Image quality difference between an 4 and a 5 star set - can the average buyer tell the difference?

[admin_exported]

I know the star rating takes into account a whole load of things including sound quality, number of connections, price, etc, but given that a TV is primarily for watching, and any serious set up will have separate sound system I would expect a 5-star set to have a better picture than a 4-star set.

When reading reviews in WHF and other magazines, and on the numerous review websites it seems that pretty much every set has some niggles with it - motion blur, juddering picture, back light bleed, unnatural colours, etc. I guess my question really is would the average buyer really notice these differences once the TV has been set up properly in their home, or are these things just reviewers being picky? If I bought a TV that scored a 4/5 for image quality would I really be disappointed with it when I got it home.

I know that this problem is one I have to judge with my own eyes, but after years of watching my less than top-notch CRT any LCD or Plasma with an HD feed looks stunning - you can tell the difference between a good set and a less-good set, but I wouldn't say that any of them were necessarily bad. The biggest variation i tend to notice is with the standard def signals. When you go into Currys/Comet/etc and all the sets have the same SD feed most sets look pretty poor compared to my CRT. This is likely due to a poor quality feed split between 100 sets, but never-the-less it concerns me a bit that most of my viewing is still going to be SD, either DVD's, Freeview or Sky. Am I right in thinking that this is where I would see the most benefit for going for a slightly premium set such as the Pioneer KRL-37V instead of something slightly cheaper from LG/Samsung/Sony etc?

Thanks a lot for your help!

Ben 

 

[Andrew Everard]

Reviewers spend their lives looking at/listening to products, and are paid to be picky. Imagine a review as the product under a microscope - flaws others may never notice get commented upon.

If we published a magazine every month which you opened and it just said 'everything is pretty good these days, except these few products which are rubbish' you'd soon get a bit bored. And so would we.

 

[Alec]

Andrew Everard:

Reviewers spend their lives looking at/listening to products, and are paid to be picky. Imagine a review as the product under a microscope - flaws others may never notice get commented upon.

If we published a magazine every month which you opened and it just said 'everything is pretty good these days, except these few products which are rubbish' you'd soon get a bit bored. And so would we.

Might save a lot of belly aching tho lol!