Bought a 32 inch Sony HDTV (Bravia 32v2500) today, a bit of an upgrade over our current no-name brand 20 inch telly. First impressions are a mixture of stunned happiness and understandable disappointment. Disappointment not directed at the new telly but through realising just how poor the quality of most broadcast TV is. Right now BBC 1, RTE, Channel 4 etc. are coming through a standard terrestrial aerial feed and all the problems of it one doesn’t notice on standard TVs is made painfully obvious. It will improve a bit when I get the Sky feed coming in but I can see why so many people get HDTVs and then shortly after do exactly what they said they wouldn’t do; get Sky HD or find other broadcast HD channels.
Highlights so far have been March of the Penguins and The West Wing both from standard DVDs. The Sony DVD player I bought with the telly does upscaling and it does a reasonable job of it. You can see it isn’t HD but it is still a good step up from DVD on a standard telly.
Actually the real highlight has been using a DVI to HDMI connector from my Mac Book Pro. The Mappedup.com app looks fantastic on the big screen and I must have spent 30 minutes going through the Mac OS X screensavers again. Flurry looks particularly amazing. The only problem with the connector is sound stays on the laptop and is not transferred to the TV. Not sure if I need to change a setting or if DVI isn’t meant for sound in which case it won’t get passed onto HDMI.
Apart from the great resolution what really blows my mind is the colour. This Sony has a “live colour engine” or some such malarky. Or I thought it was marketing BS until I saw it at home. It really does an amazing job of revving up normal content. March of the Penguins, photographs I’ve taken in the past and even normal broadcast telly is given a lovely colour boost that is not overdone.
I still have a lot to try with the new telly, including a proper HD source like an Xbox 360 or PS3. So far I am more than happy though and most importantly the girlfriend is too.
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