30" monitor Vs HDTV?

you can get 1080p from £250 pounds (hansspree) although there not great at all

i would suggest to you Samsung,Sony,LG,pioneer,

some great television we have a work we test on :D
 
You should be able to get a 37" Samsung M87 quite easily with that budget, would be a nice choice. With new lines due out/coming out plenty palces are offering good deals on it and similar TVs from Sony and Toshiba.
 
These are my top pick Full HD (1080p) 37" screens.....

-Panasonic TX-37LZD80
-Philips 37PFL9632D
-Toshiba 37X3030DB (2007 model which is actually better than the newer 2008 model (37XV505DB/3DB))

Unfortunately Sony don’t do any 1080p models yet, the 37XBR6 looks to be simply awesome but the UK may not actually get it :(
If you can make room I would seriously think about some of the latest 40" Bravia's, the 40V3000 and 40D3500 are unbeatable for the price.

TBH I’m not to keen on Samsung and LG panels, when stacked up against the latest Pana and Sony sets they simply fall short picture wise. Also the Sammy’s and LG's always seem to make a mess of SD sources. One thing that does go in favour for the Samsungs is their ridiculous array of settings available to tweak inputs etc..
 
Hesky82 said:
TBH I’m not to keen on Samsung and LG panels, when stacked up against the latest Pana and Sony sets they simply fall short picture wise. Also the Sammy’s and LG's always seem to make a mess of SD sources. One thing that does go in favour for the Samsungs is their ridiculous array of settings available to tweak inputs etc..
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Samsung and LG make good sets, LG do seem to have some sets with pretty bad black levels though, personally the SD performance on my LG is pretty awesome I think, my old Samsung (though only a 19") looked awful however.
 
Hesky82 said:
These are my top pick Full HD (1080p) 37" screens.....

-Panasonic TX-37LZD80
-Philips 37PFL9632D
-Toshiba 37X3030DB (2007 model which is actually better than the newer 2008 model (37XV505DB/3DB))

Unfortunately Sony don’t do any 1080p models yet, the 37XBR6 looks to be simply awesome but the UK may not actually get it :(
If you can make room I would seriously think about some of the latest 40" Bravia's, the 40V3000 and 40D3500 are unbeatable for the price.

TBH I’m not to keen on Samsung and LG panels, when stacked up against the latest Pana and Sony sets they simply fall short picture wise. Also the Sammy’s and LG's always seem to make a mess of SD sources. One thing that does go in favour for the Samsungs is their ridiculous array of settings available to tweak inputs etc..
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Well the Sony's and Samsungs use the same panels so you can get a very good picture out of them particularly on the high contrast glossy models. Although admitedley the settings out of the box are a mess and do take a lot of adjusting, they enable far too much processing but once setup deliver an awesome image 1:1 mapped with 1080p sources. Blurays in particular are just stunning.

The Tosh and Panasonic models are well worth looking into, 100% agree there. The Panny panels tend to have less contrast but don't suffer from smearing as much (though this really isn't much of an issue now) it depends what your priorities are. I'd stay away from Phillips if you plan to use with a games console, great picture but they have had some very severe problems with input lag.

As others have mentioned stay well away from the cheap models, you get what you pay for.
 
Yup totally agree, the sammy M87 range when setup to run with no over-scanning 1:1 pix.mapping over a HDMI input can produce a HD picture that can rival the best LCD sets. Black levels are pretty stonking to, which manage to rival decent plasma screens. Like you say they do need to be setup well to get a good colour balance.
With the latest Sony’s you get all that to, but I still find the Bravia processing engine produces a better picture with SD material.

Basically the latest Sammy M86/7 range of screens are a massive improvement over the old M7X range.
 
1:1 Pixel is fantastic, when I first connected my PC it looked crap then I noticed it was set at 16:9 rather than 1:1 Pixel.

Also I noticed the difference in image quality between VGA and HDMI was huge when I use my computer on the TV, but for the 360 VGA looks fantastic but HDMI stomps all over VGA for PC input, not sure why!
 
All M86's can run 1:1 pixel mapping on both VGA and HDMI inputs, you must use #2 HDMI though, the other HDMIs for whatever reason do not support it.
I might be wrong but I think 1:1 pixel mapping is called "game mode" by Samsung.

edit: Actually I think game mode is something completely different! Pretty sure when you select "just scan" and output the native res of the screen it will run 1:1 automatically.
 
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I was going to post a seperate thread here about monitors vs HDTVs - but someones beat me to it.

My question was regards 16:9 and 16:10 - are there any disadvantages of having either? I know movies and most broadcasts are 16:9, but my concern is more about Windows desktop and games fitting into a 16:9 format without having issues...

Also isnt 37" just too big for normal Pc usage? Love some experience on this...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
A large 16:10 monitor will have fantastic resolution and a small pixel pitch, so as PC use goes they can’t be beaten. But when you watch films or connect your games console up to it, you will end up with a stretched image if its scaling or a black band top and bottom due to the differing resolution of the monitor.

As far as HDTV's go most modern GFX cards support 16:9 screens these days and have the ability to output the correct native resolution which is great. Also films and console games can be played and watched as they were meant to be.

As far as size goes a 37" tv would simply be far to big if you plan on sitting a couple of feet away, 6-7 foot is a good distance imo. You would be mad to sit at a desk in front of a 37" tv, the larger pixel pitch would be pretty noticeable at that distance to.

At the end of the day it depends on what you want to use your screen for.
 
i use a 40inch for my pc sitting 5-9 foot away (i change for what ever im doing)


its great for games using 5.1 surround sound one thing thats annying is the blacks are to dark cant see people in shadows in css but was soon fixed by changing tv to standard picture mode
 
itsari said:
Would you recommend

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/...vision&subtype=tftlcd&model_cd=LE37M86BDX/XEU

over a 30" samsung monitor? its 7" bigger than 30" monitors and £300+ less!
how do you know if they have this 1:1 couldn't see it in any specs
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Yeah go for it I say, when you think of 1920x1080 on a big screen you'd think it would be all blurry and messy, but really it's pixel perfect and great quality.

Only real thing you don't get is the extra desktop space/workspace, that 2560x1600 will give you, but when the trade off is such a big screen I think it's worth it.

Also 16:9 is better than 16:10 I think, mainly because that's the correct ratio for Xbox 360/PS3 games, TV shows and films, where as 16:10 would result in bars or a stretched image, I've not had any issues with any PC games using 16:9 either.

Also isnt 37" just too big for normal Pc usage? Love some experience on this...
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Nah you get used to it! But when I shift from a dim website to a bright website (like with a bright white background) it can be blinding when you first wake up or if you have a headache lol.
 
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Jihad said:
Yeah go for it I say, when you think of 1920x1080 on a big screen you'd think it would be all blurry and messy, but really it's pixel perfect and great quality.
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That was my main worry.

Cheers for clearing it up, i think i know what i'll be buying soon! :D
 
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