Full HD or HDR for S-DVD - two questions.

[admin_exported]

Hi,

I am thinking about joining the flatscreen brigade. Sizewise, financewise and reputationwise I have more or less narrowed my search to these three. But I have two questions, one quite general and one specific.

Sony Bravia KDL40W3000U (@1599GBP)
Sony Bravia KDL40W2000 (@999GPB)
Sony Bravia KDL40V3000 (@ 1299GBP)
All prices from John Lewis, not the cheapest I know, but just for purposes of comparison.

To my novice eye these look similar specced and wonder if anyone could tell me where the difference lies in real terms to reflect the various prices.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly before i buy i need to know this.

I will be subscribing to SKY HD and using the set for this and standard from air watching. However, I am really investing in the set to get the most from my standard DVD collection and picture is more important then sound considerations.

I need to know that with the addition of a decent upscaling DVD player (Marantz DV6001 or Denon1940) that my fully upscaled picture (to 1080p) will look better than a similar DVD player upscaling to a lower resolution HD ready-only set. In other words will the extra work required to fulfill the resolution 'degrade' the image to worse than the lower specced display. Does that make sense?

I have to get this one right, as at the limits of my budget and can't afford to make a bad choice in this regard.

Thank you

JoJo

 

[Anonymous]

The W2000 is the old Sony model, it's about 18 months old now. The W3000 is the new model, so i would only ever go for this, it has better technology in it and is a far superior set.

The difference between the W and the V isn't a great deal, better quality panel i think and a few other features, but not like the difference between 2000 > 3000.

If you're into gaming at all, and even if you're not, try and pick up a PS3, it's included in some of the JL bundles i think ? This is a great DVD upscaler, and yes, i'm pretty sure your picture will look better on one of these sets. You've got to ask yourself, if you're going to spend that kind of money then why not buy the best you can, if you can afford it that is...

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks!

I think I was having a 'wobble' due to too much research, telling me about excessive 'degradation' and so on. I need my system to show my collection better than the HDR option and dont mind buying the best FullHD that I can. Will given that 40" is a hard size limit!!

JoJo

 

[Anonymous]

Well you'd be hard-pushed to find anything better than the W3000. The X series has the slight advantage, but personally for me it's ugly glass frame surround a) didn't look nice to me and b) made it just too big for my space...