The Hip Zone » Technology

The trouble with LCD televisions

Tony — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:54:51 +0000

I asked put my questions about banding on my Sony Bravia to the very knowledgeable people over at Avfoums, probably the best place in the world to get advice about this kind of thing.

To summarise the thread it is a “feature” of all LCD televisions, along with the problems they have showing detail in dark scenes and displaying fast paced action. Perhaps the good old CRT still had some life left in it, which I guess Samsung new when they developed their HD CRT television – It is a shame it had so many problems. However with new displays based on LED technology round the corner these problems will ultimately disappear – the question is when and how much will they cost?

February 9, 2009 -- Banding on Sony Bravia (1)
November 7, 2009 -- 8bit or 10bit HD LCD Panels (2)
December 20, 2008 -- My new Sony KDL-40V3000U HD LCD TV (1)

8bit or 10bit HD LCD Panels

Tony — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:32:47 +0000

I have had my new Sony Bravia for about a month now and I still think it
is brilliant. However, there are three things that bug me.

1. The remote control has to be pointed directly at the IR receiver. I
am hoping that this is just the batteries, but I haven’t got round to
checking this yet.
2. Gradients have a discernible banding, which I think may be because it
is 8bit rather than a 10bit panel. This is something that I am going to
investigate.
3. I was watching Superman Returns the other day, which is quite a dark
film, and it really showed up the poor definition in the dark scenes.

It is really important that you have the right setting for your LCD TV.

December 19, 2009 -- The trouble with LCD televisions (1)
February 9, 2009 -- Banding on Sony Bravia (1)
December 20, 2008 -- My new Sony KDL-40V3000U HD LCD TV (1)

Banding on Sony Bravia

Tony — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:55:18 +0000

Is this banding in this picture of my Sony Bravia KDL-40V3000U?

Sony Bravia KDL-40V3000U

Or is this normal for an LCD TV? Or is it because it is 8bit

I am really starting to wonder whether this LCD technology is upto the job. Hopefully the new LED TVs will fair better.

December 19, 2009 -- The trouble with LCD televisions (1)
November 7, 2009 -- 8bit or 10bit HD LCD Panels (2)
December 20, 2008 -- My new Sony KDL-40V3000U HD LCD TV (1)

My new Sony KDL-40V3000U HD LCD TV

Tony — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 20:42:55 +0000

I used to be a cynic about HD televisions thinking it was all a marketing con, until I actually saw one in person correctly configured. In most shops such as Currys and Comet they simply don’t have decent source material and don’t change the default settings, which just doesn’t do the televisions any justice.

I had my heart set on the Sony KDL-40V3000U after seeing it online in Argos and John Lewis for £999 with a Playstation 3 included, but was really disappointed to find that both had sold out and would not be getting any more stock. How many did they actually have I wonder?

Anyway, a couple of weeks later I saw the same deal in the Sony shop in the Trafford Centre in Manchester and went for it albeit £100 more expensive; plus I also agreed to buy a £40 HDMI cable. I later found out from colleagues that this was a complete waste of money as you can get a HDMI cable for £10 and as it is a digital connection it either works or it doesn’t (at least I didn’t go for the £60 one).

Despite all this I have been completely gobsmacked by the television, and amazed how my old Sony 28″ CRT suddenly looked like an antique. If I were buying one again I would be looking at LED TVs instead.

December 19, 2009 -- The trouble with LCD televisions (1)
November 7, 2009 -- 8bit or 10bit HD LCD Panels (2)
February 9, 2009 -- Banding on Sony Bravia (1)

Create a web directory

benjohnson — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:52:25 +0000

When trying to find a business many turn to their local yellow pages phone book. In an effort to bring yellow page resources above and beyond a simple name and number list and to generate new income streams, many web developers are creating feature rich web directories. Niche directories or yellowpage style websites offer visitors many other features not found in your standard phone book such as graphics, extended descriptions, dynamic maps, and interactive features.

Developing such a website can often be a tedious task for web developers, but one solution is a pre-developed solution such as phpMyDirectory. phpMyDirectory offers web developers an easy way to jump start their yellow page style website with little effort. It includes features such as automatic sign ups and payments, content approval, business list importing, and many other features allowing the developer to make their directory unique.

March 13, 2008 -- SEO 102: Evaluating Web Directories (3)

HTC Touch Dual

Tony — Sat, 03 May 2008 23:08:45 +0000

I was planning to pay Orange £20 and unlock my Nokia N95 for use on another network. I had decided to move to T-mobile as they have something called Web’n'Talk which gives you unlimited internet access for £7.50 per month. Orange didn’t have anything similar, well that’s what I thought. When I phoned them up to tell them what I wanted to do they put me through to the retention department who told me they could give me 250mb of data per month (more than enough for mobile access) and any new phone I wanted. I really wan’t expecting that, but after a bit of indecision I decided to go for the HTC Dual Touch – and I must admit I have been really pleased with the phone. There are some niggles, but that is mostl because I am really fuzzy. I’ll write about these in a later post.

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High Definition Wii

Tony — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:22:51 +0000

Well not really, but it does support what is known as enhanced definition (EDTV). The Nintendo Wii does not come with an EDTV cable, this is not unusual; Sony do not provide a HDMI cable with the PS3. Upgrade cables are required for both to get the most out of these consoles when used with High Definition televisions. After wasting £40 on a HDMI cable for the PS3 I was reluctant to spalsh out on an EDTV cable for the Wii. However, some of the professional Wii gamers over at Wii Talk convinced me that I would notice the difference, so I went along to my local Game shop and bought a generic £12.99 Gameware EDTV cable for the Wii.

To be honest I couldn’t really see much of an improvement, but perhaps it is just me. The EDTV on the Wii is 480p format. The ‘p’ stands for progressive which means all rows are updated every second rather than every other row when using a standard cable; this is known as interlaced. This should give a sharper picture, but I couldn’t really see it. Additionally, as the component cables used in the Wii cable have five wires, two more than the provided cable, you get a much richer picture as information about hue and saturation can also be sent to the television. Please note that your TV has to have a component input to get the benefits from EDTV. Finally, if you do buy one of these cables make sure you go into your Wii settings and change the ‘TV Type’. I have included some before and after pictures below:

Wii Standard Cable

Wii EDTV

Can you see the difference? £12.99 well spent?

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Getting a great deal on the latest mobile phone

Tony — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:05:51 +0000

It is much better to do this in person, but it can also be done online I guess. The first thing to do is select the phone you want (don’t get a Nokia N95 from Orange) and the cheapest contract you can find remembering that on an 18-month contract you can go to a lower package after 9 months and on a 12-month contract you can downgrade after 6 months. The equation for comparing packages to get the total cost of ownership is: cost of phone + intial monthly contract cost x 6 or 9 + target monthly contract cost x 6 or 9.

Now once you have this information go to your local phone retailer I know this works at Phones4U) and ask them to beat it, which they will as they will want to commission. This may take an hour or more, so make sure you have time and don’t sign any contract for insurance. If you do the maths you’ll find that you could buy a simply buy a new phone for less money!

Don’t open your phone take it back to the shop the next day and tell them that you would like to cancel the contract and would like you money back. You don’t have to provide a reason as you have up to 14 days “cooling off”, but it might be worth having something convincing ready. You’ll be surprised at what happens next…

In the case of Phones4u they will probably put you through to a retention department who will offer you cash, yes cash to keep the phone and the contract. I was offered £250 and told that I could sell my phone on ebay for £250 and as the contract would cost £240 over the twelve month I would be £260 better off. Of course, I said yes : )

It certainly does give an indication of the amount of commission the mobile phone operators are paying and explains why there are so many moble phone shops on the High Street…

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Nokia N95 the trials and tribualtions

Tony — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:32:11 +0000

I bought my Nokia N95 from a Phones4U shop, one with extremely aggressive sales staff who will do you a deal. They matched the best deal I could find on the web, although it did take 90 minutes of my like and weary from the experience I signed a direct debit mandate for the pointless phone insurance they flog – I had said no to this but put the form in front of me with the monthly contract one at the same time. Anyway, I was really pleased with the phone until I discovered that the GPS just didn’t work. I went back to Phone4U and they told me to phone Nokia (this is incorrect advice, but I will come back to this in another post), so I phoned Nokia and they told me to take it to the repair centre at the Carphone Warehouse which I did. I had to pay a £50 deposit for a bog standard phone, and waited three weeks.

I got the phone back they said they had flashed the BIOS and everything was fine, so I tried the GPS and guess what it took an absolute age to get a lock – minutes. I couldn’t face speaking to Nokia or Phones4U, so I thought I would give the service provider a ring to see what they would do. They tried to convince me that this is normal and I had to stand with my arm outstretched at a 45 degree angle – apart from looking like a prize pr*#+ it would also be like offering up my phone to any mugger in the vicinity. Fortunately, they realised that I was about to go postal and agreed to give me a new phone and guess what it didn’t work any better – arrghhhh.

In desperation I turned to Google and found out that if I upgraded my phone to firmware version 20 all would be fixed. I tried this and unfortunately Nokia’s firmware upgrade software told me that I was on the latest version. A bit more Googlefoo and I found out that you can only use version 12 on Orange phones and need to trick the Nokia software into thinking my phone was a generic one. I followed the instructions here and guess what the GPS works perfectly.

Did Nokia, Orange and Phones4u know this? Of course they did…

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HDMI cables, have I been conned?

Tony — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:50:07 +0000

It is a well known fact that many electrical retailers make very high margins on accessories and of course insurance policies that you don’t need. I usually say no to both, but when I bought by first HD LCD TV with a PS3 from the Sony shop I found myself saying yes I will have one of those £40 HDMI cables – cheaper than the most expensive one. I told my colleagues in the IT department about this and they said I could have picked one up in Argos for £10 and I had wasted my money as the connection is digital and the cable will either work or won’t. I’ll dig around over at AVforums later to see if they are correct, my feeling is that they are.

I think this post proves the point that some HDMI cables have a mark up of a whopping 80%.

I had a quick read of this post about HDMI and it seems that HDMI does have loss problems over long distances, would the cable make any difference though?

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The Hip Zone » Technology

The trouble with LCD televisions

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8bit or 10bit HD LCD Panels

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Banding on Sony Bravia

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My new Sony KDL-40V3000U HD LCD TV

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Create a web directory

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HTC Touch Dual

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High Definition Wii

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Getting a great deal on the latest mobile phone

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Nokia N95 the trials and tribualtions

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HDMI cables, have I been conned?

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