Topic: Am i the only guy here who owns an old Standard(SD) TV?

Ugh, if you go to Black Friday, don't go to Walmart. I grabbed a computer and some fat lady and her fat kid started trying to pull it from me. A Walmart employee then came by and said that they got to keep it. Everyone at that place is f*cking stupid.

I went with a plasma TV simply because they produce better black levels due to the difference in technology from LCD. A plasma set is naturally dark; images are produced by illumation of pixels on the screen. An LCD tv on the other hand is naturally bright and produces black and shadow by obscuring pixels, which is why LCDs tend to be overbright to compensate. This does mean that plasma sets aren't as good at producing bright images, but I prefer better blacklevels rather than the more washed out greys you get in an LCD. Another big problem with LCD versus plasma is motion lag where the TV isn't able to keep up with rapid image shifts like in a quick camera pan or rapid on-screen action, though advanced processors in modern LCD televisions do a good job of compensating for this by having higher refresh rates (look for 100Hz or better).

Plasmas do tend to cost more and they are more expensive to manufacture due to a higher fault rate in manufacture; if you end up going with LCD you'll want to do your homework and not get the cheap set. If you're a fan of Virtual Console titles, make sure that all resolutions are supported over component otherwise you may find yourself having to swap cables, though this is mainly a problem in PAL territories.

Finally if your DVD player supports progressive scan output, make sure you hook it up to component and also get yourself a copy of Video Essentials on DVD to help properly calibrate your set -- it will make a world of difference; especially for viewing lower-resolution images like DVD and your Wii.

Ok, thanks very much Sean. I was leaning towards plasma's but heard tales of screen burn which put me off a bit. How is SD TV on a plasma as I won't have any HD sources other than my 360.My DVD has PScan and I have components for it.Do you use component on your Wii? I'm looking at a Panasonic 42" Viera plasma or a 40" Sony bravia LCD both recent models some good prices at the moment.

Me bro's got the Panasonic 42" Viera plasma and it's very very nice. SDTV does look a bit pants on it though, what with pixel stretchification, but Wii looks great.

Ahh. So what is best for SD TV or do they always look sh*t? I've heard of TV's with upscaling freeview in them but I've never seen one in action. My other option is Free sat HD as I won't have Sky it's just not worth it for me. Can't wait to see my Xbox games in HD though Woot.

Freesat could be good dude if you have no intention of getting Sky, you'd get BBC HD which is frakking amazing (Life in HD was gobsmacking the other day), and you could watch Champions League games when they are on ITVHD. The rest of the channels on Freesat look like a waste of time though, BTVision/Virgin are the other options, don't know if they do HD but I'd assume so. You really want some HD input besides your Xbox, otherwise you'll always feel like you aren't making the most of your sexy new telly.

Good luck choosing dude. Make sure you scour the web for consumer reviews before you take the plunge.

Well, we do have 3 HD widescreen TV's or whatever they're called, but i use a TV that's like 10 years old when i play my games.

HD is the way to go. For gaming, you'll do fine with SD on the Wii, but the PS3 and Xbox 360 look fantastic on an HDTV. Watching TV in HD is superior to SD as well, so I doubt I'll go back.

It is true that Plasmas generally have better colors, but yeah there is a risk of burn-in. I've also read that LCDs have a longer life. I wouldn't get a Plasma just because I pause my movies a lot. And especially if you're going to play videogames, some games will leave burn-ins because they have objects on the screen for long periods of time.

I "only" got a Wii, rarely see any television and feel no needs to change my old 4:3 SD TV yet.

I still do. I think that HD is overrated

hahaha, ahhh lz2009. HD can be so beautiful. It cuts out the blur, enhances color and detail. One of the first things I noticed when I played SF4 on my tv, I was like, "whoa, Chun-li has a nice eye color".

At the same time, unfortunately it makes movies look slightly fake. The costumes, lighting and makeup are more obvious. It's a little disappointing in that movies are less glamorous.

But many LCD tvs now, you can connect your computer to. So you can use the TV as your monitor.

But yeah, if the original source is 4:3 (Fullscreen, not Widescreen), then it squishes the source, which sucks. But I use my 360 for movies which has a "Stretch" option which will stretch the image again, but it loses the top and bottom of the image to force it to look "Widescreen".

I do. My parents had enough money for only one HD TV.

Don't I know it. HD is awesome, but |NG CHRIST, when are people gonna stop blabbing on about it like it's everything important about life?! angry emoticon

[replaces angry emoticon with generously kind emoticon] Please calm down, Metang. ^^
I don't mind HD being all fancy, but I'm kinda still used to my regular TV generation.

My family has a HD TV and while it does look great, I don't need it. I have my own Standard Definition TV with an VCR and I'm not giving that up.

@Ramandus: Every widescreen TV I've ever used has screen display options that can be set specifically for "fullscreen" pictures to eliminate the stretching or cut-off problems. You just have to figure out how to find it, which varies by model. The minor downside is that you'll get black bars on the SIDES of your picture (like letterboxed widescreen pictures on a standard TV, but flipped on their side, and overall not taking up AS much of the screen), but I think it's worth it to have the picture correct. I ALWAYS set my TV to that mode to play VC and Gamecube games, as well as those Wii games that don't support proper widescreen. It's not necessary for my PS3 and 360 (both connected by HDMI, though I don't know if that has anything to do with this), where they correct for size on their own.

LOL when I got my HD the first thing I did was hook up an nes. Why? Irony....pure irony

Solution to screen burn is to turn off the tv if you're pausing a source for a long time and to enable the burn reduction setting on the TV/Wii.

With regards to displaying other content, well any widescreen set should have multiple display ratios. I ususally view 4:3 content pillarboxed as others have suggested, but the simple fact is that the pixel shape on a widscreen set is different, so even doing that the pixels do tend to be blockier there's no real way around that right now. You get used to it. And yes, I use component for my Philips play-everything progressive-scan DVD player and all three Wiis via an auto-switcher. My TV is also Philips (buy European, says I!) and I have no regrets, though the built-in freeview tuner sucks compared to my external Goodmans one (which has a guide with preview and other features) so I use an external tuner via SCART. Broadcast telly is the one area where HD would be welcome, but until Freeview boxes can be had for £20-30 supporting HD I'm sticking with non-HD sources.

The only source I've ever had a problem with blockier than original graphics from is SNES games on VC. For some reason, Turbografix and Genesis don't seem to have that problem quite as much. Maybe because they're less powerful or something, I dunno. It's not a huge problem to me anyway; totally worth it to play the games in my room, and they still look awesome anyway.

I wanted to mention, since someone said something about LCD black levels earlier: That's not really much of an issue anymore either. My set shows perfectly good blacks, no complaints whatsoever, and it's not even a particularly good set.