Who knows their stuff about TV's?

[saunders1587]

Im looking for a new TV, I don't want to spend stupid money on a awesome TV because I believe theres always something better round the corner...!
All I want is a HD TV simply for playing my PS3, watching TV and Bluray discs.
Ive been looking on bestbuy.co.uk due to always seeing adverts in The Sun newspaper, and they always seem to be cheaper than everywhere else.
I've been looking at Panasonic, LG and Samsung.
Looking to spend around £400-£450 with around a 32inch size.

I've found this one...
http://www.bestbuy.co.uk/product/1000115482/panasonic-tx-l32x20b-32-lcd-hd-ready-tv.aspx

Cheers in advance for your help guys :)

[Crasher]

I have just bought one of these

http://www.philips.co.uk/c/televisions/9000-series-40-inch-full-hd-1080p-digital-tv-40pfl9705h_12/prd/ (http://www.philips.co.uk/c/televisions/9000-series-40-inch-full-hd-1080p-digital-tv-40pfl9705h_12/prd/)

£1800 from John Lewis, daft money but a truly awesome TV.

[phil miller]

Ive got a 32in (to small really) samsung LCD its only a 720, they say the 1080 is great for gaming, i wouldnt know, i dont do the whole gaming thing, to old lol, i got mine for £250 i should have got another 40in samsung i loved the one i had, that was a 1080 but the dragon kept it :zx11:

[Eshrules]

When trying to help people, I love it when they spec their requirements out properly, so thanks for that.

Budget - £450 max
Mainly Gaming/Blu Ray viewing.

you're going to want a unit capable of displaying true blacks, for this reason I would personally sway towards an LED unit.

The TV you've linked to is only 720p/HD ready - you want a full HD capable of running 1080p, you'll notice the difference trust me.

Size is dependant on how far away you will be sat, there is an optimum size for viewing distance - there's 100's of calculators for this online but I've found a 32" more than ample for mine - others prefer bigger screens - but it's all personal preference.

working on a 32" and with that budget, I'd probably opt for something like this :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003DNSJ0Y?ie=UTF8&tag=gpgode-21

plenty of inputs for the consoles, built in freeview, 1080p and ticks all the other boxes.

[Ben]

Given the choice of manufacturer, I'd go for Panasonic, try to afford as many options as possible, built in freesat hd, freeview hd, 1080p full hd ready, minimum of 3 hdmi inputs. Avoid internet tv at the moment, not quite developed enough imho.

[fat controller]

TV's were my trade for a number of years before I changed direction completely, but I still retain my interest.

Brands, in order of preference would be -

Panasonic
Sony
Samsung

I avoid LG like the plague, simply because I have seen far too many busted ones. Toshiba were good at one time, however they stopped making their own stuff and now outsource to the likes of Vestel instead, which in my opinion has brought about a significant drop in quality. Philips - lovely product, poor reliability, and shocking customer service - avoid.

Here is a Sony (http://www.rgbdirect.co.uk/CategoryList.asp?CategoryDesc=LCD-TV&Viewtype=&QryStr5=&QryStr1=&Manuname=SONY&Screen-size=%3E%3D32-inch-and-%3C%3D37&QryStr4=) which is a bit of a bargain at only £329 (although I suspect that is £399, with the £70 off if you buy in their store.

Its worth a good look around RGB's webiste - their prices are keen, and I have used them in the past without problems.

Also worth a look is your local Richer Sounds, but have a clear idea of what you want before going, and DON'T let them switch sell you.

Feel free to PM if I can help :)

[saunders1587]

Thanks for your replies guys,
Now Esh, whats so good about LED units, am I right in saying they are the thin TVs that are supposed to use less energy or is that just a myth, because that TV from amazon that you listed has 50Hz, whereas i've been told that the higher the better, espically for gaming, but to be fair that was from a salesman at Comet :)
And Fat Contoller, that TV that you listed looked a bargin, espically if you get a wall mount with it aswel, which is what I want, then it works out that its £337, with £70 off instore.
But their website does look very good.
And a quick question, whats with this internet TV? Is it mainly apps that you get for like BBC iPlayer and things like that?

Cheers again,
Dan

[Ben]

You need to look at WWW.five.tv/gadgetshow you will learn everything there.

[fat controller]

Thanks for your replies guys,
Now Esh, whats so good about LED units, am I right in saying they are the thin TVs that are supposed to use less energy or is that just a myth, because that TV from amazon that you listed has 50Hz, whereas i've been told that the higher the better, espically for gaming, but to be fair that was from a salesman at Comet :)
And Fat Contoller, that TV that you listed looked a bargin, espically if you get a wall mount with it aswel, which is what I want, then it works out that its £337, with £70 off instore.
But their website does look very good.
And a quick question, whats with this internet TV? Is it mainly apps that you get for like BBC iPlayer and things like that?

Cheers again,
Dan

LED TV's refer to the method of backlighting used. The LCD panel itself has no light output, so needs a bright light shining behind it to project the image out so you can see it; early LCD sets used lights that were essentially a tube light, the drawback of which is that the light tends to pool near the bulb (so if the bulb lived at the bottom of the screen, the picture could be brighter at the bottom than it would be at the top);

The benefits of LED are a more even light output, a brighter light output, and a thinner panel casing - however, to some people the picture can initially be too vivid, and not natural enough so be sure that you see any prospective purchase in action before parting with your cash.

The built in Wi-Fi/Internet TV gives the TV the ability to stream the likes of YouTube videos and music directly to your TV, although I think the best bet for that is to set all your media up on your main PC (music and video libraries), run TVersity on the PC as the media server software, and then use a PS3 as a media server attached to the TV.

RGB are decent folks - I have recommended them to a lot of friends, and never had anyone disappointed yet.

[Crasher]

Philips - lovely product, poor reliability, and shocking customer service - avoid.

The first example of my new Philips had a fault in that it made a high pitched whistling noise, John Lewis changed it without question after an engineers visit and the TV engineer that came out to inspect it now brings his wifes Beetle to me. I have had four Philips TV’s in a row and they have all been extremely reliable apart from this minor irritation on the latest one.

[fat controller]

The first example of my new Philips had a fault in that it made a high pitched whistling noise, John Lewis changed it without question after an engineers visit and the TV engineer that came out to inspect it now brings his wifes Beetle to me. I have had four Philips TV’s in a row and they have all been extremely reliable apart from this minor irritation on the latest one.

You have been very lucky, and probably more to do with the fact that you were sensible enough to buy from John Lewis than the fact you bought Philips. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying all their stuff is rubbish, because it isn't - Philips have made some damned good product over the years, although some of it has been completely off the wall; the biggest problems have been when they have made a bit of a howler (for example there was a range of DVD recorders not so long ago that were extremely unreliable) - the way that their customer services handled things was quite simply horrifying (to the point of completely ignoring customers).

On the other side of the coin, I remember a range of Sony TV's (KV25F1 & KV29F1) that had a design flaw in the IF strip/tuner which caused the sets to shut down randomly in low signal areas - as we were based in a low signal area, there was initially a degree of wrangling between Sony and dealers, as Sony engineers could never replicate the faults (they were working in areas with good signal levels) - however, after a time the fault was identified and a second generation (F2) was launched with all the bugs sorted - ALL customers in low signal areas with F1 sets were given replacement F2's whether they had suffered symptoms or not, and they were also given a free gift from a selection (big box of about 20 blank VHS tapes was one of them) by way of an apology.

Customer service makes a hell of a difference when it all goes wrong.

[Eshrules]

I've heard a lot of complaints in regards to LG/Phillips and Toshiba units - but to be fair, the LG I've had, I've had for nearly 4 years now and it's faultless - no dead pixels and there's not a single rattle.

FC - what do you think of this current trend of recommending the highest refresh rate possible? Surely there's a limit to what our eyes can actually detect?

[fat controller]

I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to the modern refresh rates, so can only really relate it to the older stuff. In my opinion, the higher refresh rates are valid up to about 100Hz, thereafter any percieved improvement is more to do with the quality of the panel or the electronics driving it.

Basically, the source image is recorded/broadcast with a certain number of lines of resolution (1080 being the maximum nowadays) per field, and depending on the setting those fields are preented either interlaced (1080i) or progressively scanned (1080p). For the most part, the recordings are usually 50 or 60Hz, depending where you are in the world.

If we are talking about an interlaced signal/image, then the screen shows two fields, showing alternately a given number of times per second - so for a 50Hz image, you get each field 25 times (this could be quoted as 1080i/50); field one consists of all the odd numbered lines (1, 3, 5, 7 and so on) and field two consists of all the even numbered lines (2, 4, 6, 8 etc) - this system relies on the 'persistance vision effect', which is basically the ability of the human eye and mind to retain the image that it has just seen for a tiny amount of time, and then merge it with another alternating image. On a 100Hz set, you would get each field 50 times alternately, and on a 600Hz set, this would be 300 times for each field per second.

However - and here is the big but of the whole thing - you cannot take a piece of vision recorded at a 50Hz frame rate, and just play it back at 600Hz, as that would end up with your vision being 12 times faster than it should be! So, what actually happens is electronic wizardry replicates the fields for the correct length of time, replicating them as it needs to. Some sets even have software that 'guesses' what information is contained in the other field and puts that in on the empty lines, so if field one is showing the TV knows what lines 1, 3, 5 and so on are but 'makes up' the info for lines 2, 4, 6, and so on (line-doublers).

Not bored to death yet???

All of the above applies to an interlaced image (as in1080i), however does not apply to a progressively scanned image (and progressively scanned images count for the majority of HD films/broadcasts - 360p, 720p, 1080p) - progressively scanned images show every line (1,2,3,4 and so on) on each and every frame, hence they have a lot more real information in them, and any frame flicker is much harder to perceive because your eye is seeing the same frame again and again as opposed to alternating frames.

The image below (courtesy of Wikipedia) shows quite well the difference between interlaced and progressively scanned video:


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Indian_Head_interlace.gif

The two images on the left are both progressively scanned and full resolution, the middle are interlaced, and the right are with line doublers - the top row are full resolution, the bottom are anti-aliasing (basically, softened to reduce image twitter).

In short, there is some potential benefit to be had up to about 100Hz, thereafter (in my opinion) the difference is nothing to do with the refresh rate and more to do with the quality of the panel and the electronics. The moral of this (unbelievably long, sorry for rambling!) post is that you should ALWAYS buy a TV with your eyes, and not from a specification sheet.

[pete99]

I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to the modern refresh rates, so can only really relate it to the older stuff. In my opinion, the higher refresh rates are valid up to about 100Hz, thereafter any percieved improvement is more to do with the quality of the panel or the electronics driving it.

Basically, the source image is recorded/broadcast with a certain number of lines of resolution (1080 being the maximum nowadays) per field, and depending on the setting those fields are preented either interlaced (1080i) or progressively scanned (1080p). For the most part, the recordings are usually 50 or 60Hz, depending where you are in the world.

If we are talking about an interlaced signal/image, then the screen shows two fields, showing alternately a given number of times per second - so for a 50Hz image, you get each field 25 times (this could be quoted as 1080i/50); field one consists of all the odd numbered lines (1, 3, 5, 7 and so on) and field two consists of all the even numbered lines (2, 4, 6, 8 etc) - this system relies on the 'persistance vision effect', which is basically the ability of the human eye and mind to retain the image that it has just seen for a tiny amount of time, and then merge it with another alternating image. On a 100Hz set, you would get each field 50 times alternately, and on a 600Hz set, this would be 300 times for each field per second.

However - and here is the big but of the whole thing - you cannot take a piece of vision recorded at a 50Hz frame rate, and just play it back at 600Hz, as that would end up with your vision being 12 times faster than it should be! So, what actually happens is electronic wizardry replicates the fields for the correct length of time, replicating them as it needs to. Some sets even have software that 'guesses' what information is contained in the other field and puts that in on the empty lines, so if field one is showing the TV knows what lines 1, 3, 5 and so on are but 'makes up' the info for lines 2, 4, 6, and so on (line-doublers).

Not bored to death yet???

All of the above applies to an interlaced image (as in1080i), however does not apply to a progressively scanned image (and progressively scanned images count for the majority of HD films/broadcasts - 360p, 720p, 1080p) - progressively scanned images show every line (1,2,3,4 and so on) on each and every frame, hence they have a lot more real information in them, and any frame flicker is much harder to perceive because your eye is seeing the same frame again and again as opposed to alternating frames.

The image below (courtesy of Wikipedia) shows quite well the difference between interlaced and progressively scanned video:


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Indian_Head_interlace.gif

The two images on the left are both progressively scanned and full resolution, the middle are interlaced, and the right are with line doublers - the top row are full resolution, the bottom are anti-aliasing (basically, softened to reduce image twitter).

In short, there is some potential benefit to be had up to about 100Hz, thereafter (in my opinion) the difference is nothing to do with the refresh rate and more to do with the quality of the panel and the electronics. The moral of this (unbelievably long, sorry for rambling!) post is that you should ALWAYS buy a TV with your eyes, and not from a specification sheet.
£380 from Currys LG 42 ''
Pretty good and can even see wrinkles on Dierdries face (Corrie) :approve:

[hibbsy21]

I've got a 40in Samsung LED tv, cost 700 last year in a closing down sale in currys, should have been £1400. ex display model, but nothing wrong with it! Awesome picture, but i wish i had a sony bravia, for the simple reason you can control the tv with the PS3 and a HDMI cable.

[pon]

Bought a new Philips 32" 1080p 100Hz this weekend from Marks and Spencer. Came with a 5 year guarantee £199:D
Such a good deal that we bought one for the in laws as well.

[potshot]

there is a brilliiant forum avfourms.com - loads of info/reviews etc

Best place to buy/checkout prices is richer sounds

[dunkley201]

Just bought a 46" Panny G20 from Richer Sounds on Sunday - tremendous value and awesome pic. I did my research at AV Forums - invaluable! Couldn't be doing with LCDs and LEDs - plasma may use a bit more juice but pic and colours are worth it.

[Eshrules]

46"? how big's the room?!

[dunkley201]

46"? how big's the room?!

About 8m x 4m

[Flying Scot]

Just completed a rather large refurbishment/extension project where I managed to sneak in a home cinema system without the missus noticing until it was too late. Treated myself to an Acer h7530d projector (£600), Panasonic Blueray 5:1 sound system (ex-display £280) and upgraded my Sky to HD.

Getting the electric black-out blinds fitted at the weekend which should finish it off nicely.

Now got a 140” full HD picture on my wall and a beer fridge beside my sofa!

[dunkley201]

Just completed a rather large refurbishment/extension project where I managed to sneak in a home cinema system without the missus noticing until it was too late. Treated myself to an Acer h7530d projector (£600), Panasonic Blueray 5:1 sound system (ex-display £280) and upgraded my Sky to HD.

Getting the electric black-out blinds fitted at the weekend which should finish it off nicely.

Now got a 140” full HD picture on my wall and a beer fridge beside my sofa!
Cool. Now look for someone to bring around the ice creams & pop corn :biglaugh: