Do they have High Definition TV in Oz? I know its fairly new in here in the UK and after seeing an HD TV at the weekend,i'd really want to get one over there.
Can anyone post any online electrical stores in Oz to check tv prices ect.

Thanks

Brido

Digital Broadcasting Australia (hotlink).

Digital TVs.

yup. I have a HD tv and it works well. Reception is excellent with the picture and
sound being near 100% stable - no pixellation or sound dropouts that I used to
see with digital terrestrial and satellite in the UK a few years ago.

Most programming is SD and not HD. My 42" tv is probably too small to appreciate
the real difference between SD and HD. HD brings out the best in the giant tvs
(50"+). For that reason I'd advice against getting HD kit right now unless you
have the $$s to spare.

I also have a High Def hard disk recorder - the only way to watch free to air
commercial tv in Aus is time-delayed. The ad breaks are long and frequent. Skip 'em.

What type did you get, and has it any "quirks"? I had to chuck 2 Panasonic HD STBs back at them before abandoning HD - like many of the manufacturers they used the consumer as a test bed and shipped sets with all sorts of faults - so I am leery about spending big money on a HD PVR at present!

tv and pvr are both LG.
TV = 42 LP1D
PVR = LST-5403P

My main gripe with the TV is that switching between the many inputs (9+
analog, digital, AV1, ... Component2, ... HDMI) is very slow. For future use I wish
it had more HDMI inputs.

My gripes with the pvr is that it takes a good 20s to boot up, so has to be left on.
It also needed a firmware upgrade to fix a timezone bug straight out of the box,
even though the fix had been identified 3+ months before. The menus can be a
bit slow, but that's a minor issue. The recorder's software is relatively simple
and has scope for lots more bells and whistles in the future - I found myself in
the first week thinking 'why didn't they do X, why didn't they do Y'.. simple
features that would have added lots more to the functionality. It's stable most
of the time. It might reboot once every couple of months. Playback quality is as
good as live.

The newer model TVs from LG combine the TV and PVR, which is an obvious and
welcome development, though having them separate and connected by HDMI is
pretty straightforward and doesn't impact on picture or sound quality. I only use
the pvr these days, the tv remote has become a giant on/off switch.

I just compared breakfast tv (ch7 and ch9) on SD and HD and could hardly tell
the difference. The amp spotted the DD on the HD channels and that was
noticeable different (not necessarily better, just different).

I had bad experiences with Panasonic in the past and went with LG this time
after some positive experience with an inexpensive dvd player.

Thanks - that's very useful.

I *was* toying with getting a Topfield SD PVR last year when the price came down since they have a good record wrt user friendliness and ease of use but decided to wait for HD - the Toppy HD PVR seems to be a long time coming!

I was blown away with the cost of HDMI cables! FGS they are only more bits of wire! Does the HDMI connection make any real difference - or do you *have* to use it for HD (the old copyright protection mode?)

Forget plasma and LCD TV - the Laser TV is coming!


Laser TV

You can find HDMI cables on ebay for much less money than the high-street.
You don't have to use HDMI. My HD box spits out HD over HDMI, RGB and Component.
There's always something coming next year that'll make current technology
obsolete. If you always wait for the next big thing then you'll never buy anything.

And OLED and another whose name I forget!

>>You can find HDMI cables on ebay for much less money than the high-street.
You don't have to use HDMI. My HD box spits out HD over HDMI, RGB and Component.<<

I believe that the *main* purpose of HDMI is to prevent you re-recording original quality digital HD: it's certainly not for our benefit!

I'd disagree.

HDMI = HD picture, DD sound on 1 compact cable.
RGB = HD picture, no sound on 1 cable
Component = HD picture, no sound on 3 cables

I know which one I prefer.

Agreed. But the motivation behind the *execution* of HDMI is to allow copying prevention, which was not possible with other connection methods. There wasn't any reason why the anticopying facility couldn't have been left out!