NTL 10mb/NG Speeds. Ch3t Question as Well.

[Trem]

I recently upgraded to NTL 10mb but I am still only getting roughly 480kbs download speed off my newsgroups. I get the correct speed off torrents but seeing as I rarely use torrents for downloading this is no consolation. My news provider is News Hosting, do they cap download speeds? If so who is the best provider for top speeds?

Ch3t, I saw from the pic of your telly that you went for the Sharp, is that a better picture or an on par picture with the Sony Bravias? What made you choose the Sharp?

Cheers in advance luvs.

 

[nath]

Giganews is far and away the best newsgroup provider.

 

[Yaka]

it may also depend iont he modem you have, i have the same modem ntl gave me back in 1999 motrola surfbord bollox. according to alot of peeps on the ntl customer newgroups the max the modem is capable is 8mb there are guides out there. if you have the same mdem that may be your answer. ntl ask £50 for replacement unless yours break down but these old ones are frigging water proof, blows out smoke and keeps on chugging along

 

[Trem]

I have one of the new smaller modems, only been on NTL this time for about 3 months now.

Now downloading at 1200kbs through Giganews. Cheers Nath.

 

[tris-]

ntl ask £50 for replacement unless yours break down but these old ones are frigging water proof, blows out smoke and keeps on chugging along

actually we got ours for free, so the £50 may not apply in every case. i just told them it was running at 5mb instead of 10mb and a few days later a bloke came and give us a new one.

 

[Mellow]

Replacement hardware to sort out internet connections?

mmmm, tasty placebo!

 

[Will]

Replacement hardware to sort out internet connections?

mmmm, tasty placebo!

The very oldest modems on the ex-Telewest network are the same, unable to provide more than 8.5-9.5mb connections. We had an automatic upgrade program when we launched the 10mb service.

 

[Ch3tan]

I've got an sb4100 here Will, do I need an upgrade?

Trem, I went around Curry's, Comet etc, judged the quality of the picture on the displays they had. Was lucky enough to see the Sony, Sharp and Samsung 1080p tv's running blu ray discs. With high-def there really is not much to chose between them, colours I thought were better on the Sharp and black levels, although it could just be the settings they were using.

The frame of the sony W series looks cheap, the X series looks good but costs too much, the samsungs look lovely but the picture is not as good as the sharp.

I also went to my local sevenoaks where they had the sharp and samsung set-up side by side. They showed me SD content and lots of recorded HD content from sky sports, a few HD movies as well. They had fiddled with the settings on the TV to give good pictures, something that Comet etc don't usually bother with. SD looks better on the sharp easily, but a poor source or heavily compressed stuff gets lots of artifacts.

Sharp is cheaper than the Sony, it has a better surround and IMO a better picture. The Samsung has 1080p over all it's inputs, but the picture quality is not as good as the sharp or sony. The sharp and the W series bravias have both had lots of complaints at avforums for faults, my set has no issues with dead pixels or banding and only makes a very low level buzzing noise when on, which I cannot hear over my other av-equipment anyway.

Get yourself a demo of the TV's in a proper hi-fi shop and get the one you think is better.

 

[Will]

I've got an sb4100 here Will, do I need an upgrade?

Probably not, I think it was an earlier model number they replaced. Though there may be some further replacements organised once we have firm dates for the 20mb upgrade. I'm not at work, so I can't check which models that would affect.

 

[tris-]

i had the sb4100 which got replaced with this new blue piece of shit.

 

[smurkin]

I've got an sb4100 here Will, do I need an upgrade?

Trem, I went around Curry's, Comet etc, judged the quality of the picture on the displays they had. Was lucky enough to see the Sony, Sharp and Samsung 1080p tv's running blu ray discs.

Aye, curries Dixons dont do the better Sony Bravias - they also dont know how to set the tvs up - you'll see default settings and bad sources and bad connections...its not good.

If I was in the market for an LCD today, I would look into one of these just because crt projectors recommend them (the guys at crt are very particular about quality):

http://www.crtprojectors.co.uk/planar.htm

 

[Ch3tan]

The specs on that planar Tv look good, the price not so good.

I did see the good bravias. The X and W series, I was comparing the sharp to the W as that is it's competition, the X costs a lot more for not a lot more. The only thing they had not set up was the colour/contrast settings to improve the picture and they had all three sets running off hdmi via blu-ray when I went.

 

[smurkin]

The specs on that planar Tv look good, the price not so good.

I did see the good bravias. The X and W series, I was comparing the sharp to the W as that is it's competition, the X costs a lot more for not a lot more. The only thing they had not set up was the colour/contrast settings to improve the picture and they had all three sets running off hdmi via blu-ray when I went.

Aye, the X mosty just looks nice. The biggish deal (and even this isnt very big) is the 1:1 pixel mapping which enables you to bypass the scaling engine for a 1080p input. It should be said that the X settings out of the box are pants - they are set to show bright in the bright lights of the shops - particularly the contrast and dark scenes suffer. Probably true for most brands of LCDs.

The thing about the planars (I've never seen one in the flesh) they look pure simple - no flash surround.

 

[Yaka]

are those planar screens without speakers?

 

[Yaka]

heh think ive finaly found the lcd telly i want, been waitng on a speakerless lcd screen a while now and that 42 inch on looks sweet.

 

[Ch3tan]

http://www.planar.com/hometheater/pd420/

Says 10w per channel there, seems like speakers to me? It will be intresting to see what the pic quality is like on these -any reviews around yet?

 

[smurkin]

Optional speakers...no tuner too (apparently)

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=485525&highlight=planar

 

[Yaka]

looks like and LCD eqvivalent of the panasonic pwd/ph series they are pretty much the same no tuners or speakers, shame there arnt any place where you cen demo it