Bush 15.4-inch HD-ready TV aims low, fails

The quixotic race to make the world's smallest HDTV got a little tighter today with this 15.4-inch TV / DVD combo from Bush. Featuring 720p resolution and an HDMI port, it's not the smallest HD-ready panel we've ever seen, but it's certainly the smallest you can actually go out and buy. While you probably won't be using this little guy to settle that 1080i-vs-1080p debate, we're not going to complain about hi-res panels filtering down to even the cheap-o TV / DVD player combo level. We are going to complain about the ridiculous £250 ($500) this thing will set you back, though, as well as the lack of a Freeview tuner, which means you'll need some kind of external box to view any HD content. No deets on availability, but with a plethora of solid 19- to 22-inch HD-ready displays at that price point, it's not like anyone's really chomping at the bit here.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 28th 2007 5:56PM]

Wait a minute... I could have sworn there was a mandate by the FCC recently that insisted any televisions sold after a certain date HAD to have an ATSC tuner. Am I mistaken?

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 29th 2007 2:05AM]

This is being sold in the UK. Freeview is their OTA multi-channel digital. The Brits don't have HD over the air quite yet, so a built in Freeview tuner would have to be future compatable. For now satellite will have to do.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 29th 2007 2:41AM]

SH - in the USA, there are two choices:

-Have NO tuner at all
-Have an ATSC tuner.

The law is you can no longer incorporate just an NTSC tuner.

Also, some of the small LCD's with built-in tuners look awesome (new Samsung and LG 19-12" models) while the 15-20" Sharp ones look AWFUL. It looks like some of them are just downgrading the picture to a very low quality vs. displaying a full HD signal.