HD TV
High Definition Television

If your confused if your new TV is HD Ready there is one simple
Rule to follow.

It should have a HD Ready Logo on it.

It is that simple. No Logo No HD Ready TV

There are lots of other things that can be thrown in to confuse you?

High Quality
Digital

Simple things like that to link 2 letters of HD close together.

Hope that helps with any future purchases.

Q Matty for the science behind it all

My Mums TV has HDMI Slot, is it HD Ready as the bloke in the shop said it was?

If it carries the HD Ready logo it is HD Ready. If not, then most probably not.

HD Ready defines whether a set is completely capable of recieving and displaying HD images from any future HD source. Sets can be high resolution, or even HD without being HD Ready. Reasons for this are varied, usually the main reason is the HD is 720i rather then 720p or a lack of HDCP support on the DVI/HDMI socket.

I dont want to go all technical and baffle people. Personally I prefer component for HD feeds, but all HDMI is, is the high definition version of EuroScart. It lends most of its technology from DVI. Having an HDMI sockets doesnt guarantee its HD Ready.

HD Ready is a logo that was introduced by the European HDTV Forum as a safeguard to protect customers. If a shop sells a television as "HD Ready" and it isnt compliant with the technical specifications of the HD Ready logo, they can be prosecuted under european legislation and forced to refund you the cost of your set.

So its simple, if you want HD, get a set with the HD Ready logo on it. If you dont see the HD Ready logo and buy it, then dont start moaning its not HD if HD is what you wanted.

One other thing, HD Ready doesnt currently define between 720p and 1080i. It can be either. However, even if the set is fully 1080i HD Ready, its 1080p that is seen by most industry analysts as the future of HD, so under the terms of the HD Ready logo, the 1080 specification does not 100% guarantee you full compatability with all 1080 HD sources in the future (although you should be safe at least for the next couple of years id imagine).

She just paid £500 for a LG LCD XD TV from Tesco's.

There are is no HD Ready Stickers on it, but has a HDMI slot.

It could be HD Ready, check the box and set itself for the logo - they dont have to be stickers. If it has the big "XD Engine" sticker on it like mine had on it, it should say on there if its HD Ready.

Another thing to be wary of is retailers using marketing spin to make you think its HD Ready.

The only logo thats allowed is the HD Ready one above, and a retailer isnt allowed to advertise a TV as "HD Ready" if its not.

Terms like the following do NOT guarantee a set is HD Ready:
- HDTV Ready
- High Definition TV
- High Def Ready
- High Quality TV Ready
- HDMI Ready
- HD Compatible

The XD logo seen on many LG Philips sets is just for the XD Engine. Some people say its a bit naughty as it looks so alike the HD Ready logo at a glance and indicates a TV is fully HD compliant, but it was designed before the HD Ready logo. I had it on my LCD, and that was before the full details of the HD Ready certification were even announced, never mind the logo. That set was NOT HD Ready.

Nope not even on the Box or across the Manual

There is like i mentioned in my first post something like

High Quality
Digital
Television

Something like that down the side.
And the Big XD Logo on the box

I doubt its HD Ready, as much as i want it too be.

But hang on, there is hope ?
Ive just checked there web site and they say it is HD Ready.

How strange and confusing ??
It wasnt on the box only XD blasted on it and nothing on
the TV or Manuals except for XD.

May be its like the lad said that All New TV's are HD Ready now?

I told ye on MSN, its most likely that Tesco are sourcing the set from outside the EU if theres absolutely nothing to suggest its not HD Ready in the manuals. Thinking back, if the box is anything like mine was, it wont have much reference to much other then a huge LG Flatron logo lmao. LG Philips are prominent members of the European HDTV Forum, so they would list it on the specs as HD Ready if it were an EU set.

Not every set is HD Ready, especially these £300 jobs and the lower end Plasma's. So the lad in Tesco's either means that all the sets Tesco sell are HD Ready, or he hasnt got a clue (but tbh he will just be a shelf stacker, he doesnt need to anyway).

would it make any difference using the HDMI or DVI input?

Some TV's have the old monitor input, they can go up to a pretty high resolution can't they?

It doesnt make a difference as both HDMI and DVI can be HD Ready "if everything else on the television meets the required specs".

Its very rare to find a television that is HD Ready and contains DVI, usually its HDMI. But they are available.

The ability to display high resolutions is not nessescarily HD Ready, my LG Flatron could display high resolutions via the DVI and component ports, but wasnt fully compliant with the HD Ready specification.

My GF's parents is HD Ready, has a PC input, 2 scarts and 1 DVI

OK, so "Full HD" is the phrase thats bouncing around at the moment, meaning that it is 1080p, so:

• What does this actually mean?
• whats the difference between p & i?
• If p is better than i, is 720p better than 1080i?
• My HD ready 32" LCD has a VGA input, what res should I set my VGA out on my laptop to to get HD quality?

I didnt know this untill i read about it.. an Analog picture is far better than a digital picture.. SO WHY on earth are they switching Analog off..

Ill try and answer ya questions to the best of me knowledge fella:

1080 means 1080 lines are displayed on the screen. The resolution would therefore be 1920x1080, which if you consider 720 only displays 720 lines and EDTV PAL (SDTV) only displays 576 lines, then you will understand that it allows more detailed images to be displayed.

P is progressive scan whereas I is interlaced. Interlaced renders 1 line every 2 lines, then renders the alternative lines once the first set of lines is completed. You would never notice it doing all this as displays run at in excess of 50Hz.

Prograssive scanning is different, whereby it renders the complete image at once. Progressive is the higher quality of the two and more common in TV sets, but it has the downsides that it uses much more bandwidth and when it de-interlaces an interlaced signal for display on a progressive tv set, the quality is lowered. It also runs a lower frefresh rates, so there is the question of future proofing, due to the different refresh specs of 1080 (1080p24, 1080p25, 1080p30, 1080p50, 1080p60 etc) but they shouldnt affect people to be honest.

Yes and no, it depends how you look at it. In general however, 1080i will offer more detail and therefore better quality then 720p. If the TV is only able to display progressive scan, and the source is 1080i then it will not be as crystal as 1080p due to de-interlacing, but should still be better then 720p.

HD resolutions are usually 1280x720 for HD720 and 1920x1080 for HD1080.

Two reasons:

- The UHF spectrum has run out of space - The only way forward is to either change the format for digital analogue to MPEG4 and then you may make space for say 1 or 2 extra streams to every 4 MPEG2 streams (its hard to say though as some channels like BBC One stream as high as 4Mbps+ and other stream as low as 2Mbps), or you can shut off analogue TV and then for every analogue channel, you should be able to squeeze in around 16 - 24Mbps per channel turned off.

The latter proposal is the best, as it will also allow the opening up of the spectrum for other technologies, such as wireless internet and HDTV etc..

Sky, should they gain approval to launch their "Picnic" service, will be streaming 4 channels in their current space of 3, by transmitting one of them in the MPEG4 format, squezzing it in alongside the other 3 which will be MPEG2 (Sky Sports News is only streamed in 2Mbps on DTT, so they have space for an MPEG4 stream, just lol).

There is some concern over whether MPEG4 can interfere with MPEG2 signals and also whether it can cause problems for boxes that cant decode MPEG4, as they will see the channel but wont know what to do with it. As yet, none of this is proven.

The fundamental problem with changing to MPEG 4 is of course the fact that people will need to purchase new hardware to recieve the channels once again, and at this critical stage of DSO this would be fatal in all likelyhood.

- The other reason the government want to turn analogue off is to generate more money from selling off more multiplexes and space on the UHF spectrum - they will be likely to sell of space for billions of pounds!!

Fair enough thanks matty..