What to Do About Digital - 3 : Buying a New Television Set, Part 1 (Hi-Def or Not Hi-Def)

Maybe, after reading the second article in this series, you decided it was time to replace your ageing television set rather than add a Freeview Set-Top Box to it. This article is for you, then. What do you need to think about and what decisions do you need to arrive at, even before you've set foot in a television shop or investigated on-line shopping?

There are many such matters to ponder: High Definition or not is possibly the first one. All current televisions of any note are flat-screen and come with a built-in digital (Freeview) tuner. In some of them that tuner will also receive the new High Definition transmissions starting at the Digital Switchover next March. Do remember that the average life-expectancy of a tv set is ten years and that many will go well beyond that. A decision now has to last, then. I would advise going for a tv with a High Definition tuner, but they are slightly more expensive than those with just a Standard Definition tuner. In the near future you probably won't have that choice - they'll all have the High-Def tuner as standard.

Why am I recommending this pathway? The likelihood is that your new tv will have a larger screen than your current tv. High Definition allows you to:
a) view a smaller screen from a nearer position;
b) view a larger screen from your current position;
while giving you a very clear, high resolution picture, showing much more detail than is provided by Standard Definition.

Of course, many tv stations are only Standard Definition and if you get too close to the screen or have a very large screen that picture is not particularly good. Need to have movable chairs, therefore, and the space in which to move them. Many years ago there were recommendations about screen size and viewing distance. These have changed since the advent of High Definition and the current Hi-Def recommendations are:

32" to 37" screen : 1.3 metres (just over 4 feet) viewing distance.
40" to 42" screen : 1.6 metres (just over 5 feet) viewing distance.
46" screen : 1.8 metres (just under 6 feet) viewing distance.

These are minimum recommended distances. The maximum distance is around double that distance. How can there be a maximum distance? It's the distance beyond which you won't really be able to notice that a Hi-Def picture looks better than a Standard-Def one. So the size of screen to go for is intimately tied up with the Hi-Def or not decision. The larger the screen, the more expensive the tv set; all other things being equal.

While you deliberate on all that, do have a look at a friend's or relative's tv if they have Hi-Def (Sky or Freesat) and carry out some experiments walking towards and away from (backwards!) the tv on both Hi-Def and Standard-Def tv stations, and see what you can notice. While you're doing all that and coming to a decision, I'll prepare Part 2 of this article - "3D or 2D?" (though you may have already decided on that).

Just one final point about High-Def. On Freeview, as on Freesat, there are four Hi-Def tv stations:
BBC-1 HD
BBC-HD
ITV-1 HD
C4-HD

BBC-HD shows a variety of programming from all its other stations, including repeats of BBC-1 HD material. All its output is in Hi-Def.
Not all programmes shown by the other stations are made in Hi-Def. Those that are usually are indicated as such in listings magazines. If "HD" is not included in the listing information then the programme is Standard-Def. It is then what is called "upscaled" before transmission. Your tv would do that to the Standard-Def station's transmission anyway, so it's nothing special.

Sky transmits many more High-Def stations, but you have to pay a subscription and have a satellite dish installed. Blu-Ray discs (BDs) are the High-Def version of DVDs. They produce a better quality picture than any current High-Def tv station, providing your tv is "Full-HD", sometimes known as "1080p" tvs. All that has no real bearing on your decisions about Freeview terrestrial digital reception next March, but it was necessary to state it at this juncture.