Just taken the plunge

JimmyEatWorms · 31 May 2006 at 08:39

Gone and bought myself an LDC TV :eek:

I have been considering a 26" sammy for some time but I thought it would be a little small. I just read on AVForums about a Medion 32" which looks great on paper and is getting good reports from those that bought it....and the best part is, it's only £599 from Woolworths (they aren't a competitior are they?). It has all the usual gubbins to look out for (HDMI etc) and apparantly has very good blacks etc.

Can't wait

chaparral · 31 May 2006 at 12:32

Well done...
Let us know what you think of it,after you got it all setup and running..and post some pics please.

(I only just took the plunge myself yesterday and brought a pioneer plasma screen..)

JimmyEatWorms · 31 May 2006 at 12:40

Will do. It looks like a decent budget set and a good size. Medion aren't exactly a well known brand but I had a 15" TFT of theirs for about 3 years and the quality was flawless. And if it isn't up to scratch it can go straight back...

chaparral · 31 May 2006 at 12:47

JimmyEatWorms said:
Will do. It looks like a decent budget set and a good size. Medion aren't exactly a well known brand but I had a 15" TFT of theirs for about 3 years and the quality was flawless. And if it isn't up to scratch it can go straight back...

My father has a medion widescreen laptop..Which i use most likely more then him..

McBain · 1 Jun 2006 at 10:50

I'd also be very interested to see your review when you take delivery mate, hope it lives up to your expectations

Now I know absolutely nothing about HDTVs, or indeed home cinema, but will it have standard outputs for connecting to say a surround sound system ? I wasn't really bothered about going into HDTV, but at that price.... I could be tempted!

Tesla · 1 Jun 2006 at 15:06

Why would you want to connect your tv to a surround sound system?

Jez · 1 Jun 2006 at 15:37

if using the onboard tuner....dpl2

gib786 · 1 Jun 2006 at 16:03

just did the same, but went for the hyundai q321 for 599, even has a freeview tuner built in, should hopefully be here tomorrow, cannie wait!

JimmyEatWorms · 1 Jun 2006 at 16:35

Nice. Wouldn't have minded one with freeview but I have TW anyway so it's no biggie.

The Medion has a 3.5mm jack which I guess can be used to feed the line in on your amp.

toy_soldier · 2 Jun 2006 at 00:39

Tesla said:
Why would you want to connect your tv to a surround sound system?

Why wouldnt you :confused:

FrankJH · 2 Jun 2006 at 01:04

Tesla said:
Why would you want to connect your tv to a surround sound system?

In this day and age how can you miss any opportunity to make the most of the gear you have?

Jez · 2 Jun 2006 at 01:05

toy_soldier said:
Why wouldnt you

Because for anyone feeding it from another source it'd be pointless? The only reason for ever wanting to connect the display to anything else audio wise is to use an inbuilt tuner or something

McBain · 2 Jun 2006 at 09:05

Tesla said:
Why would you want to connect your tv to a surround sound system?

To listen to surround sound .o?

JimmyEatWorms · 2 Jun 2006 at 09:18

But you wouldn't actually get surround sound.

FrankJH · 2 Jun 2006 at 09:45

I dont know about anyone else but My 5.1 speakers are a hell of a lot better than my tv speakers - even if you dont use the amp to jazz the sound up a little with processing and its just plain old stereo, its still a fuller sound to my ears.

Its all perception really, some prefer it some dont

Jez · 2 Jun 2006 at 10:43

JimmyEatWorms said:
But you wouldn't actually get surround sound.

Why would you not? DPL2 is actually rather good

McBain · 2 Jun 2006 at 12:59

FrankJH said:
I dont know about anyone else but My 5.1 speakers are a hell of a lot better than my tv speakers - even if you dont use the amp to jazz the sound up a little with processing and its just plain old stereo, its still a fuller sound to my ears.

Its all perception really, some prefer it some dont

Exactly, my 5.1 speakers are a hell of a lot better than my TV in built jobbies.

Tesla · 2 Jun 2006 at 14:50

toy_soldier said:
Why wouldnt you

FrankJH said:
In this day and age how can you miss any opportunity to make the most of the gear you have?

The TV the OP was asking about ONLY has an O/B analogue tuner.

Therefore there is no point in connecting the TV to his amp.

LCD look pants when viewing via the analogue tuner. If you wish to view analogue transmissions purchase a SD CRT.

Ideally with an LCD you would purchase an external digital tuner (assuming the TV does not have some sort of intergrated digital tuner) of some description. Be it, Freeview, Cable or Sky. Preferably one which outputs HD too.

You would then therefore connect the audio outputs on this external tuner to the Amp.

I imagine you would have other external sources too. DVD players, Consoles, Computers. Connect all of these individually. If you route everything into the TV and then the TV to the amp.

Yes, it's easier to use but you will lose quality and many digital sources are capable of outputting DD5/1 whereas the TV will only output Stereo.

McBain said:
To listen to surround sound .o?

As has been said, very very very few TV will output anything other than stereo. I recall a Toshiba CRT (was the competitor to the awesome Panasonic PD30) which had SPDIF out, but I don't think there was anyway you could use it unless you used the SPDIF in on the TV too.

JimmyEatWorms said:
But you wouldn't actually get surround sound.

True.

Jez said:
if using the onboard tuner....dpl2

Yes, that's the only reason I can think of (ignoring the video switching and video connections).

FrankJH · 2 Jun 2006 at 15:05

I was just talking about the sound, so the picture transmission type (analogue or digital) is irrelevant.

When I only had analogue tv I still had my tv sound routed to the amp as it still sounded a lot better than thru the tv speakers. I dont doubt its the same signal but the quality of the speakers affects what you hear, so therefore its worth it (remember i did state clearly I had a 5.1 setup - and even a cheap 5.1 would be better than standard tv speakers generally

JimmyEatWorms · 5 Jun 2006 at 19:10

Well, I got the TV today and plugged it all in and I must say...it's great. I'm no AV expert but the SD image (telewest as a source) is even better than my old widescreen CRT...nice vibrant colours and good black levels.

The 360 looks absolutely blinding on it. I never thought Oblivion could possibly get any more pretty but it has. I have downloaded some of the microsoft WMV-HD clips and they look absolutely stunning running on my PC via the VGA port. Blurred text worried me a little when i plugged it all in and set the correct res (1360x768) but after having a little fiddle with the horizontal sync settings in the catalyst control panel it is looking nice and sharp.

In all honesty, I can't see how the sets that cost £300-£400 more can possibly be so much better to justify the higher cost. IMO this is a brilliant budget LCD but i'm sure the AV perfectionists out there will find something wrong with it

If pushed to find a fault, i'd have to say that it takes longer to switch between sources than I am used to but that would be just nitpicking.