HD TV or not HD TV, that is the question...

At my local Tesco Electricals desk I got chatting to a chap who was cogitating their flatscreen TVs.  He’d just bought a Panasonic 50” (wow!) “1080p HD Ready” flat screen TV from somewhere, but was extremely hacked off because it doesn't receive Freeview HD television channels, he said. Ouch....

A week earlier I’d replaced our 10-year old Sony analogue TV, with a Samsung 40” Smart TV, described as "1080p HD Ready". But it receives Freeview HD channels and we like it so much that a week later we bought a 22” Samsung “HD Ready” for the kitchen. The smaller TV does not receive Freeview HD. Both came from Argos (good service*, great prices.)

The guy’s dissatisfaction was very understandable.  Many people got over the ‘digital switchover’ hump in 2012 by using a cheap set-top box (STB) in an older analogue telly as a stop-gap.  Now they’re swapping old analogue sets (I took two cathode-ray tube TVs to the tip - good riddance) with proper digital flat screen TVs, with HD, HDMI ports and maybe ethernet built in.

The problem is that the retail sector is playing fast and loose with the terminology of High Definition Television and I sense a lot of confusion still out there. Even I admit, as a techie savvie sort of guy, that I almost got caught out by some simple misunderstandings.

It’s high time that the retail sector got its act fully together: I sometimes wonder if the blind are leading the blind, and I cite as a prime example the current Argos Spring 2013 catalogue and its description of its TV sets.

Argos Spring 2013 Catalogue: can all Argos HD-ready TVs view Freeview HD? Answer, not directly, no.On HD Ready sets Argos says that “All our TVs are HD ready... this means you can enjoy high-definition pictures from HD sources such as Freeview HD, Freesat HD and Sky.”

This gives the layman the impression that you can watch High Definition [Freeview HD as a minimum] programs on every TV set supplied by Argos, but you can’t. You’ll generally be stuck with a Standard Definition picture. Only if you supply an ordinary HD-ready TV with an HD program (say, from a separate HD recorder or an HD set-top box), can you can enjoy an HD picture on such a set.

People usually know that satellite (Sky) is an extra cost but a Freeview tuner is built into all new sets. There is of course a critical omission in the Argos blurb: to watch Freeview HD your TV needs a Freeview HD Tuner, or, you need a separate recorder or STB with Freeview HD built in. It’s just wrong for Argos to imply that you can enjoy HD TV like that.  Without a Freeview HD tuner then the TV will show the picture in Standard Definition (like my smaller Samsung TV - the penny dropped later!). In fact that’s what most of Argos’s TVs  do. Freeview HD TV is supplied on a minority of sets only.

Over on the extreme right of their catalogue is the gotcha: “Watch out for our Freeview HD televisions that let you watch High Definition, subscription free.”

• Remember – if you want to see Freeview HD channels, then your HD-Ready TV must have a Freeview HD tuner built in, or, you must use a separate HD tuner, perhaps in an HD hard disk recorder.
• Freeview HD+ means it has two tuners, so you can watch/ record two programs at the same time.

 Watch for the Freeview HD logo on a TV set if you want to watch Freeview HD programs directly on it. Otherwise you'll see a vanilla Standard Definition image.

Check the Freeview FAQS and be careful to check the specs when looking for a new telly.

To quote the FAQ: "Remember that an HD ready logo on your TV doesn’t mean that you are already watching HD channels on Freeview. When you’re buying a box or TV, look out for the Freeview HD logo to ensure that you’re buying an approved Freeview product, so you’ll be able to access all the Freeview HD channels as well as the standard 50* Freeview channels."

I contacted the Freeview consortium and received the following comments from their press office:

“We would advise anyone looking to buy a Freeview HD TV to look out for the Freeview HD logo. Use of this logo requires a trademark licensing agreement which ensures that the product does, in fact, support the Freeview HD service.

“Whilst it is true that the majority of TVs in the market today have Freeview HD [sic] built in, it is important to look for this logo as a guarantee that no additional equipment is required. We work with retailers to ensure that store staff members are clear that ‘HD ready’ isn’t the same as ‘Freeview HD’.

“Freeview ensures that this distinction is clear in all of our marketing and in-store signage. We will continue to encourage retailers to do the same.”

* No sooner had I paid and sat down than the TV was waiting for me at the collection desk 30 seconds later. Remarkable!