HDTV

[fruitbar]

Hi,

I'm really confused by all this HDTV stuff... what sort of TV do I have to buy to make sure it's compatible?  Will my existing TV just stop working altogether?  Is it going to cost me £1,000 for a TV now?!?!?

[Welsh Decorator]

HD is short for 'High Definition', in other words it has about 3X's the number of lines that make up the picture quality.
Unless it say's it is HD ready or compatable, it will not be, if it is? you will probably need a HD decoder box!
Otherwise, yes it probably will cost £1000 or even more for one!

[HiHo]

be aware that a whole new raft of TV's are on the market now which are either full HD also known as 1080P. Most of the TV's marked as HD Ready had 720lines whereas these new ones have 1080 lines. Basically higher resolution. Now you will be able to watch Sky HD on both, but you XBox 360 game may be downgraded to 720 lines from 1080 on a HD Ready TV.

The question is would you notice? Thats a question of screen size, viewing distance and picture source quality.
The chart shown here gives a fairly clear example.

http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html

One can see that sitting at 10ft one would need a 50inch screen to fully appreciate 720p. To fully appreciate 1080P at the same distance one would need a 80inch screen.

personally I would more concerned about how good the contrast, brightness, colour (skin tones in particular), motion blur and especially how well it handles standard definition digital TV broadcasts (what you will most likely be watching lots of for a few years). Many sets (particularly LCD's) handle standard def badly with lots of noise.

As 1080P becomes more prevalent the price premium will drop and questions of whether you can detect the difference or not will become a moot point as could be the case of why not buy one?!

[jhon_maxi]

HDTV means "High Definition Television"