LCD TV - The good, the bad, the ugly !

I’m in the market for a new TV, and trying to keep up with technology, am looking at a LCD TV. Chances are, if you don’t already own a LCD TV, your next TV probably will be one. So, with this I’m hoping some of you can shed some light on all the techno jargon quoted in the ads and thrown at you by the salesmen. Hopefully we all can gain from this and make a better informed decision when purchasing a LCD TV.

So, with that said, can someone please tell me what the following specs mean and what numbers are considered good, average and poor? Please keep in mind this is for watching TV (SABC, DSTV & DVD’s), not for use as a big PC monitor!

1) Resolution (eg. 1366x768) – Is bigger always better? When is it considered HDTV resolution? What is the effect on the picture quality when receiving non-HD TV signal, like DSTV?)
2) Contrast (eg. 500:1 and 5000:1) – The ratio seems to get more as the screen gets bigger?? How would you determine what ratio would be good for a specific size screen?
3) Brightness (eg. 500cd/m2 and 550nits) - ???
4) Colours / Colour System (12.8 billion colours and PAL D/K B/G I, NTSC-M, SECAM B/G D/K/K’) – How important is this and what the hell is all that D’s & K’s & B’s & G’s …?
5) HDMI – Know this is a HD multimedia interface, but what do you use it for?
6) HDTV (eg. 1080i/1080p/720p) - ???
7) Response Time (eg. 16ms and 12ms) - What is considered good, average and poor?

Anything else to consider when looking at the specs?

Specs dont always help, especially since things like brightness and responce times dont have set testing methods ( so one manufacturers 12ms can be anothers 8ms )

Best thing to do is to go see it and have them run different types of programes on it and see if its any good.

1)Full HDTV is 1080p (1920 × 1080)
5) Its a new small type of connector that can send up to 1080p from a player to the TV

Thing for me with LCD's is they keep getting better and cheaper, and since we dont have any HDTV yet, so why not wait a while and get a better set when HD/blueray DVD players come along and when broadcasters start moving to HDTV


One can also wait for the better OLED screens to arrive, that dont have any of the problems plasma and LCD currently have ( though they currently have slighly shorter lives )

ok lets see.

1) Well a resolution of 1366x768 is about the best i've seen in SA so far.
HD comes in two formats really 720 and 1080, 1080p being the best, a set with a native resolution as above cannot do 1080p/i PROPER display.. it can probably display the signal but its cut down to 768p/i.
Secondly on this subject ever getting proper 1080p media/signal is probably far in the future so to get a 720p set now is the wisest choice.
Generally with the sets with HD displaying SD signals it all comes down to how well the image is upscaled.
SD tv looks ok on my 50inch, you can obviously now see how inferior the signal really is from dstv... but hey.

2. Contrast ratio as far as i know should have nothing to do with size, its all about the different shades of black really, the higher the contrast ration the better, look for 10 000:1

3.Brightness... well demo the set before you buy one, you can obviously see if its bright enough, some sets also have a very narrow viewing angle. Just use your eyes to judge.

4. Most of these new sets support pretty much all the different standards, i wouldnt put this as too important.

5.HDMI... well here's the kicker.... when we do get blue ray and hd dvd's they are going to plug into your set via the HDMI cable ( not the HD component cable as far as i can see, the 1 plug cable[thing sockect thingy]) because they have to talk to your set and confirm it is a proper HD set and then they will play a HD signal, else they play a cut down signal . Apparently this is hows its going to work

6.HDTV... well a 1080p set is the best.. what it means is
1080p .. is 1080 vertical lines displayed progressivly
1080i .. is 1080 vertical lines displayed interlaced(every 2nd line is updated a frame, therefore only half the bandwidth is effectively used)
720p and 720i are the same.
You want at least a 720p set.

7) response time... could be two things but it should be the grey to grey colour of a pixel , how long it takes before a pixel can actually change from colour to colour, the longer it takes the more it will appear to blur/bleed as a image moves on the screen.


end point... u cannot judge a set on its stats.. you really need to view the set in action and have them actually demo some hd sources(vga from a laptop etc etc) a HD ready set MEANS NOTHING its really false advertising, all its saying is it can understand what a HD picture is, not necessarily display it in HD.