Any Bravia owners here?

[divine]

Originally Posted by phykell

for some reason, it produces a much better picture when playing back downloaded video than my laptop ever did.

Probably because it has a dedicated scaler that your laptop doesn't unless you were running FFDShow suitably set up or something similar.

[phykell]

Originally Posted by divine

Probably because it has a dedicated scaler that your laptop doesn't unless you were running FFDShow suitably set up or something similar.

Smart-ass

I knew there was something going on though - it's too obvious a difference but very welcome though!

What's the score with TV downloads which are marked as HD then? Are they just rendered as better quality AVI than non-HD or is there any chance of them being decoded as HD?

[divine]

I find often a lot of stuff marked up as HD is such in resolution only, rest of it is about DVD quality.

For example, you'll find a lot of stuff marked up as HD where the bitrate is the same as DVD and it only has basic 5.1 sound.

Normal/SD/DVD stuff is generally DVD res but a greatly reduced bitrate and stereo sound.

Whether they're using 'HD' codecs like x264 is a lottery.

[A Place of Light]

Originally Posted by phykell

LOL - I know what you mean and I was one of them. My excuse was that we don't even have a DVD player - we'd always use one of my laptops for playing CDs, DVDs and downloaded video. However, Wipeout HD came out and that was enough for me to buy a PS3 especially when I'd seen all the other stuff it can do. Of course it's network-aware so it can deliver and play content from my NAS or PC plus, for some reason, it produces a much better picture when playing back downloaded video than my laptop ever did. I'm going to get a bluetooth keyboard and mouse when I get the big TV as it will also function as a pretty good Internet browser, image retention aside if I do buy a plasma

Other than my PC, I don't own a dedicated DVD player either.
My Xbox handles all DVD playback, but of course it doesn't support HD

[Mark]

The Americans seem to like using MPEG2 for HD content. Nice if you have the bandwidth.

FFDshow is a bit of a pig to set up, but worth it when done well. I haven't bothered because I use so many players, but I suspect I might someday.

The only HD-capable device I own is a camcorder. I was waiting for the BluRay vs HD-DVD war to play out, and now it has, I just can't be bothered. I might get a BD-RW drive when the media gets a bit more reasonable in price, but since I barely watch a fraction of the content I own (~2,000 hours and counting on hard disks, plus a few hundred DVDs - mostly in boxsets), throwing any money at dedicated hardware is futile.

[phykell]

I bought the Pioneer LX5090

I decided that I just can't live with the LCD for SD broadcasts and I don't "game" that much anyway. I'll just have to be very careful with regards to screen retention and burn.

Thanks to everyone for helping me to make up my mind

[A Place of Light]

Originally Posted by phykell

I bought the Pioneer LX5090

I decided that I just can't live with the LCD for SD broadcasts and I don't "game" that much anyway. I'll just have to be very careful with regards to screen retention and burn.

Thanks to everyone for helping me to make up my mind

Excellent choice, my friend.
As for any burn/image retention issues, doesn't it come with the usual Pioneer 5 year warranty?

[phykell]

Originally Posted by A Place of Light

Excellent choice, my friend. As for any burn/image retention issues, doesn't it come with the usual Pioneer 5 year warranty?

It does but I doubt that retention and burn is covered by the warranty. I guess they'd say it was the nature of plasma technology. Having said that, if I follow all their recommendations and use "game mode" I'd probably have a good case if I did experience such issues. I'd hope so anyway

I went to another shop yesterday to see some of the Lowe LCD TVs. They looked really good but seemed very expensive. Unfortunately for Lowe the shop also had a 60" Pioneer 9th gen plasma that was just amazing, even really close up.

After some discussion with the salesman I suggested something which still seems perfectly reasonable to me given the amount of money people spend on these things; that bearing in mind the debate over LCD and plasma, surely it would be a good idea to arrange the display of their TVs according to "comparable price". For example, in the (say) £1,500, up to 46" bracket, sit the latest Sony LCD next to the latest Panasonic Viera plasma and have a Pioneer sat with them. That way the customer can decide on the two using the Pioneer as the reference. I reckon they'd get happier customers, quicker sales and they'd sell a few Pioneers more!

The salesman was completely dismissive of this idea, suggesting (bizarrely) that you'd never have several TVs set up at home in that way He also said that you can't really compare TVs in shops on SD because they can't get the signal quality as the TVs all share an aerial. Hang on, it's a TV shop, put a load of aerials up FFS - they don't cost much! But no, apparently even that's not a reasonable idea. Bullsh*t IMO!

Thinking further about it, if i ran a TV shop I'd set up a proper environment for people to use for (say 30 minutes), having set up three TVs as I said above. Charge people (say) £50 and let them bring their own DVDs/BRs and play around with all the settings. If they choose to buy a TV, refund the £50.

[A Place of Light]

Originally Posted by phykell

It does but I doubt that retention and burn is covered by the warranty. I guess they'd say it was the nature of plasma technology. Having said that, if I follow all their recommendations and use "game mode" I'd probably have a good case if I did experience such issues. I'd hope so anyway

Mine covered everything, although TBH now I can't remember if the warranty was from the store (I bought from an AV specialist) or the manufacturer.....either way I didn't pay extra for it.
My warranty covers ANY defect/issue. The guy told me that should a problem arise they will send an engineer to my home, and approx 8 times out of 10 they can rectify things there and then. If it needs extensive attention, they would take it away, leaving a set at least as good as the one they're taking away and return mine to Pioneer. If Pioneer couldn't fix it within six weeks then I'd receive a brand new set of similar or better spec depending on the current range at that time.

That's what sold me on it, to be honest.

[phykell]

Originally Posted by A Place of Light

That's what sold me on it, to be honest.

That's a pretty good warranty and it would have sold me on it too! I don't think my guarantee will be that good though.

The TV should arrive at the end of the week - it's going to be hard not to just play the PS3 on it rather than "burning it in" on normal viewing. I went for the Pioneer sound bar as well - my room doesn't really permit a decent sound system plus my neighbour has to put up with enough noise from my piano