What do I need to know about buying HD TV and Blu ray player?

[DomesticGoddessInTraining]

Our TV and DVD player could do with being replaced, but the world of tv and dvd has moved on quite considerably since we last bought any!

With so much choice in both hd tv's and blu-ray players what features do I need to watch out for? What's importan/essential, and what are the 'nice to have' features?

I don't want to spend a fortune, but there's lots of choice (and a wide price range) I don't know where to start!

You want a TV that does full 1080p not a HD Ready one they are only half way there, it must say Full HD on it, Samsung and LG are the best TV brands.

Blu-Ray players, who cares as long as they do the job at full 1080p and do DVD upscaling (a regular DVD will look a bit crappy on a HD TV without upscaling).

DGIT - quite a bit depends on your budget and any existing things you have...

For example, I assume you have not had digital switchover, so you might want to think about whether you will want to use Freeview or satellite, and if satellite, whether you would consider Sky (and monthly charges) or FreeSat.

Some TVs include a Freeview tuner, but if you are going to consider a Blu-ray player, then you might appreciate some of the HD channels.

HD is starting to become available on Freeview, but FreeSat (or FreeSat from Sky) may be worth considering too.

Must add (though I don't currently have suitable kit) that if you do go for a Blu-Ray player, then you might also want to cost in a 5.1 or 7.1 AV amplifier and consider where the TV and speakers will be most suitable.

After all, along with a high quality visual output, Blu-Ray should offer quality audio, too, and if you then pump that into a TV with built-in speakers you lose part of the benefit of the surround sound effects they will have put on your Blu-Ray disc, it's like throwing a third of the money spend on a film down the drain.

Thanks for the replies. We have Sky already and would upgrade to a HD box (we don't actually have a roof arial). What's the difference between HD ready and full HD - would HD ready be ok if we had an HD box, or are they just a waste of time?

HD ready is a lower resolution they do 720p and 1080i (1080i is like fake 1080p it's trying to up the picture to look as close to full HD as posible).

Obviously a HD Ready TV is cheaper then a Full HD, they say on the front of the set itself Full HD or HD Ready and it will say on the box as well.

It's all about how many "dots" make up your screen.

A full HD TV, known as 1080p, has 1080 dots vertically and 1920 horizontally. So that's a whole lot of detail.

There's then 1080i, which has 540 dots vertically and flashes between them quicker than the eye can see (well so they say) to build up a 1080 image. That's similar to how "normal" TV builds up it's 512 line image.

Then there's "HD Ready" which is also known as 720p and is 720 dots vertically by 1280 across. So a lot less detail than 1080p but probably sharper than 1080i as it doesn't have to do the flickering thing.

1080p is obviously the "best" but some say you can't tell the difference from 720p in most "normal" circumstances. Try and go and see some TVs and decide.

You can use most HDTVs with a normal Sky box if they've got a SCART input. The image won't look much better than a normal TV though.

If you go for Sky HD then also bear in mind that Sky doesn't do a 1080p service. They transmit 1080i and 720p which will work on a 1080p TV but won't look especially different than if you just plugged it straight into a 720p or 1080i TV.

To get a "true" 1080p signal for your TV you'll be looking at something like a Blu-Ray player.

Had not been aware that Sky HD is 1080i, but it may be the same if you had FreeSat HD for some other room (given you can have up to 8 cables from a single dish, so you could have FreeSat or FreeSat HD and any of those could be with or without recording option).

Using FreeSat could give you the 'basic' channels and radio in other rooms without paying Sky multiroom.

I don't think that any broadcaster transmits, or is likely to transmit any time soon, a 1080p channel, it just takes up too much space.

So if you buy a 1080p TV and only use it for Sky HD then it's going to be a bit of a waste as not only are the extra "dots" not used but a "true" 720p TV might actually look better (a 1080p will somehow have to spread/stretch 720 dots over 1080 dots, which is something that could look a bit messy).

This whole HD TV thing with multiple standards is all a bit of a mess in my opinion...

There are three standards really I'd brake them down like this.

Normal TV, dieing out does the job.

720p better then normal.

1080p best of all for the full potentially of games consoles, blu-ray players and PC's if you connect them to it as a monitor.

I'm not even going to go into 3d TV's they can get stuffed IMO.

...oh and then there's the "new" 1080p50 standard which some TVs support and not even BluRay can handle yet.

I think that it's one of those things that you really have to go and see in a store, note down the details and the sales spiel, refuse to buy anything then and there and then come and check somewhere like here to see if what you've been told is true.

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate all the replies and explanations. It's made it much easier to make sense of all the options!

Someone mentioned LG and Samsung being the best tv brands, but I wondered how Sony Bravia compares? I've seen one that seems to tick all of our boxes and is in the right price bracket.

Ryoko, I tried a 3d tv in JL today - it made me feel a bit queasy!

3D will never catch on because of that, it's not for everyone plus small kids shouldn't use them.

I don't like Sony Bravia's personally I find the colours are a bit off, work is full of them (I'm a games tester there are at least 50 Bravia TVs in the office).

I'm the one who said Samsung or LG, thats what everyone told me including the equipment guy at work responsible for filling the place with Sony.

I have a Samsung 32" when it dies I'll probably get LG, looking at them side by side in the shops I think LG has the best colours.

Thanks Ryoko - we did actually go for the Sony Bravia in the end, so I'm hoping my untrained eye won't spot the colour differences! We bought a sony blu ray player in the end and I thought it might make the set up easier.

Thanks again for everyone taking the time to reply, it was really helpful.