Take a look at the latest catologue from Myers/Good Guys/Joyce Mayne/Walmart... how many LCD T.Vs are there with the label HD? Now take a look at the resolution for that T.V... lower than 1920x1280? Right. Not HD at all.
Some people out seeking a FULL HD (Thats how they market it... FULL HD) T.V will see these "HD" T.Vs at affordable prices and go out and buy one... Get it home and find out that its not HD at all... its... worse than that. I've seen a T.V advertised with 1024x768 resolution, labelled as "HD". Thats a joke! Remember those old 18inch CRT monitors we used to have (some still do) on our computers 6 years ago? Most of them had a max resolution of 1024x768. Was anything 'High Def' about those monitors? Same goes for these LCD TVs. Don't get fooled into buying one just because it has the label HD and has a nice price on it. Sure... they're fine if you're just looking to update to something a little bit fancier. But they just won't give you the full HD experience when you watch your football/cricket matches and Bluray/HD DVDs, or play your Playstation/Xbox 360 at full quality. DVDs will look better on the lower quality LCDs, not so pretty on the full HD ones (see High Def vs. Standard Def; the article I wrote last week for resolutions of DVD vs Full HD). For those of us who like our (BluRay/HD Camcorder) movies with the best-possible-quality-short-of-owning-the-film-negative-itself... Full HD is ideal.
Now, before I bitch about this.. I'd like to tell you WHY they do this. Besides money, Besides the tech junkies... you get those who don't know what this-and-that means in the tech world (resolutions, contrast ratios, sharpness ratios, response times etc) to fork over their hard earned cash for something less-than-desirable. Now sure, a lot of these people REALLY don't care... they just want their new T.V. But are you sure that its worth that $600+ when you're not sure of its quality?
At the moment, you can expect Sony and Samsung (the leaders of LCD market) to give you what you pay for. But don't go anywhere until you've seen the T.V work, and seen the output quality of the T.V. You don't want to get it home only to find that the quality is... shit. The higher the resolution, the better the quality of your games/BluRays... And stay away from those with 'built in' DVD players... even the ones with BluRay in them. If this player craps out... (and it will... right after the warranty runs out) you're screwed. I don't reccommend that you get one with the built in HD tuner, but thats simply because anything built into the TV is likely to die... and take the T.V with it. But its a matter of personal preference. Buy a Set Top Box if you can spare the extra space. And don't expect your old VCR tapes to look great either... most will look stretched, and otherwise grainy. Make sure you protect your investment, possibly purchasing extended warranty... a surge protector power board (Seriously, get it or you'll regret it) and listing it under your household contents Insurance.
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