HD ready explaination please.

[porshiepoo]

Can someone please explain HD ready to me?
We have a large HD ready Tv and want to know how we go about getting HD channels on it. Do we have to buy another box? If so what sort of box cos our freeview is built in?

I'm wanting to buy a Blue Ray 3D system that has 5:1 surround sound system to it as well. It says to use a HDMI cable for the HD quality. I assume this means that any Blue Ray & DVD (apparently) played will then be in HD?

Thanking you.

[RecQuery]

It's basically the name of a certification programme for digital equipment. There's four logos "HD ready", "HD TV", "HD ready 1080p", "HD TV 1080p" - assuming the manufacturer assigns them properly.

Anything at 720p or above means it's HD - but there are different types - If it's just "HD ready" that means it can support 720p and 1080i. Essentially those numbers are the measurements of the screen, same idea as a computer resoluton (1280×720 and 1920×1080). P means progressive and I means interlaced, that's an entirely different topic but it's really just different ways of displaying the picture.

Anything that plugs into a HDMI cable will be HD or upscaled to that, it can be pretty intricate though and would depend on the source material though as far as your concerned everything Blueray is HD and a fair chunk of DVDs can be upscaled to that.

Finally for TV channels there are three ways to go: Sky box, BT Vision/Internet TV box or Freeview and even then only certain channels will broadcast in HD and you may need to pay an additional subscription for some of them. Apparently Freeview HD isn't in the are yet but will be round about he 16th of June (http://www.freeview.co.uk/HD). That link also has a list of TVs with builtin in Freeview that are HD compatible.

EDIT: One small note a like-for-like (you get different specs but they don't really affect price much) £5-£15 HDMI/audio cable is just as good as a £50-£75 cable, better is some tests actually. The higher pricing is designed to appeal to those people who think more expensive is automatically better.

[ne.ilhenderson92]

I was always informed that HD was the acronym for a certain breed of Dragon the Hairy Dragon, this is a dragon that instead of being covered in scales is covered in matted thick fur similar to that of a caribou. By announcing that we are HD ready it is informing others that we are aware of the imminent dragon infestation that is about to grip the Northern regions of Great Britain and a small province in Southern Andalusia. Mucho loves xxxxxx