Motion blur on LCD tv's

[marinyork]

My sister and brother-in-law bought an HD-ready LCD TV from Aldi a couple of years back and I thought its picture quality was awful until they got HDTV on Freesat, then I realised that it was the old Freeview box/broadcast quality that was bad. BBC HD now looks stunning as do Blu-ray DVDs, so the TV was obviously always capable, it was the quality of the source material that was poor.

SD digital sucks basically. BBC1 is good. Five can be. Some of the others can have their moments. As User says some of the cable/sat channels can be comically funny how bad they are.

A lot of source material these days is pretty good. I know that some of the source material that looks dreadful is good. It will be interesting to see for example how good Top Gear looks in a few days time as it is being shot in HD for the first time and BBC2 looks noticeably worse than BBC1.

Unfortunately HD is going the same way as SD went and BBC HD has already started to go into terminal decline.

 

[ColinJ]

Unfortunately HD is going the same way as SD went and BBC HD has already started to go into terminal decline.

Typical - what's the point of HDTV if it isn't going to be good quality!

The two BBC programmes I watched were really good - an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? and a wild life documentary.

I also sat with my niece while she inflicted The Bill on us in HD - I didn't think much of the programme but it looked really good (Much to her annoyance, I kept flicking between the SD and HD broadcasts to compare them! )

I wanted to remind myself just how bad The Professionals was so I flicked over to UK GOLD on SD. Yes, the programme itself was awful (dig those perms!) but the picture quality was truly dire! Fuzzy and blocky even on slow-changing scenes, but fast car chases and explosions were appallingly bad.

While we are having a moan about falling broadcast standards - I was seriously underwhelmed when someone demonstrated their DAB radio to me!

 

[marinyork]

Football is way better on ESPN HD than the standard channel.

Well that's true, although what I really had in mind was ESPN HD is miles better than Setanta that was one of the worst channels ever to exist, despite having a very high bitrate. So I suppose things work out all right in the end.

 

[marinyork]

Typical - what's the point of HDTV if it isn't going to be good quality!

The two BBC programmes I watched were really good - an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? and a wild life documentary.

I also sat with my niece while she inflicted The Bill on us in HD - I didn't think much of the programme but it looked really good (Much to her annoyance, I kept flicking between the SD and HD broadcasts to compare them! )

I wanted to remind myself just how bad The Professionals was so I flicked over to UK GOLD on SD. Yes, the programme itself was awful (dig those perms!) but the picture quality was truly dire! Fuzzy and blocky even on slow-changing scenes, but fast car chases and explosions were appallingly bad.

While we are having a moan about falling broadcast standards - I was seriously underwhelmed when someone demonstrated their DAB radio to me!

ITV are pretty good at doing HD. Just so short of money. I don't watch the Bill, it's an excellent picture but some of the styles are a bit weird, the colours a bit cold, too sterile, I find this on a few films and some other programmes. Just waiting to get ITV HD here. Really hoping that Eurosport HD will be added next year so I can enjoy the Tour in HD .

 

[ianrauk]

now that would be brilliant. The Tour, Giro and Vuelta in HD...

Really hoping that Eurosport HD will be added next year so I can enjoy the Tour in HD .

 

[Shaun]

What is SD anyway?

Standard Definition

 

[marinyork]

now that would be brilliant. The Tour, Giro and Vuelta in HD...

The Tour has been in HD since 2007 and the giro 2008? Anyway might be getting my years mixed up. The vuelta would be good, I'm not sure that's even shot in HD at all and seemed not so good even on standard eurosport.

 

[a_n_t]

the tour is very good in HD

 

[Mr Pig]

I'm still at a loss to understand why people are buying TV's that are worst than my 25" Trinitron.Most people I know with modern flat screen TV's wax lyrical over a crap picture... that's progress I guess...

Quite. We still have a Trinitron, in fact we have two. We had three at one point.

LCD TV. Great for watching cartoons and letting the street know how big your TV is! ;0)

 

[sheddy]

Maybe HD needs a revised acronym ? hardly desireable ?

 

[beanzontoast]

I'm so pleased that lots of people have posted in response to my OP, but equally I'm left wondering now as opinion seems to vary about how good lcd's are compared to the old CRT televisions. Unless I pay out what is to me a huge amount for a 100Hz lcd tv, the only real option seems to be to buy a decent 50Hz lcd model like a Sony. Am I going to find the SD pictures a disappointment compared to our old 28" CRT tele, though?

 

[marinyork]

Depends what you watch.

Like for like LCDs compare very favourably with CRTs. Most of the moaning is when people don't do that.

 

[beanzontoast]

Depends what you watch.

Like for like LCDs compare very favourably with CRTs. Most of the moaning is when people don't do that.

I suppose that's the thing: if it's going to be better than the old CRT (and we don't have a choice as that's on the way out), that will do for me.

 

[marinyork]

I suppose that's the thing: if it's going to be better than the old CRT (and we don't have a choice as that's on the way out), that will do for me.

Depends what you watch. A lot of SD channels aren't even a proper resolution as well as being low bit rate.

If on the other hand you say watched a lot of DVDs and plugged it into a high quality DVD upscaler or blu-ray player or other device that can do that same sort of things through HDMI (or other) you might think it quite nice.

I thought you had sky anyway, or is that completely wrong?

 

[beanzontoast]

Depends what you watch. A lot of SD channels aren't even a proper resolution as well as being low bit rate.

If on the other hand you say watched a lot of DVDs and plugged it into a high quality DVD upscaler or blu-ray player or other device that can do that same sort of things through HDMI (or other) you might think it quite nice.

I thought you had sky anyway, or is that completely wrong?

Yes - we've had Sky a couple of years now. Whether we go down the Sky HD route (£££) or hang on for Freesat or Freeview HD getting established is another thing I've been thinking about.

Why does everything get more complex!?