New TV Advice

Sporky

To be fair your GPU is probably an order of magnitude more powerful than the scaler in any telly on the market, and it'll be dealing with a clean digital bitstream, not having to deal with it coming in over a cheap crappy HDMI cable from a TV set-top-box that uses every cost-saving trick in the HDMI specification...

Also from a fair bit of testing, PC monitors tend to be surprisingly/very good about dealing with different input signals. On balance I'd say they're generally better than tellies are.

Myranda

Sporky said:

To be fair your GPU is probably an order of magnitude more powerful than the scaler in any telly on the market, and it'll be dealing with a clean digital bitstream, not having to deal with it coming in over a cheap crappy HDMI cable from a TV set-top-box that uses every cost-saving trick in the HDMI specification...

Also from a fair bit of testing, PC monitors tend to be surprisingly/very good about dealing with different input signals. On balance I'd say they're generally better than tellies are.

That's exactly why I prefer to use monitors - I'd have monitors anyway for starters... 

Really want a (good) 4K IPS 40"+ monitor to come out (and not cost a squillion money) rather than a TV (with small bezels too). 

english_bob

Sporky said:

cheap crappy HDMI cable 

Hmm. I had been led to believe that an HDMI cable was an HDMI cable, and since the signal it carried was digital and not analogue there wasn't any need to concern yourself with the sort of corksniffery associated with hi-fi snobs and their analogue speaker cable. Not so?

Myranda

english_bob said:

Sporky said:

cheap crappy HDMI cable 

Hmm. I had been led to believe that an HDMI cable was an HDMI cable, and since the signal it carried was digital and not analogue there wasn't any need to concern yourself with the sort of corksniffery associated with hi-fi snobs and their analogue speaker cable. Not so?

Yes. And no. 

The HDMI standard allows for a little wiggle room to save some money... 

So  £1 HDMI cable might have crappy soldering or no shielding... But still technically hit the specifications 

After a certain point, yes more money can't make a difference... A £30 cable shouldn't be out done by a £1000 one... 

One caveat - very long HDMI cables... Good ones tend to work out higher priced (still not hundreds) 

Axe_meister

When I first got into the flat screen TV game (13 years ago) you could get 40+ Plasma monitors without any of the TV gubbins. Alas if you want to go that route these days it's impossible unless you are a commercial outfit. I all I want is a nice 55" HDR 4K Monitor with a single HDMI input. Audio and smarts are all external.

Sporky

english_bob said:

Sporky said:

cheap crappy HDMI cable 

Hmm. I had been led to believe that an HDMI cable was an HDMI cable, and since the signal it carried was digital and not analogue there wasn't any need to concern yourself with the sort of corksniffery associated with hi-fi snobs and their analogue speaker cable. Not so?

A lot of the time an HDMI cable is an HDMI cable, though there have been a few different standards (and still are) - standard vs high speed (which roughly translates to doesn't-support-1080p vs does-support-1080p), with and without ethernet.

However, as we get into 4K the spec does matter more, because 4K requires enormously more bandwidth than 1080p. Shielding matters more too, and so does conductor gauge. You can do 1080p/60 with 4:4:4 8-bit colour in 4.46Gbps. Go up to UHD, 30 frames per second and deep colour (still 4:4:4) and you're already up to 11.14Gbps. If you want do do UHD at 60 frames per second, with deep colour and still maintain 4:4:4 then that goes up to 22.28Gbps.

Distance also matters - I do commercial AV, so cable runs are rarely under 5m and often well over 20m with multiple breaks. At that point cheap cables won't get the signal to the end of the cable without an equalizer (if at all).

You're right in that there's some videophile nonsense about a cable giving you deeper blacks and better contrast - this just doesn't happen assuming the signal stays the same. If you are getting bandwidth issues on an HDMI cable it normally manifests as little "sparkles" on the image if you're just on the cusp, then you very rapidly go to no image at all.

Sporky

Myranda said:

One caveat - very long HDMI cables... Good ones tend to work out higher priced (still not hundreds) 

MSRP on my employer's 60m standard speed is just shy of a grand, and it requires an equalizer to do 1080p/60.

They're actually quite popular with staging rental types who don't want to use twisted pair or fibre extenders.

MrSwanson

octatonic said:

I just bought a 40" Samsung for the workshop- it was £420.
I bought it from Richer Sounds- got a 6 year warranty.
If you want something cheaper then buy last years model, or go down a screen size.
Personally I wouldn't want to compromise on screen clarity, I'd rather have a higher quality smaller screen than a lower quality larger screen.

Just seen this is now a little cheaper, looking to pick up tomorrow so will probably be the winner.

thisisguitar

I'll admit to not having read the whole thread, but if you have Netflix then I'd definitely go 4K... the picture is incredible if you have the 4K subscription to go with it. Plus, it's a little more future proof.  

MrSwanson

Thanks, not sure in our budget (£400) 4k will be any good?

octatonic

MrSwanson said:

octatonic said:

I just bought a 40" Samsung for the workshop- it was £420.
I bought it from Richer Sounds- got a 6 year warranty.
If you want something cheaper then buy last years model, or go down a screen size.
Personally I wouldn't want to compromise on screen clarity, I'd rather have a higher quality smaller screen than a lower quality larger screen.

Just seen this is now a little cheaper, looking to pick up tomorrow so will probably be the winner.

Yeah looks like they knocked another £20 off it.
Nice one.

Strangefan

Gassage said:

Some useful reviews here

http://www.trans-mission.org/tips/starting.php

I just read the whole thing...... That was really interesting! 

Sambostar

I prefer my TV more as a non literal poetic medium.  As soon as the resolution goes up, you get distracted from the plot or the scenery or the ambience by looking at the makeup and hairs of the leading actresses nose.  Your only option then is to drink until it becomes followable again.  CGI is a load of cobblers.  The funniest herd mentality I've seen is people that who are short sighted that go and splash a grand on a new TV.

Is it true you have to give your address, even if you pay cash for a TV?  I've just had the licence renewal through, The TV is the neighbours from the late 90's and it's a piece of crap, I think I'm gonna get some kind of blue tooth monitor instead with no guts in it at all and stream from the laptop.  I so rarely watch TV any more that the only downside I can think of is that I get the news from Yahoo.

Myranda

Sambostar said:

I prefer my TV more as a non literal poetic medium.  As soon as the resolution goes up, you get distracted from the plot or the scenery or the ambience by looking at the makeup and hairs of the leading actresses nose.  Your only option then is to drink until it becomes followable again.  CGI is a load of cobblers.  The funniest herd mentality I've seen is people that who are short sighted that go and splash a grand on a new TV.

Is it true you have to give your address, even if you pay cash for a TV?  I've just had the licence renewal through, The TV is the neighbours from the late 90's and it's a piece of crap, I think I'm gonna get some kind of blue tooth monitor instead with no guts in it at all and stream from the laptop.  I so rarely watch TV any more that the only downside I can think of is that I get the news from Yahoo.

Just remember that if you steam iPlayer from September you will need a TV licence 

Sambostar

Good point, but mostly it's just concerts, gigs, old B movies and 70's shows.  I don't know whether I will disappear up my own backside being so out of touch with the newspapers and TV or whether the reality is that the whole world is disappearing up it's own backside as it is.  Besides there is a bloke in the pub who always reads the papers anyway.  I will send off my request to the TV people on Monday.

boogieman

Sam, you live in your own universe anyway. No point worrying about the news in our world. 

Sambostar

I'm taking the TV down the pub tonight as someone needs it more than I do.

Sarge

I second, or is it third... the Panasonics, slightly more expensive than Samsung but much better feel to the build quality, the screen on my 40" (last of the non-smart)  is bright and crisp and has useful screen settings,  it has an extremely good viewing angle so I can still see clearly when viewing from daft angles. 
Also they have a good audio leveller control, so when the program jumps to adverts it keeps the volumes sensible,  (it's an on/off setting but works really well).