Tv advice!?

[Flab]

Gotta have 120 refresh. 1080p, hdmi ports. Lookin for 40 to 50 inches tips, hints, suggestions?

[Jakensama]

Whats your price range? I got a Panasonic TC-P42UT50 for 7 and change and I was happy with it, although according to some reviews it doesn't look terrific in a very bright room.

[Skelas]

Samsung is generally regarded is the creme de la creme, although in sizes of 40-50 inches (that's me by the way) high quality isnt as in your face as in the super big screens. I'm a huge fan of Vizio, they are dirt cheap, and always look good to me. I'd look for built in wi-fi also.

[Vanraw]

My last tv bought was a Samsung 1080p 50 inch DLP. but that was several years ago.I have to say that I love it. but today I would probably buy a LCD. Overall Ive been very happy with Samsung products and support. I do research and end up buying Samsung. TV, Blueray player, Android tablet, Refridge.

Couple thing you wan to ask your self.

- Do you watch netflix? Then get a Netflix ready / internet ready TV. some come wiofi ready, which is nice since you dont have to get ethernet to your TV. Some TV's like Sony Google TV and Samsung Smart TV let you surf the internet and are basically android devices, which means you can buy and run apps. Apple TV is going to do this, but who knows when..... I played with the SAmsug smart TV (whihc you can get in a TV or as a separate box with a blueray player. It was pretty slick. If I needed a TV I would buy one.

- Make sure you have enough HDMI's for all your toys. For some reason they skimp on this stuff.

- Do you want PIP? then note you need a 2nd tuner or a TV with 2 tuners.

- 3d? Personally I think this is a bust and stupid.

- Internal bluray player? My wifes TV has one and its much nicer then having to have a seperate box. Dont know why every TV doesn't have one now.

- If you go with Plasma, make sure it has anti burn in feature and a anti glare if your in a bright room.

My wife's 42 inch is a Insignia which is best buys brand, It was far cheaper then everyone else, and it has worked well. It has wireless, has Netflix and an ability to rent movies and listen to Pandora, plus it has a internal blue ray player. Its only 2 years old, but so far no problems.

As I said I like Samsung.

I have several friends that have bought and are very happy with Vizio, which can be inexpensive as well.

If I were you I would go with a LCD. Go to Best buy and just look at the pictures.





- How big is your room?

[Diggles]

Never ever buy Insigna or Dynex. Bestbuy's cheap shit chinese housebrand has the highest failure rate of anything on the market. They are basically throw away disposable tv's.

Do business with a reputable company that values quality, like Samsung or Panasonic.

[Flab]

I see these LG tvs all over the place. I'll look into the Samsung. Room is like 20x20.

[Vllad]

I just bought a LCD Samsung 70" and I am very pleased.

After spending month's shopping it really comes down to what kind you want. LCD or Plasma. LCD comes in other forms like LED etc but LCD is LCD.

You personally need to find out what kind of screen you want. After that the choices are pretty easy.


Here is my take on the comparison between Plasma and LCD.

Plasma:

Plasma has the most realistic look and it doesn't take any back lighting since the screen is lit by a phosphors liquid. This means it is cheaper to run basically. The problem with Plasma being so realistic looking is it is darker and less crisp.

LCD:

LCD is back lit by cold cathode fluorescent lights. However LCD while not as realistic looking is far more crisp and bright.



Basically I would rather look at life through a painting or through computer graphics then real life. I don't know if anyone has noticed lately but computer games actually do look better then real life because life is quite frankly is dull and blurred.

Basically Plasma is like looking out the window, LCD is like watching your computer screen. Another thing to keep in mind is the room you put the TV in. Plasma shines more in a dark room with not a lot of windows.

I would go check out which kind you like then look at the models that make your preference. From there it is only the amount of money you want to spend. Their are really only three choices. Sony, Panasonic and Samsung. Anything else you buy is a copy. Here is my take on each model makers.

Sony- Their shit is very reliable but they just don't look as good as Panasonic and Samsung.

Samsung- Their shit is less reliable then Sony and Panasonic but their shit looks the best.

Panasonic- The tweener.


Since I purchase extended warrenties etc I went with Samsung. I did have to replace a part already (shipping damage) but it was free.

[Uncle Shags]

I'm thinking of going for a 40 inch Toshiba LED/LCD.

This one:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://us.toshiba.com/tv/led/40l5200u">http://us.toshiba.com/tv/led/40l5200u</a><!-- m -->

[Grieve]

Wait for the Apple iTV.

[Breand]

Ive been a Panasonic customer since I could afford TVs, never had one die on me. I have a 42" Pana Plasma that we love.

If I were to buy a new one, it'd have to be a smart TV, and I'd probably go LED.

The most overlooked and most important (especially now since just about all new TVs sold have 1080P) spec after resolution is contrast ratio. The higher the better. Unfortunately this is a highly fudged number and IEEE needs to layeth the smack down and set a standard that TV manufacturers need to follow.

I've worked in broadcast 15 years now and don't ever buy into the SONY hype. They have been riding their name for years and put out unreliable, shit TVs. I cant tell you how many we have sent out for repair here. I've always loved Panasonic, I know Samsung is supposed to be good now...they've come a long way if that is the case, their stuff used to be garbage.

[Grieve]

Just remember that 4K resolution (UltraHD) TVs will be next, and maybe sooner than you think. Although delivery of that much data is a challenge. But more and more movies are being filmed with 4K cameras.

[OrsunVZ]

The last big tv I bought was a 46" panasonic viera plasma. I picked it up on a black friday deal 5 or 6 years ago for an absolute song of a deal. I absolutely love it. I bought another smaller Panasonic for the bedroom (32") 2 years later, and it's been perfect as well. At this point, I don't see myself buying anything but panasonic tv's, and like Breand, if I were to buy one today, it would be LED. But at the rate these two are going, I don't foresee having to buy another one for a few more years at least.

[Rallick]

I'm a Samsung person myself. My first LCD (32) was Samsung and had no issues with it and just recently picked up a 55" LED Samsung TV and love it.

[Airyth]

I've got a 55 inch LED Samsung which is my favorite TV in the house. A 50 inch Samsung DLP which is still not too bad for being 5 years old. I also have a 50 inch Panasonic 3D Plasma which is my least favorite. It was replaced once already under warrenty (their CS was good and it wasn't difficult to do) but the real problem I have is the viewing angle. Its okay if you're directly in front of it out to a 45 degree angle. When you get outside of that the picture dosn't look good. Depending on how your furniture is situated that may or may not be an issue for you though. For us its in our bedroom and is fine to watch in bed but I wouldn't want it where someone might be viewing it from a more extreme angle.

[Slamz]

Just remember that 4K resolution (UltraHD) TVs will be next, and maybe sooner than you think. Although delivery of that much data is a challenge. But more and more movies are being filmed with 4K cameras.

I'd be a little dubious about this jump.

Even standard to HD is too much for a lot of TV. A lot of shows that looked perfectly find in SD look cheesy in HD. Like the quality of the makeup, lighting and props was good enough for SD but HD just brought out the flaws.

HD is great for high-budget stuff, especially CGI, but a lot of stuff looks worse in HD.

I imagine UltraHD will be the same thing, but the percentages of shows that actually look good will be even more limited.

On the bright side, TVs will finally have higher resolution than computer monitors. (HD monitors are just slightly less than my favorite computer monitor resolution -- 1920x1200. 1920x1080 is the common one these days.)

[Flab]

Yeah, I was at Costco today looking at picture differences and they all look damned good to me. Even next t o each other I rarely find myself thinking a picture sucks. Thinking I'm gonna grab a Visio hd,smart tv. Hard not to be hasty.

[Grieve]

I'd be a little dubious about this jump.

Even standard to HD is too much for a lot of TV. A lot of shows that looked perfectly find in SD look cheesy in HD. Like the quality of the makeup, lighting and props was good enough for SD but HD just brought out the flaws.

HD is great for high-budget stuff, especially CGI, but a lot of stuff looks worse in HD.

I imagine UltraHD will be the same thing, but the percentages of shows that actually look good will be even more limited.

It's double 1080p (or 4X total), so the upscaling should be more straightforward than for SD shows to HD. I mean VHS is what, 333x480? That's a huge jump to 1920x1080. No wonder old shows look crap. A HD show should still look good in QHD, just not as good as a native 4K movie or show.

On the bright side, TVs will finally have higher resolution than computer monitors. (HD monitors are just slightly less than my favorite computer monitor resolution -- 1920x1200. 1920x1080 is the common one these days.)

Looks like that will be jumping up soon. Apple's next line of Macs and Macbooks appears likely to be retina (2,880 by 1,800 for a 15.4" MacBook Pro, and potentially a monster 5120x2880 for a 27" iMac), which will likely drive the same thing across the Windows PC industry as well.

[Vllad]

Even standard to HD is too much for a lot of TV. A lot of shows that looked perfectly find in SD look cheesy in HD. Like the quality of the makeup, lighting and props was good enough for SD but HD just brought out the flaws.

HD is great for high-budget stuff, especially CGI, but a lot of stuff looks worse in HD.

Hah, this is sooo true.

After getting my 70' I was watching some blue ray's and it was amazing the amount of detail you can see. In Close Encounters you can read postit notes and street names when Richard Dryfes is in his truck looking at a map.

When I put in my Star Trek regular DVD's and was watching some Voyager or DS9 it looked like I had stepped back in the 70's watching Sigmund and Seamonsters on video tape. You can see so many flaw's not only in make-up but the sets are no longer sellable as a space ship.

Even film doesn't translate well at present resolutions. Things were produced to translate from film to the screen and that is just no longer is good enough for today's home resolutions.

Ironically black and white films still translates well digitally. Twilight Zone looks better today then it ever has while Star War's isn't even watchable with out laughing.


Vllad

[Jakensama]

I always laughed at the Next Generation episodes being released on Blu-Ray.

Finally, we can see the glory of the oil monster that killed Tasha Yarr and all the intricate work that went into that costume..

[Slamz]

It's double 1080p (or 4X total), so the upscaling should be more straightforward than for SD shows to HD. I mean VHS is what, 333x480? That's a huge jump to 1920x1080. No wonder old shows look crap. A HD show should still look good in QHD, just not as good as a native 4K movie or show.

Just to reiterate, more pixels does not automatically equate to better visual quality.

Visual quality comes in the form of good props, good makeup, good lighting and that sort of thing. The monster that looked scary in SD will look like a very obvious man in a rubber suit in HD. (I think I was watching Atlantis when I upgraded from a 720 rear projection to a 1080 Samsung LCD and the improvement in picture made Atlantis on SciFi HD go from looking like a high-production show to something more like the old Dr. Who. Every flaw was way more obvious.)

Looks like that will be jumping up soon. Apple's next line of Macs and Macbooks appears likely to be retina (2,880 by 1,800 for a 15.4" MacBook Pro, and potentially a monster 5120x2880 for a 27" iMac), which will likely drive the same thing across the Windows PC industry as well.

That's actually way too much resolution imo. I have a 1920x1200 25.5" monitor. Doubling that resolution wouldn't really help -- I don't think it would give me any more real estate because my text is already as small as I would let it be for comfortable reading. It might be interesting in games but I'm not real sure how modern video cards would handle a resolution that big, or how much you'd really gain from it, visually. We're already limited more by texture quality, video memory and GPU speed than we are by a lack of pixels. And if I could drive that many pixels, I'd rather have a gaming setup with 3 monitors using conventional resolutions than one monitor with 5120x2880 resolution. Even for software development I'd rather have multiple conventional monitors than one UltraHD monitor. Being able to display text so small that I need a magnifying glass to read it doesn't really help.

For video, you're lucky to get streaming video in 720 today. 1080 is so much bandwidth that not all broadband can support it. I have a hard time seeing us streaming 5120x2880 anytime soon.

In fact, I'm curious if a Blu-Ray disk could hold a movie at that resolution. ("Insert Disk 2 to continue.")

UltraHD sounds like a gimmick.

[Grieve]

Visual quality comes in the form of good props, good makeup, good lighting and that sort of thing. The monster that looked scary in SD will look like a very obvious man in a rubber suit in HD. (I think I was watching Atlantis when I upgraded from a 720 rear projection to a 1080 Samsung LCD and the improvement in picture made Atlantis on SciFi HD go from looking like a high-production show to something more like the old Dr. Who. Every flaw was way more obvious.)

I don't disagree, but I still want to see the stuff that IS made with high production values (particularly movies) in the best possible format. Especially since I usually watch movies on a 144" projector screen, were you'll really notice the difference (not so much on a 32" TV).

But yeah, there will be some issues. When Peter Jackson some footage of the Hobbit (which is filmed in 4K and 48FPS) to exhibiters recently, everyone was freaked out by it (and not in a good way).

That's actually way too much resolution imo. I have a 1920x1200 25.5" monitor. Doubling that resolution wouldn't really help -- I don't think it would give me any more real estate because my text is already as small as I would let it be for comfortable reading.

It doesn't have to be more real estate, though, it can be higher quality text - like the iPad 3. But it can still make use of the higher resolution for things like video, drawing packages, etc.

It might be interesting in games but I'm not real sure how modern video cards would handle a resolution that big,

Intel has said that their new Ivy Bridge processors have native retina support:

http://www.slashgear.com/intel-vp-confir...-12222668/

For video, you're lucky to get streaming video in 720 today. 1080 is so much bandwidth that not all broadband can support it. I have a hard time seeing us streaming 5120x2880 anytime soon.

For now, but Google is already setting up 1 gigabit per second fiber in some cities.

In fact, I'm curious if a Blu-Ray disk could hold a movie at that resolution. ("Insert Disk 2 to continue.")

Nope. Not without ratcheting down the bitrate by ridiculous levels.

But 4K blu-rays will be coming...

http://www.digitalversus.com/blu-ray-fil...22823.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...-2013.html

In fact 100GB quad layer blurays were demonstrated as far back as 4-5 years ago.

Having said that, I believe that we're not far off from everything being streamed from "the cloud" (see Google 1 gigabit broadband above), which is going to make all physical media defunct. That's why I don't buy blu-rays or DVDs anymore, and haven't for a while.

[Zirak]

Having said that, I believe that we're not far off from everything being streamed from "the cloud" (see Google 1 gigabit broadband above), which is going to make all physical media defunct. That's why I don't buy blu-rays or DVDs anymore, and haven't for a while.

You do realize there are lots of us who live in the boonies and will likely not see 1 gigabit broadband any time soon, if ever? I am personally not a fan of the 'cloud'. The idea is neat and I kind of like the idea for a completely local computer system, ie, one that covers just my house. But it sucks for internet for those of us who do not live in locations with large pipes for bandwidth.

[Grieve]

You do realize there are lots of us who live in the boonies and will likely not see 1 gigabit broadband any time soon, if ever? I am personally not a fan of the 'cloud'. The idea is neat and I kind of like the idea for a completely local computer system, ie, one that covers just my house. But it sucks for internet for those of us who do not live in locations with large pipes for bandwidth.

Yeah, I've spent plenty of timesin the boonies myself. Until recently we lived in the wilds of West Virginia, and even now, while living in Maryland only about 40 miles from DC, we're still out in farm country. Luckily cable (Comcast) is pretty fast here.

I've ripped almost all our DVDs and blurays onto several big (2-3TB) external drives, so our "cloud" is mostly inside the house, like you said. But the kids also watch a lot of netflix, and we occasionally buy or rent movies from iTunes. Once we've bought it, we can watch in any room in the house, or on any of the iPads/iPhones/Ipod touches in the house, streaming directly from Apple, so it's very convenient. Can even stream Dora The Explorer over 3G onto my iPhone for my 2 year old to watch when she's getting restless in a restaurant.

DVDs are a pain in the arse - you have to move them physically around, they get grubby fingerprints on them, they get scratched, etc. I really want to be able to rig up an AppleTV in the car so we don't need them any more. The best part of streaming movies and TV shows is that you can do everything via remote - you don't have to screw around with a DVD player. When the kids are watching in the media room in the basement, I can even check how much of the movie is left from my phone upstairs, then pause it and put a message on the screen telling them to come up for dinnner.

Anyway, eventually fast internet will be everywhere, just like phone and electrical service is. It will just take time.

[grizzle]

+1 to all the Panasonic lovers.

I've got a 54" Panasonic plasma, and it's really fantastic, would definitely suggest you looking at them.

[Bulgy]

What's anyone's opinion of needing to break in a plasma tv? I've read anything from 150 hours of slides to don't watch the same thing on the screen for days at a time and you'll be fine.

Anyone with experience one way or the other?