a thought about somehow using the Media Center and a Sound card, but the only ones I could find that had optical/digital in were still around £200 and then they only had one input, two at a push, and didn't actually do decoding.

I came across an, apparently, discontinued Creative decoder which sounded good (7.1, DTS, DTS-ES, Prologic II, Neo 6, Upmixing and stuff), nice and small and has 8 inputs (inc 3 optical, 1 coax digital) - still near £200 though.

While I was googling for info, I stumbled on a sale of one bundled with a set of 7.1 Creative Speakers from http://www.itcsales.co.uk/. For £90 + VAT

The decoder seems to be as "rare as rocking horse shit" reading on avforums and people are still looking for them, there are three of the decorders alone on ebay for between £140-£210.

A couple of good reviews, and one "excellent for the money" one written by a guy who confesses to be fussy about sound quality. Speakers not that powerful, but the room is small and I'm not going to be turning it up to 11 anyway.

Might be crap, might be alright. Seems like I can't really loose.



Edit2: Bugger, arse - a guy from ITC has just rung to say that they've dropped it and smashed it!

Get it - if it works for you, great... if it doesn't, ebay it out again and get your money back!

ah.. just read your edit... oops...

[vivekk]

Originally Posted by E92Fan

Surround wise - I have a Rotel DTS decoder, running into six active Genelec monitors, and a B&W subwoofer. In the process of changing over to an Infocus 1080p projector - just waiting for the screen to be made now. Going for a six foot wide fixed wall screen... can't wait to watch Seven again, which IMO in DTS edition still demonstrates the totally absorbing atmosphere that a great surround system can create.

...and I thought you were a 'true' audiophile, Tony.

Viv

[E92Fan]

Originally Posted by vivekk

...and I thought you were a 'true' audiophile, Tony.

Viv

And for my 2-channel I have a Naim rig with Dynaudio Contour standmounts...

[Cafe.Racer]

Still waiting to hear back how badly damaged it is - they said the sub was "smashed to bits", for the money (with maybe a bit of discount) I might still have it.

If not, it'll be a Cambridge Audio 340R (unless I can find a cheaper Samsung with HDMI-CEC) and not sure what speakers, maybe the Tannoy FX5.1 to keep the cost down (good reduction at Richer Sounds)

Edit: or the Canton deal on the avfourms...

[tinka]

guys,is there realy a big difference between hd ready and full hd as in 1080i/p,im happy with my sony kdlv40 on hd,im just curious to know if the difference is noticable on the full hd's.

[Serjames]

1080 is not hugely differnet to 720 to MY eyes if I'm sitting back on the sofa.

Close up and on freeze frame or using computer games etc then yes there's a difference.

But that's more to do with the quality of the scaling kit and the signal quality.

i.e. you could have a crap 1080 res vid file encoded poorly that would look worse than a top notch 720 .TS file

It's a bit horses for courses - if like me you have access to 1080p material it's a nobrainer to run full HD. But if SKY HD is all you use then 720 will be fine I'm sure for the next few years anyway.

Sony kit is good I stand firmly by it. Lots of people rate the much more expensive pioneer kit, but frankly value for money wise the SONY is better. I run a KDL40w2000 and it's superb, a little bit of light bleed which is a known problem, but to be honest my lounge has so many reflective surfaces anyway it just doesn't bother me.... I don't mind rattles bangs and creaks in my cars either though, so read into that what you will

SJ

[NFS]

Originally Posted by Serjames

1080 is not hugely differnet to 720 to MY eyes if I'm sitting back on the sofa.

Close up and on freeze frame or using computer games etc then yes there's a difference.

But that's more to do with the quality of the scaling kit and the signal quality.

i.e. you could have a crap 1080 res vid file encoded poorly that would look worse than a top notch 720 .TS file

It's a bit horses for courses - if like me you have access to 1080p material it's a nobrainer to run full HD. But if SKY HD is all you use then 720 will be fine I'm sure for the next few years anyway.

Sony kit is good I stand firmly by it. Lots of people rate the much more expensive pioneer kit, but frankly value for money wise the SONY is better. I run a KDL40w2000 and it's superb, a little bit of light bleed which is a known problem, but to be honest my lounge has so many reflective surfaces anyway it just doesn't bother me.... I don't mind rattles bangs and creaks in my cars either though, so read into that what you will

SJ

Since most media is still SD or 720p/1080i a 1080p TV is almost a handicap as it is less forgiving of a poor quality SD signal than a 720p display.

Having said that 1080i does look good on my TV.

[- Paul -]

Originally Posted by tinka

guys,is there realy a big difference between hd ready and full hd as in 1080i/p,im happy with my sony kdlv40 on hd,im just curious to know if the difference is noticable on the full hd's.

Depends on the size of the screen you are running

If over 40" - you want 1080p - you CAN tell the difference.

If not, you'll be ok on 720P.