Switching from Analogue to Digital

Make the switch jack and just buy whatever you fancy - they are all up to speed with HD readiness, built-in Freeview and various gadgets and you can spend from not much over £100 to thousands. Spend whatever fits your budget and you'll be fine. I bought a little portable TV for my bedroom (only watched it when I was in bed with 'flu) for about £140 - flat screen, HD ready, built-in Freeview. I got a lovely Samsung tv for my sitting room and in Costco it was about £390 - it's been great. Other people want bells whistling and their eggs frying on the things and will create a home cinema room, spending thousands. Do what you feel like!

I'd say go mad and buy if you can afford to. The picture quality is brilliant. Ask in local stores for advice - we found John Lewis and Curry's really good. Also, John Lewis's website has a useful comparison bit (how's that for a technical term?) You could also buy a box to change your analogue TV into digital and put it in another room.

Thank you so much Carol and Kittylester. All advice on new televisions gratefully received, though now it seems we'll need a blue-ray/dvd box as well if we want to watch old dvds!

You only need blue-ray for the new blue-ray dvds jack. I rarely watch dvds but have some lovely ones I drag out now and again and I have a £25 dvd player from Asda that does the job a treat!

I bought tv's similar to Carol's but the smaller one has a built-in DVD player (for just £10 more than the basic one). I'm not a tv addict so wasn't attracted by huge cinema-type things. Having freeview is a bonus as it provides a wide choice - but some channels provide utter rubbish so don't be too impressed by the sheer number of channels available.

I would definitely buy a new digital tv if you can. The flat screen tvs are so much easier to move about and don't take up as much room. If you shop around you can get some real bargains, especially if they have just brought out a new model- the previous model gets sold at a big discount. We got a 32" Panasonic with full HD and freeview for just over £300. We looked at the models in various shops and then bought online from Dixons who were offering the one we wanted at the lowest price. As Carol says, you only need a blu-ray DVD player to play blu-ray discs. We use our old dvd player with our new tv and it's fine.

I had a mad moment in John Lewis this morning and, having nearly bought a reasonably priced 32" Samsung, I allowed myself - and Darling Husband - to be steered in the direction of a 40" All Singing, All Dancing Sony television, from which you can download stuff from the web, play DVDs and BlueRay discs, watch in 3D (no good for me - I only have one working eye!) and upload all sorts of goodies by plugging in a USB. As this set is destined for our bedroom, I intend to spend the rest of my life in bed - hiding from the bailiffs! Will report back after delivery next week.