PushingJelly

We have recently bought a spankingly new Sony Bravia LCD TV, a KDL-32S2530, HD ready, integrated DVB tuner etc etc., this thing cost about £1000 and although not the top of the range device, was advertised as being “a good un” if you know what I mean.
After wrecking the bedroom running the cabling and fitting the thing to the wall, it looked great – until we turned it on.

Now it may be that I am spoilt. I have a 43″, top of the range (at the time) Pioneer plasma downstairs that is possibly one of the best pictures you can get for PAL SD TV, I would say that it is even better than the top of the range Sony Trinitron it replaced, so it could be that I am expecting a little too much from LCD technology, but I am really not impressed.

In the picture are really bad artifacts, the sort that you get when you have over compressed your pictures or ripped that DVD to Divx and been a little to optimistic with the target file size.
Text on the screen is surrounded by a haze of sparkles and blocks. Out of focus backgrounds, especially dim ones, look like they are made from Lego blocks.

We initially looked at pictures from DVB – renowned for MPEG artifacts when there’s not enough bandwidth to go around, so then we tried analog terrestrial – even worse, S-Video from DVD – Still Bad.
At first I thought this was a fault with the screen so we went back to the shop to “discuss” it with the management however looking at the display units from about five different manufacturers, they all suffer from the same issue. Can it be that the upscaling technology in mid range LCD screens are all this Bad?
We even asked for them to show a SD DVD played from an upscaling Sony DVD player, the artifacts were not as bad but still apparent.
I have searched the net and there seems to be a resignation that this is just how it is with LCD screens.
As I said perhaps I am just spoilt by my plasma being so good. It did cost two and half times as much so I would imagine they spent a bit more on upscaling and DtoA conversion than Sony did on the LCD.

As we don’t have the extra cash to stump up for a 37″ plasma just for the bedroom (I think we spent more than enough, don’t you?), we are keeping the screen. When compared with all the other 32″ screens on the market it is actually one of the best we have found, however I can’t help but be disappointed.

Is this really the experience that millions of new LCD owners are suffering with their new expensive “HD ready” screens? The new leap of technology promised by big flat screen TVs seems to have got lost along the way for the majority of people who want to watch ordinary SD TV in the UK.

Roll on terrestrial HD DVB transmissions in the UK because quality can only get better from here.