HD Ready TV

If you are in the market to purchase a new TV, the most important decision you make is not whether to buy a Plasma TV or an LCD TV or even whether to go for a 32″ or a 42″ screen. Instead, the most important thing you must do is to ensure that your new TV is HD Ready. If it’s not, you are either going to miss out on the new generation of HDTV or upgrade your television set a year or so down the line.

The HD Ready logo appears on all TV screens and projectors that are compatible with HDTV signals. This ensures that your television is capable of broadcasting the latest technology and give you the best picture clarity and depth. Although HDTV currently only exists in limited form, it is expected to be standard by 2010. For more information on HDTV, read our guide to HDTV.

HD Ready screens must meet the following specification:

Minimum 720 vertical lines (the latter figure when a resolution is written out, e.g. 1280 x 720)

Analogue component video and either DVI or HDMI inputs

Support for HDCP content protection

Able to display 720p (1280 x 720 at 50Hz and 60Hz progressive)

Able to display 1080i (1920 x 1080 at 50Hz and 60Hz interlaced)

HDTV Ready Warning

While we have no cause to dampen your enthusiasm and we do strongly recommend that you buy an HDTV, we should sound a word of caution. If you were to walk into a high street retailer such as Currys, Comet or Dixons, you would no doubt be greeted by a stunning 42″ Plasma TV with unbelievable picture quality.

While this is an important measure of the quality of a TV because it shows the picture depth and clarity that the TV is capable of, it is important to note that your HDTV can only display as good quality a picture as it receives from the broadcast.

Understandably, the retailers have the televisions tuned into an HDTV quality broadcast, but that does not mean that you would get the same picture quality while watching an old re-run of Only Fools and Horses.

The quality of the picture that you are seeing in-store is what you can expect in future when the new HDTV broadcasts become standard in 2010, but until then, you will be able to enjoy limited programmes (through BBC and Sky’s HD services for example).