Freeview with TV or Digibox

[Charliebrown]

Which is the best option a TV that comes with freeview or a seperate digibox and what is HD ready. Things are just too technical for me now. Hellllp.

[Ethel]

I would go for the inbuilt freeview AND a freeview digibox - then you can watch one and record one. :)


HD ready means if you subscribe to the super duper HD packages from SKY or Virgin you will get the enhanced HD picture. It's only on limited channels at the moment.

But HD may die and early death and BluRay be the favourite - like betamax and VHS video.

Prices are tumbling rapidly so there is no need to rush.

[Charliebrown]

So does that mean HD is not that important when choosing the tv?

[Ethel]

I would not buy a top spec tv at the moment - I am going to wait at least 12 months to see how it all develops.

On the other hand my friend has a �2k hdtv and loves it. I admit the picture is excellent, but I don't think it is worth spending that sort of money for the limited channels available, considering you have to pay extra to Virgin or Sky to get HD programmes.

Here is a good, short article about HDtv:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/26/hdtv_c onfusion/

But all in all I don't believe now is a good time to buy tvs - unless you are looking for a bargain 'old fashioned' crt tv - which is still recognised as having a better picture than either LCD or plasma, unless they are enhanced by HD.

[WoWo]

"But HD may die and early death and BluRay be the favourite - like betamax and VHS video. "

That is worng I'm afraid. HDTV and BlueRay are 2 different things.

An HDTV is one capable of displaying and image at a resolution of 720 scan lines or above, as Ethel says you need a broadcaster which provides a signal at this resolution at the moment thats pretty much only SKY.

However there is also a video format similar to DVD which will display in the full HD resolution, this comes currently in 2 formats. HD-DVD and BlueRay, both will play on an HDTV ready TV set.

There may be a time when either HD-DVD or BlueRay becomes the dominant format but this has no bearing whatso ever in HDTV.

In answer to the question, one of the problems with inbuilt free view is that often you cannot subscribe to the top up services as they require a card to allow access which the TV won't allow access to.