TV Shopping

[SSDude]

So I'm looking for a flat screen with a $1000 budget. It'll be in a well lighted room and a 8' viewing distance. Glare issues with plasma?

What would you guys recommend? Any brands to stay away from? Most reliable?

[Breecher_7]

Ok, I might be the only one here that really likes these, but for the money, I dont think they can be beat.... Im a big fan of DLP TV's. I cant bring myself to spend 3K on a LCD TV when I can get one bigger with picture that I feel is just as good for roughly 2K cheaper. If you dont need a "flat" TV hanging on your wall thats the route I would go. You can pick up a 60" DLP 1080 TV for around $1200. I have a 56" DLP in my living room and it has a better picture then the LCD TV I have in my bedroom.

I refuse to buy a plasma.

[Undertaker]

A 40" Samsung 1080P would work good with about 8'. They can be had for under $1000. I think Walmart has them for $968 if I remember correct. The Visio's are around $798 for a 42".

[michelle]

My parents recently picked up one of these:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8793996&type=product&id=1205537712071

They aren't very big on technology and my dad loves to research things to death, so it can't be half bad if he bought one.

[PureSound15]

LCDs are noticably brighter than plasma tvs - but with the price fixing on LCD panels this year (which has now been banned) plasmas come in a bit cheaper than a lot of TVs depending on the size and what kind of perks you're looking at.

Unfortunately it's all in your taste - everyone has a different opinion. I still have a 32" westinghouse LCD in my bedroom that Yoosof and I camped outside Best Buy for a couple years ago and I think it looks great. I've never had a problem with it and I think we paid $500 for it.

[nismodave]

I still have a 32" westinghouse LCD in my bedroom that Yoosof and I camped outside Best Buy for a couple years ago ........


:stare

[Car Guy]

JK guys but :rolf :rolf :rolf

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/01/20/brokeback_wideweb__470x299,0.jpg

[GTSLOW]

LCDs are noticably brighter than plasma tvs - but with the price fixing on LCD panels this year (which has now been banned) plasmas come in a bit cheaper than a lot of TVs depending on the size and what kind of perks you're looking at.

Unfortunately it's all in your taste - everyone has a different opinion. I still have a 32" westinghouse LCD in my bedroom that Yoosof and I camped outside Best Buy for a couple years ago and I think it looks great. I've never had a problem with it and I think we paid $500 for it.

I've got a 26" or 28" Westinghouse LCD that I bought a few years back also. I love that thing. We've also got a 42" Plasma that we got for $599. It's 1080P and all but for some reason, anything other than blue rays it fuggin sucks!! It will be getting replaced with an LCD soon.

I will never buy another Plasma again.

[SSDude]

What brand is the 42"?

[WhatsADSM]

With a well lit room, my personal opinion is to stay away from the plasma. Plasma's typically have a gloss finish (less a select few), and naturally are less bright so in a well lit room it may look a bit dim. LCDs on the other hand have a matte finish and are very bright.

So my opinion is to go with an LCD. And on the LCD note, personally I am a fan of picture quality over sheer size and would recommend a smaller (maybe 40" or so) mid-range Samsung or Sony. The Samsungs/Sonys picture quality is just so much better than the low-end junk (Sylvania, westinghouse, dynex, etc) and considerably better than most of their mid-range competitors (LG, Phillips, etc). So that would be something like a:
Sony KDL-40S4100 (low-mid range Sony 40" right around $1k)
Sony KDL-42V4100 (mid-range Sony 42", I think BB has a sale for like $1100)
Samsung LN40A530 (mid range Samsung 40", about $1k)

IMO bang for the buck if I was in your spot I would go with that 42" Sony V-series. Great TV! Great blacks, great color accuracy, good connectivity, 1080p (not that you would see much at that size anyways), and Sony has one of the best, if not the best, image processors out there.


Now with that said. I mentioned, personally I value picture quality over size however tons of people like tons of things. So my suggestion would be to go to a big box store and just see which of the bigger name brands you like best. Go there and see how bad the glare is, check out the remote, change the TVs to a more natural mode (as opposed to the vivid/dynamic crap they have on in the store), have them switch the TVs between a SD and HD source, play around in the TV menu system to make sure you like it. Sometimes the devil is in the details and after all it's YOUR TV so get whatever you are attracted to.

Edit: I say name brands not only because the picture quality is much better but also largely due to the reliability. The "best in the biz" brands have much better reliability and if you do ever have a problem are typically a lot better about getting it fixed for you and not giving you the run around.

[SSDude]

I've always been partial to Sony. We've had good luck with their stuff.
The 40-42 range is what i was thinking would fit the room best.

So your saying you won't notice a difference in 1080 to 720 with that size screen?

[GTSLOW]

What brand is the 42"?

It's called Sabre. It's a business that made and sold Plasmas to Soldiers and Sailors through the PX/BX. They went under a few months ago. Supposedly it was an off brand of Panasonic but I dunno.

You can have it for $500 if ya want. Anything in 1080 is perfect. But other than that it's terrible, I have no idea why. If I had HD Cable I wouldn't mind but that's not for us right now.

[Silver03SRT]

I would get that new OLED Sony its only 2500 for an 11"
In all honesty I would get a Samsung best bang for you buck. I have had mine a year and no problems. My roommate had problems with his sony which cost more. I also had a friend who had problems with an LG and my LG monitor at work broke after 1 month and then the replacement they sent had stuck pixels.

[WhatsADSM]

It's called Sabre. It's a business that made and sold Plasmas to Soldiers and Sailors through the PX/BX. They went under a few months ago. Supposedly it was an off brand of Panasonic but I dunno.

You can have it for $500 if ya want. Anything in 1080 is perfect. But other than that it's terrible, I have no idea why. If I had HD Cable I wouldn't mind but that's not for us right now.

^^^ Image processors play a huge role in a TV, which is why anything besides the native resolution/framerate sucks for a TV with a shit processor.

Honestly tho for $600 it's "you get what you pay for". I wouldn't hold it against all plasmas just because that cheapy one was bad. Take a look at a nice Panasonic or Pioneer once :thumbsup


I've always been partial to Sony. We've had good luck with their stuff.
The 40-42 range is what i was thinking would fit the room best.

So your saying you won't notice a difference in 1080 to 720 with that size screen?
Around 40" hardly anyone would notice a difference in a 1080 picture versus a 720 picture from 8' away, unless you had 10/20 eye sight or something and were looking for it.

We sit around 8' away from my 60" and my wife doesn't notice a difference between 1080 and 720 unless she is looking for it, but I do notice just looking at it (I have 15/20 vision my wife is 20/20).

Here is a great link which has some charts that even show what resolutions are viewable to people at various distances away from different sizes. This is I believe assuming "good" vision. If you cross reference that chart for your 40" at 8' it also says you can't see any difference. It actually says that 1080p wouldn't be noticeable at all until 7' and then at 5' would be fully noticeable:

http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/

http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.png

[VroomPshhTsi]

I have a 32" samsung 720p LCD... still not happy with some of the blacks (but if it's from an HD source it's not a problem)... of the few plasmas I've seen, they look a little better than most the LCDs I've seen... all personal preference though

[GTSLOW]

^^^ Image processors play a huge role in a TV, which is why anything besides the native resolution/framerate sucks for a TV with a shit processor.

Honestly tho for $600 it's "you get what you pay for". I wouldn't hold it against all plasmas just because that cheapy one was bad. Take a look at a nice Panasonic or Pioneer once :thumbsup



Yes that's very true. I've just had such great experiences with LCD's that, that's all I'll ever buy now.

[WilliamZ]

Plasma advantages over LCD+DLP: Everything but glare
Disadvantages: Glare

Plasma is for people with a low light setting and people who want the better picture.

Sony is overpriced for what it is, IMO.

There was a Samsung model 8 LCD TV that we sold and with a Blu-ray player it looked too realistic it was freaky. The screen had almost as much glare as a plasma though :(

[Goat Roper]

I just grabbed an LG 37LG30 from Best Buy over the weekend for the family room. Floor model, was around $600 but for it's main purpose of rendering Xbox360 games and watching football it does a great job. I think they may even have an LG 42" there as well.

Thanks for that graphic WhatsADSM!

[SSDude]

^^^ Image processors play a huge role in a TV, which is why anything besides the native resolution/framerate sucks for a TV with a shit processor.

Honestly tho for $600 it's "you get what you pay for". I wouldn't hold it against all plasmas just because that cheapy one was bad. Take a look at a nice Panasonic or Pioneer once :thumbsup


Around 40" hardly anyone would notice a difference in a 1080 picture versus a 720 picture from 8' away, unless you had 10/20 eye sight or something and were looking for it.

We sit around 8' away from my 60" and my wife doesn't notice a difference between 1080 and 720 unless she is looking for it, but I do notice just looking at it (I have 15/20 vision my wife is 20/20).

Here is a great link which has some charts that even show what resolutions are viewable to people at various distances away from different sizes. This is I believe assuming "good" vision. If you cross reference that chart for your 40" at 8' it also says you can't see any difference. It actually says that 1080p wouldn't be noticeable at all until 7' and then at 5' would be fully noticeable:

http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/

http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.png

Great info Thanks

[BoosTT]

I have:

22" samsung lcd 1080p: shit contrast ratio. Black looks gray. Otherwise good. Most lcds have this problem. All the colors look grany. I concider lcd's the poor man plasma.

56" samsung dlp 1080p. Awesome picture, but it's 16" deep. I don't mind because the stereo goes under it anyway. Something like 20% of dlp's break though. Mine broke and needed a $1k part that warranty covered. Get the warranty for a dlp. Also- bulbs are cheep now too.

42" panasonic plasma: Best contract. Actually hurts my eyes the contrast is so great. Picture is nice, but I wouldn't use it for video games. Glare could be an issue, but you could always move your lights around or get different ones. This thing is heavy too. Also- I got an awesome deal on it. I paid less then half of msrp.


It depends on what you want.

[badass88gt]

I will never buy another Plasma again.

Youre judging all plasmas off of your experience with some no-name POS that cost $600?

[jakedrew]

i spent 3000$ on a lg plasma a few years ago. i liked how you can see the picture clear when you are standing on the side of the tv verses the LCD at the time you had to be right in front of it.
3 weeks after owning it all the black pixels turned green. had the company come out and "repair it" , replaced the control board and 15 mins later back to the green pixels.

got a replacement tv and that lasted 8 months and got it repaired again and then it crapped out a month later ( randomly turning off and on, and finally one day i turned it on and it was 100 colors moving back and forth.)

got a LG LCD after going through the higher ups at LG and i couldnt be happier with the LCD. Way better then the plasma i had. Basically the model i had was rushed out that year and all the ones that shop sold had issues. The next year it was a different brand of tvs that had some issues.


cliff notes= get a LCD. and them tv's have came down in price in the last year, it is sickening for me who bought a tv not too long ago.

Good luck

[Reverend Cooper]

i have a phillips lcd with 180 deg viewing 42 inch with hdmi 1080i that i would love to sell so my wife will let me get a much bigger one. hd obviously many people here can vouch for the awesomeness of the tv

[Goat Roper]

cliff notes= get a LCD. and them tv's have came down in price in the last year, it is sickening for me who bought a tv not too long ago.



Yeah, that $1200 32" LCD I bought a couple years back is now a $549 TV. Blows all sorts of balls but oh well. When 1440 rolls out here all this stuff will get even cheaper.

[GTSLOW]

Youre judging all plasmas off of your experience with some no-name POS that cost $600?

Buy what ever you want. I love my LCD and it's awesome.

[lordairgtar]

I saw on the news today that plasmas cost more in energy to run than LCDs

[badass88gt]

If you go with Panasonic plasma they have the anti-glare coating.

[SSDude]

If you go with Panasonic plasma they have the anti-glare coating.

I read somewhere that you better be careful what you clean it with as it scratches easy and some spray cleaners will eff it up.

[WhatsADSM]

I saw on the news today that plasmas cost more in energy to run than LCDs

Yea the other cons of the plasma are that they cost a bit more in energy (get right up next to a plasma and see how warm they get), they are glossy (as already mentioned), lower brightness, heavier, and can burn in (although most everything has a screen saver by now).

As WilliamZ already mentioned, and I agree, plasmas still have a slight edge if you have a dim room and are using it primarily for movies. Otherwise LCDs have come a LOOONGG way in the past few years and performance-wise are essentially caught up to plasma. However the LCD doesn't have any of the above listed cons which is why IMO for most people getting a frequently used TV and putting it in a lit living space I suggest an LCD.

[wrath]

You're a day late and many dollars more. TV prices have gone up over 10% in the last few days. Better off waiting.

Best bang for your buck is a Samsung A630 (matte screen), Samsung A650 (gloss screen), Samsung A750 (gloss screen), or Sony XBR4.

In the past month you could catch the Samsung A530 for $799. It's now hovering around $900. Bestbuy has a deal right now for the 40A530 for $899 plus you get a $75WorstBuy gift card.

I'm probably going to end up with a LN46A630. I'll probably find it somewhere else and pricematch it to Sears.

I suggest going to the stores and look at the carefully. Probably my favorite store to go look at them is the Circuit City and Sears in Brookfield.

[SSDude]

comsumer electronics show is Jan 8-11 or something like that. They'll be rolling out the new models shortly after and clearancing the old ones.

[Crawlin]

My dad's LCD in his well lit room looks like SHIT to be honest. Has a ton of glare and reflection. My 50" Pioneer plasma was awesome in my well lit family room. There are a TON of windows in my place and it never had the same glare and/or reflections that my dad's Sony LCD has.

[wrath]

comsumer electronics show is Jan 8-11 or something like that. They'll be rolling out the new models shortly after and clearancing the old ones.

I've been watching for a year (after watching last year I decided I wanted a 120hz set but they were all $2k+). Last year there was a brief sell-off after Superbowl and then not again until June. But this has been a screwy year for thousand dollar electronics.

[SSDude]

Any benefit to the 480Hz sets? less motion blur?
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8732838&type=product&id=1202650462402

[wrath]

I'd go look at them. The TH-42PZ85U is by far the best plasma I've ever looked at that is affordable.

[lordairgtar]

All this talk of pros and cons between the two types, I think I'll stick with my 40" CRT Sharp.

[BoosTT]

All this talk of pros and cons between the two types, I think I'll stick with my 40" CRT Sharp.

CRT?? Is that one of those tv's with the wooden cabnets around it? j/k. CRT's have the best reliablilty and are best for gaming and burnin.

[GTSLOW]

They made a 40" CRT? :wooo

[SSDude]

40" CRT = 500lbs and 3feet from the wall
Can't complain i like my 17" monitor. Crystal clear and sharp

[GTSLOW]

40" CRT = 500lbs and 3feet from the wall
Can't complain i like my 17" monitor. Crystal clear and sharp

No shit. I had a 36" and wanted to kill myself when it had to be moved.

[SSDude]

No shit. I had a 36" and wanted to kill myself when it had to be moved.

Yup. I got a 35" in the basement. Took it down on a dolly. Not looking forward to getting it out either.

[GTSLOW]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=3749854&sku=M402-6510

[BoosTT]

Yup. I got a 35" in the basement. Took it down on a dolly. Not looking forward to getting it out either.

I would take it out in pieces. :rolf

[SSDude]

I would take it out in pieces. :rolf

The thought crossed my mind:thumbsup

[lordairgtar]

They made a 40" CRT? :wooo
yes, and that's as big as they get. They weigh a ton and do stick out 3 feet from the wall. I got it two years ago and it still works great. It's a flat screen too.

[claimsman]

I have a Viore 50" DLP great picture,no real issues with glare and viewable distance of 10 feet. DLP really seems much better than Plasma if there is any light or windows in the area.