Thank you for the info myqd...I need recommendations..

Basically i'm just looking for a reliable HDTV with superb clarity/sharpness/colour...
Something in the RM2000-3000 price range..for gaming and movies..
If it has a PC input, it would be an additional bonus..

And can someone tell me what are HD signals..like (720p, 1080i, 1080p)...what does it mean???
And also contrast ratio (10000:1)...i'm new to TV's..

Dr. Google can help you...

LOL

Hatter,so u are looking for 32" or 37" ?

If 37",forget about 1080p,with 2k-3k,u can only get 720p HD ready LCD.If 32",Samsung 32" Series 3 A330 dun have any PC input,other brand should hv.For a better price,u can consult "htkaki,iambloodysick,adrian...." in the forum for more information.

I'm no expert in this field, but to my knowledge and experience:

What is HD?
HD stands for high definition, in which case the industry standard is 720p, 1080i and 1080p. Standard definitions (480i) and enhanced definitions (480p) are not.

What are all the fuss of SD, ED or HD?
It's all about screen resolution. SD is 640x480 interlaced, ED is 640x480 progressive while HD includes, but not limited to, 1280x720 progressive, 1920x1080 interlaced and progressive. When a LCD TV says HD ready, then it's native is normally 1366x768, While Plasmas are either 800x600 or 1024x768. Full HD means native resolution is 1920x1080.

Progressive vs Interlace
Progressive is what you see on your computer screen right now, meaning all the vertical lines (eg. 1280x720, 720 is the amount of vertical lines) are displayed. Interlace is what you see on an old television set (must be older CRT TV), where you can see lines in between lines, and displaying only half the amount of vertical lines (thus 1080i is actually showing 540 vertical lines and yes, 720p is showing more lines).

Contrast ratio?
Don't let this thing fool you, every company comes out with the contrast ratio they claimed it would be. There's no industry standard setting for this, they are just manipulating with their own figures. Trust your own eyes with this when buying a HDTV. Set all the TVs on normal mode and play a dark scenery video, look for which TV that you can see the most detail from (like the cloud in the dark sky, the water in the sea, the lightings from outside a building). In short, contrast is the ability to see through the dark items as being dark rather being black like nothing on display and the clarity/separation between dark and bright items.

Cables
This is a very long story, but I'm not going to say which cable/brand is the best like most A/V equipment sellers. For HDTV, your best choice is always DVI/HDMI, both send digital signals. A RM5 DVI/HDMI cable can perform just as good as Monster Cables (upward RM500) if the cable is less than 5m long. Other method of obtaining HD signals are 15-pin D-Sub (normally and wrongly known as VGA, in which VGA is actually meaning 640x480 resolution) and component cables (the Red, Green and Blue cable, but please don't mistaken it as RGB cable, both are very different). Both are analog signals, and this time, cable quality does make some different. You'd like gold plated cables for analog signals, and thicker ones if you are planning to get very long cables (more than 5m) as to reduce the signal loss. For other equipments like Astro (can only display 480i), your best bet is S-Video cable. This cable will cause no "bleeding" on the screen unlike the normally used composite (yellow) cable. "Bleeding" is especially easy to notice on red objects with a black background where you see the red colour coming crawling out like how you colour over the line on an art work.

What else?
Ever heard of Bravia, DNIe etc? Those are the processing engines for display much like your graphics card, so I'm not going to comment much on this but remember to get a more easily fixed ones. LCD/Plasma/DLP are all well known for lower durability compare to their CRT counterparts so you may want to do yourself a favour by getting a more easily fixed ones. My opinion on TV engines is that, Bravia is rank among the bottom of my satisfactory list along with lousy brands like Haier etc.
Another thing is the panel (also commonly called screen) which does make a big contribution to the picture quality. Another one of my personal comment is Sony's panel are as good as shit (they got it from Samsung by-product catalogue).

That's all I can tell now (I'm at work). I could go on days and days talking on this, but I'm afraid I'd get banned for this. Remember one thing, trust your eyes and do your own settings on the TV when testing them, and make sure all are of the same size and using the same type of cable when comparing each of them. If you are refused to do so, buy somewhere else. Finally, do yourself a favour by not buying Sony's TV, thay have nothing comparable for their price other than their design. Buy it and watch them for hours and their ridiculous gamma settings will give you eye sore. Allow me to say this, when you are buying any flat panels, you are looking for the least worse display unlike the perfectly fine but bulky and "unsexy" CRT.

basically 1080p is the best then 720p then 1080i

thats for sure laaa....1080p full hd what...so the best.

dont worry TC, you'll pick it up soon enough.. i was also very confused... but with proper research.... it's quite simple really.

if you do a more thorough research, you will realised that some major brands have identical specs with the difference only in the engine. There are few LCD manufacturers in the world so a 1080p and another 1080p lcd wouldn't be that far apart.

My suggestion is to go to a shop and see for yourself. Look for a helpful sales person. 2-3k budget is good enough for a good 32". if you are opting for a 32" 1080i lcd, you might even get a hdmi home theatre set if you know where to look. When i was looking, warranty played a huge role in determining the best set for me.

In my case, panasonic's 5 years warranty is hard to say no when its specs are very similar to its competitor (made in japan too ) with the prices more or less the same.

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Added on August 22, 2008, 4:10 pmJust FYI, 1080i is the NORMAL spec for a 32". only those 37" and above got 1080p. That's because of costing and the necessity for such high spec at 32" (Too little difference)

Secondly, PC input is pretty much a standard in all LCD. Just double check to be sure.

Contrast is explained above. Everyone got a different benchmark so basically all the numbers are pretty much numbers only. I hate the dynamic contrast as well, confusing people with the HUGE number. It is only useful to compare with the PAST models of the SAME brand.

This post has been edited by pmsoo: Aug 22 2008, 04:10 PM

if not mistaken,only 42" & 50" panny plasma got 5 yrs warranty,37" & 32" LCD only one yr...