School me on televisions

[titan14]

He's just one of the most respected members of TGO. Just saying.

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[Urse]

Consumer Reports ranks:

LED LCD TV

#1 60" Samsung LN60C630- $2K (Consumer Reports Best Buy)(120hz, no wi-fi)

#2 52" Sony Bravia KDL-52NX800- $1.9K(240hz, built in wi-fi)

#3 55" Samsung UN55C5000-$1.8K(120hz, no wi-fi)

#4 55" Vizio Tru-LED XVT553SV- $1.7K(Consumer Reports Best Buy)(240hz, built in wi-fi)

#5 52" Sanyo DP52440- $1k(120hz, no wi-fi)

These prices are from March. I have seen the Vizio at Wally world for $1.4K. Like most I am a Samsung fan.

[Guest jmac]

As someone previously mentioned, don't buy the hdmi cables in the store. The stores will rape you on price. Go on eBay or Amazon and buy a few to your desired length for a few dollars. Use the $50 - $100 savings for that next model up, ammo, or cold beer.

[laktrash]

Thanks for all the imput !!

I didn't mean to start a "what kind of handgun do I need for everyday carry " thread.

I like getting advice on here it may not be "set in stone" but its helpful. The thing you run into in the big stores is getting somebody helpful or somebody more interested in their social calendar. Budget wise I not looking for the cheap way out, because I don't want a POS but don't to have go high end. The technology throws me as far as what I need. I want a good quality picture but at my age unless there's a quiet of bit difference I won't notice. The pictures not bouncing right now so I still have time for research

Edited July 24, 2011 by laktrash

[Guest UberDuper]

For cables I highly recommend monoprice.com

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I'm also waiting for the tube to die before replacing TV. About all I watch is news and a couple of addictive shows like Breaking Bad or Walking Dead. Probably won't watch any more even with a prettier screen.

But a question about LED's in case someone knows. I run dual large LCD monitors many hours per day, and every year or three one bites the dust and gets replaced.

Every new LCD monitor is stunning bright and clear. Then ever so gradually they get washed out and dimmer over time until they finally fail. The degradation isn't especially noticeable until the monitor gets replaced with a new bright clear colorful monitor.

Since monitors rarely fail at the same time and I'm too cheap to replace em in pairs, there is always typically one monitor on the first half of its life cycle paired with another monitor on the last half of its life cycle. The new one brighter/clearer than the old.

The last replaced monitor a few months ago is the first LED backlight. I love it. Really bright colorful and clear. The new LED also runs much cooler and obviously less power usage. The previous large LCD monitors were about like running a pair of space heaters on the desk.

When monitors get old, dim and washed-out-- How much is it backlight fatigue, compared to fatigue in the LCD panel? It seems pretty good odds that the LED backlight will stay bright and run longer before failure, but will the picture degrade anyway because the LCD panel is mostly what gets old and worn out?

[DaveTN]

Nevermind.

Edited July 24, 2011 by DaveTN

[laktrash]

Nevermind.

AAWW c'mon

[JPR1959]

Remember on all HDTVs is the repair costs will be almost as much as a new TV. That to me makes them throwaways. I bought a Samsung plasma 50" 3 years ago and love it. Plasmas are cheaper than LCD or LED and have been on the market far longer than the other two technologies. Plasmas use more electricity and are can double as a heater in the winter. I'd look at all 3 technologies. Remember most of the best 50" plasmas sell for around $800. Good luck.

[Spook]

Lt - Big +1 on the Samsung LED. I have a 55" above my fireplace in the Man Cave and the picture is crystal clear. Worth checking out. Best Buy carries them, not sure who else. Good luck, there's alot of stuff out there. However, Consumer Reports did rate two Samsung models as highest among 52"+.

[Guest yzfMrLee]

I'm kinda in the biz. I do telecom installs, so I get to see all kinds. Samsung is IMHO the best for the money. They actually build panels for many of the other manufacturers. What exact one you should get depends on what you'll be doing with it. Most of the new ones are pretty versatile though, and most of them will do everything most people would ever want them to do. Also on the receiver, it depends on whether or not it has the right type of connections. If it's pretty new then it should have HDMI. That's the easiest way to go.

[Guest WyattEarp]

I'm a Sony and Mitsubishi man myself. My Dad had a top of the line 45" Mitsubishi he purchased in 2000. he still has it today (it's not HDTV though), but it still works just as good as the day he bought it.

I bought a 55" Sony Grand Wega LCD TV in February 2007 the week after the Colts won the Super Bowl. It still works to perfection 4 years later. Picture is razor sharp, colors are all still true, and I have yet to replace the projector bulb in it. It's the best tv I have ever owned and has never given me an ounce of trouble. I would easily buy another Sony in a heart beat, in fact I'm selling it as I'm moving to a new apt next month, and my tv is too large for my new place.

If I had to rank them,

1. Sony

2. Mitsubishi

3. Samsung

4. Panasonic

5. Sanyo

RCA, Sharp, Vizio, and off brands like that, I'd run from.

Sony and Mitsubishi are top of the line, you'll pay a bit more (not talking their low end models, im talking their good stuff, the models that Best Buy doesn't carry, that you have to get from a place like hifibuys or Electronics Express.), but the quality is great and they'll last forever.

[Guest nicemac]

Panasonic (yes, Panasonic) makes some of the best in the business. Check one out.

+1

[daddyo]

If you like the Hitachi brand, Sam's has them at a good price. We bought our 48" before Christmas for less than $500.

[C.lunn]

1. Sony

2. Samsung

3. Sharp

4. Vizio

5. Panasonic

Those are the only tv makers I would buy from unless I got a stupid deal on a off brand. I paid $200 for a 40in Apex 4 years ago. Brand new.

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[Guest nicemac]

1. Sony

2. Samsung

3. Sharp

4. Vizio

5. Panasonic

Those are the only tv makers I would buy from unless I got a stupid deal on a off brand. I paid $200 for a 40in Apex 4 years ago. Brand new.

Vizio and Sharp over Panasonic?

FOR PRICE ONLY. Vizio is an off-brand. They have only been around 6 or 8 years and are mostly Taiwanese trash.

Sony, Samsung and Panasonic all make tvs with great pictures. Sharp is hit and miss. Get plasma if you want a wide viewing angle, get LCD for razor sharp image.

Edited July 25, 2011 by nicemac

[laktrash]

I'm a Sony and Mitsubishi man myself. My Dad had a top of the line 45" Mitsubishi he purchased in 2000. he still has it today (it's not HDTV though), but it still works just as good as the day he bought it.

Hitachi 50" is what we have and its every bit that old if not older. I believe its a projection also. It was top of the line when we bought it and been a great TV. Picture is probably not as sharp as it once was but it is really old. I'd take a shot on a new lamp but I doubt that would cause the picture to "bounce" when you first turn it on. Kinda looked at going the same route again but figured this was old technolgy. I also understand how bright the room is plays apart in the selection. In my case the TV is in the corner where one side is all glass and fairly high probably 12' and open ceiling, the heat from a plasma might be a plus in the winter. Bottom line, a trip needs to be made to circuit city or something similar

Edited July 28, 2011 by laktrash

[Caster]

We just bought a 55" Samsung LCD LED 3D early this year. It's pretty amazing, but it's a touch annoying too. TV isn't supposed to look THAT life like is it? It's ridiculous when I think about the first tv I ever got back when I was 4. It was a 13" Zenith black and white and it would only work on channel 8 and channel 4(tuner was messed up) .

I miss the old cabinet TV's. They weren't just a TV, they were part of the furniture decor. Some were pieces of art. Growing up we had a Sylvania and the wood grain on that thing looked like a gunstock. It took two grown men to move too! I see a lot of young hip trendy folk buy them at the Goodwill and gut them, then put a same size LCD flat panel in there. That's pretty cool, I think. My wife wants me to do one, but make it a fish tank.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Vizio and Sharp over Panasonic?

FOR PRICE ONLY. Vizio is an off-brand. They have only been around 6 or 8 years and are mostly Taiwanese trash.

Sony, Samsung and Panasonic all make tvs with great pictures. Sharp is hit and miss. Get plasma if you want a wide viewing angle, get LCD for razor sharp image.

Hi nicemac

Dunno about TV's in specific. Sony has typically been a safe bet on most items if one has the money to pay. Or at least it has been in the past. They have made a decent reputation for making pretty good stuff. Of course past quality is no guarantee of future quality on any brand and I'm not aware of any company incapable of manufacturing the occasional lemon.

What you say of Visio may be true. I don't have a dog in the hunt.

But if I was forced to choose a non-japanese asian product on nationality alone then Taiwan, Singapore and Korea would have odds of similar quality as best I can tell lately. Of course all those nations have begun out-sourcing to mainland China more and more, so a Korean item could be mostly Chinese nowadays.

Even the Chinese can make excellent product at a high enough price point. Not even China can make something for nothing.

Over the last couple of years comparing various items, Taiwan quality for the price has looked as good or better than other asian gadgets.

Was shopping for some good-quality electrical tools and the heavy-duty relatively-expensive Taiwan tools looked near-equivalent to the incredibly expensive USA tools and head-and-shoulders over other asian tools, especially the Chinese tools.

Some of the best optics for the price point come from Taiwan.

Anyway, Vizio may be junk. Haven't the foggiest idea. But Taiwan makes some pretty good stuff and the phrase "Taiwanese trash" didn't seem a good generalization. Of course there is USA Trash and Chinese Trash as well. Everybody is capable of making sucky stuff.

Am not dissing Samsung though. I currently have two Samsung monitors on the desk and they seem fine for the money. But I've worn out just as many Samsung monitors as other brands. Dealing with disposable products the price and features both have to be considered, unless price is no object for a few years of quality.

Maybe monitors bite the weenie quicker than TV's though. I'm cheap. If monitors would last 6 years then I would still have 6 year old monitors on the desk, rather than one 2 year old monitor and one 3 month old monitor.

Edited July 25, 2011 by Lester Weevils

[Guest nicemac]

RE:"Of course there is USA Trash and Chinese Trash as well. Everybody is capable of making sucky stuff."

It is from Taiwan and it is trash. Wasn't implying everything from Taiwan is trash. There is plenty of trash from everywhere…

[C.lunn]

Vizio and Sharp over Panasonic?

FOR PRICE ONLY. Vizio is an off-brand. They have only been around 6 or 8 years and are mostly Taiwanese trash.

Sony, Samsung and Panasonic all make tvs with great pictures. Sharp is hit and miss. Get plasma if you want a wide viewing angle, get LCD for razor sharp image.

Your opinion. I have worked retail the past 5 years. My co workers and I kept track of what got returned. Vizio was not returned as often as Panasonic. Sanyo was the worst. The picture is great on Panasonic plasmas but I'm only going off our reports we kept.

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[monkeylizard]

DLP rear-projections are still on the market. It's usually the most economical setup in the size per dollar. The downsides are that they are bigger and may need to have the lamp replaced at some point. Figure on about 12" to 18" in depth. Too thick to wall-mount, but nothing like the old cabinet TVs.

For example:

Amazon.com: Mitsubishi WD-60638 60-Inch 3D-Ready DLP HDTV: Electronics

In the OP you said you have a TiVo and DirectTV. I seem to recall that the DirectTV TiVo was a special kind of TiVo. It may or may not be HD capable. If not, you'll need to replace it with whatever DirectTV's latest HD DVR offering is to get HD content.

You also said you have everything going into the Yamaha receiver. If you truly have it all going through there, then you'd need to see if your Yamaha receiver has an HDMI output to go to the new TV. If so, you're <<probably>> good to go. If not, you can't go through the Yamaha with the video signal and still get HD.

Here's monkeylizard's HD for dummies:

720p - Far better than the old tube TVs. Techincally it's not "Full HD".

1080i - Newer than 720p, but mostly gone now and replaced with 1080p. Still not "Full HD"

1080p - Full HD.

Only the most discerning viewers can really tell the difference between any of these 3. I have hawk eyes and find that a good quality 720p beats a basic 1080p any day of the week.

Many TVs on the market today will be 3D or 3D-ready. 3D means thay can handle 3D right now. 3D-Ready means you'll be able to purchase an adapter later if you choose to go down the 3D road. Some channels are now available in 3D (for a premium of course). The other way to get 3D content is from a BluRay player that can do 3D (PlayStation3 can do it), or streaming services like Vudu.

Panasonic makes some nice TVs. I wish I had those over my Samsungs any day, but they were price prohibitive when I bought mine. I'm happy with the Samsungs overall. Sony makes a good product in its Bravia series, but they seem to be trading on their name. For the money, you can usually find a better one from Panasonic, LG, or Samsung. Stear clear of Westinghouse, Phillips, and Sylvania. They're fine for the guest bedroom, but that's about it.

720p, 1080i, 1080p described

720p means the TV has 720 horizontal lines. All 720 are "repainted" each time the screen refreshes. The refresh rate of the TV tells how often that happens. Higher refresh will make motion sharper with less blur/ghosting.

1080i means there are 1080 horizonatal lines. Every other line is repainted on each refresh, with the other half done on the next referesh. More lines means more details over the 720, but the interlacing (the "i" part of the 1080i) can create jittery motion. Most people can't see it. The only way to know if you're in the minority is to look at one. You'll know real quick that "something's off". I don't see a lot of 1080i on the market these days.

1080p. Full High Def. 1080 lines fully repainted on each refresh.

Edited July 25, 2011 by monkeylizard

[Guest nicemac]

Your opinion. I have worked retail the past 5 years. My co workers and I kept track of what got returned. Vizio was not returned as often as Panasonic. Sanyo was the worst. The picture is great on Panasonic plasmas but I'm only going off our reports we kept.

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Well of course it is my opinion… Just like yours is your opinion.

[Guest nysos]

In regards to the 720p vs 1080i vs 1080p - unless things have changed in the last year, no one broadcasts or records in anything higher than 720p. The only way you will make use of 1080p is if you have a bluray player, xbox360, ps3, etc. All your satellite & cable content will be streamed in 720p. If budget is an issue, you can skimp on getting the 1080p if you don't plan on getting a bluray player anytime soon.

[monkeylizard]

nysos, that has changed. DirectTV has some of their content in 1080p. Streaming services like Netflix, Vudu, and Roku all have some 1080p content with more coming all the time. It's still a small percentage of the overall content, but it's there and growing.