Philips 37" LCD

[Carol Anne]

Have I made a huge mistake buying this?? The picture looked great in the shop, ordinary sky as well as the HD demo, but now we have it at home I cannot believe how poor the picture seems compared to our old 32" flatscreen CRT.
Peoples heads seem to have a fuzzy aura around them if they turn or move suddenly this 'thing' seems ro move with them like a swarm of bees, and faces seem to have little definition in them unless full screen close ups, and so many ares of the picture seem to be dancing around, for want of a better description. The set has been installed by the engineer and is apparently A OK. Sometimes I think Im looking at the picture on a ten year old set!! Would a more expensive model give a better picture. Our old telly was a really good one and im seriously regretting changing to LCD. btw. we use sky and have a near perfect terrestrial signal. Any advice welcomed

[Mattk]

it all depends on the feed you are watching.we have all been duped into thinking that the picture will be amazing but quite often it isnt and is a significant step back from traditional crt tv's.the news looks particularly poor.i recommend watching some channel five progs,as they seem to have a consistently good picture.
you must remember that standard definition pictures were never meant to be shown on screens this big.

[khana]

I've got a Toshiba 43" LCD tv and had a similar sort of problem to you. After investigation it seems that in the shops, the tv's are set up for optimum conditions with harsh bright lights.

Of course at home, you don't have bright strip lights and as such you need to adjust the tv picture settings accordingly.
Try turning down the back light, the sharpness and the rest of the settings until you find the picture that suits your room lighting best.

It makes a big difference believe me, my tv was set to go back to the shop prior to the adjustments as I thought the picture was so poor. Now I think its fantastic, even on normal tv. Use a HD source and it looks out of this world.

[Carol Anne]

What HD source do you use khana?

[Mattk]

HD via Sky can be excellent but in a lot of cases it merely brings the picture to a quality similar to your old tv !
Some HD can be amazing tho...literally like looking thru a window.

[BreenM]

Not really an answer here but just a comment.

I for the reasons given have deliberately avoided going for a big LCD tv at the moment. I think consumers are all being conned on this one. Why should we for out a lot of cash for these tv's then have to upgrade to HD just to bring us back to a standard that we have had for the last god knows how many years.

More so it is totally obvious that when you see them working in shops you can tell immediately that the picture quality isn't as good as a CRT.

If you see true HD in action it is far better than what SKY are classing as HD.

I think we are a couple of years off on sorting this problem for now.

Cheers.

[BreenM]

Not really an answer here but just a comment.

I for the reasons given have deliberately avoided going for a big LCD tv at the moment. I think consumers are all being conned on this one. Why should we fork out a lot of cash for these tv's then have to upgrade to HD just to bring us back to a standard that we have had for the last god knows how many years.

More so it is totally obvious that when you see them working in shops you can tell immediately that the picture quality isn't as good as a CRT.

If you see true HD in action it is far better than what SKY are classing as HD.

I think we are a couple of years off on sorting this problem for now.

Cheers.

[BreenM]

Oops. Sorry for posting twice.

[khana]

I've got a Toshiba HD DVD player that I bought a month or so ago. I managed to accumulate a dozen or HD DVD's which can be obtained fairly reasonably from America and as there is no region coding yet on HD DVD's its fairly future proof.

[Carol Anne]

Hi Khana, Did you get the HD-DVD player in the UK? I've never seen one in the shops but I've heard the price is on the high side.
Old telly taken away this morning by some hard-up relations who I'd promised it to when I ordered the LCD. Couldn't help feel a twinge of irony knowing they've gone from a crappy old thing to a better picture than I have now!
I am SO cross with myself.

[khana]

Yes, I bought it from my local Co-op homemaker store. It's readily available online though ......
http://www.dabs.com/

I hope that adjusting your tv settings hopes though as there is nothing worse then a lousy picture.