Large screen TV help and opinions needed

Kevin Lindstrom

Kevin Lindstrom

14.1 Addict
Silver Member
Knowledgeable parties

I know that there was a thread here not to long ago about LCD, DLP and Plasma tvs. I am in the market for one finally but wanted to review the thread for knowledge based info and opinions. If someone has the link to the previous thread or opinions as to which route to go I would be greatly appreciative of your thoughts.

edited This should probably be in the NPR related category. My apologize.

Thanks

Kevin
 
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Kevin Lindstrom said:
Knowledgeable parties

I know that there was a thread here not to long ago about LCD, DLP and Plasma tvs. I am in the market for one finally but wanted to review the thread for knowledge based info and opinions. If someone has the link to the previous thread or opinions as to which route to go I would be greatly appreciative of your thoughts.

edited This should probably be in the NPR related category. My apologize.

Thanks

Kevin
Click to expand...


Kevin,
I have a 52 inch LCD in my Den, A 40 inch LCD in my living room, a 26 inch LCD in my bedroom, and a 20 inch LCD in my daughters room. I also have two LCD monitors for my desktop. I looked at plasmas and DLP's, but find the quality and performance in LCD's much better. The picture to me is better and they have no glare which makes it nice in rooms with a lot of windows.
 
Agreed.. the pixel refresh rate is higher on LCD, leading to less trailing during high-action sequences. They also require less maintenance than a plasma.

And for my shameless opportunity to right a wrong:
I paid $3500 for my Sony XBR1 SXRD 60 inch a couple years ago. As a lifelong Sony fan I thought I couldn't go wrong. A year later I had a yellow line running down the middle of the screen, a little problem with Sony's light engine. It's now reglarly 4 or 5 different lines, and getting worse. Sony has finally agreed to fix it, of course, but will need my TV for 6 weeks or more to do so.

Regardless of what you buy, don't make the same mistake I made.. pay extra for the Best Buy (or wherever) service plan.. don't count on the manufacturer to correct their mistakes.

My 4 year old 32 inch Sony Wega TV has lost it's red color, and my 2 Sony DVD players have died after less than a year of usage. Whatever is going on over there in sonyville, they won't be getting any more of my money.
 
Bastian said:
Agreed.. the pixel refresh rate is higher on LCD, leading to less trailing during high-action sequences. They also require less maintenance than a plasma.

And for my shameless opportunity to right a wrong:
I paid $3500 for my Sony XBR1 SXRD 60 inch a couple years ago. As a lifelong Sony fan I thought I couldn't go wrong. A year later I had a yellow line running down the middle of the screen, a little problem with Sony's light engine. It's now reglarly 4 or 5 different lines, and getting worse. Sony has finally agreed to fix it, of course, but will need my TV for 6 weeks or more to do so.

Regardless of what you buy, don't make the same mistake I made.. pay extra for the Best Buy (or wherever) service plan.. don't count on the manufacturer to correct their mistakes.

My 4 year old 32 inch Sony Wega TV has lost it's red color, and my 2 Sony DVD players have died after less than a year of usage. Whatever is going on over there in sonyville, they won't be getting any more of my money.
Click to expand...

Sony sucks they have contracted out most of their work lately. They built up a name for themselves and now let other companies build their products and slap their name on it. I have been warning of using sony for the last 6 years, but you people don't listen.
 
What's the story on High Def? Is that something you should have or not? I currently do not.

I know they make high def TV's. But do you need special equipment attached to your cable system? Maybe all new TV's are high def. I don't know.
 
jay helfert said:
What's the story on High Def? Is that something you should have or not? I currently do not.

I know they make high def TV's. But do you need special equipment attached to your cable system? Maybe all new TV's are high def. I don't know.
Click to expand...
Yes in order to VIEW channels in high def you need to have a high def receiver. The cable company will give you a high def receiver and then you will have (depending on the provider) a number of channels that are strictly high def.
 
jay helfert said:
What's the story on High Def? Is that something you should have or not? I currently do not.

I know they make high def TV's. But do you need special equipment attached to your cable system? Maybe all new TV's are high def. I don't know.
Click to expand...
Depends what you want to watch.
You can get hi def tv off RABBIT ears now. But you only get the regular channels.
If you want to get ESPN hi-def, or HBO or a ton of other channels on hi-def , then you'd want the Direct or Dish Hi Def. Cable blows, don't even bother.
The tv has to be hi-def. Not hi-def "adaptable" or "ready".
 
JoeyInCali said:
Cable blows, don't even bother.
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Huh? My high-def cable rocks.. Unless satellite started broadcasting in 1080 or something, I'm not sure what you're referring to..
 
Bastian said:
Huh? My high-def cable rocks.. Unless satellite started broadcasting in 1080 or something, I'm not sure what you're referring to..
Click to expand...
Satellite is all digital.
Not all channels on cable are in digital. Their service is also not quite as good as Direct TV.
 
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JoeyInCali said:
Depends what you want to watch.
You can get hi def tv off RABBIT ears now. But you only get the regular channels.
If you want to get ESPN hi-def, or HBO or a ton of other channels on hi-def , then you'd want the Direct or Dish Hi Def. Cable blows, don't even bother.
The tv has to be hi-def. Not hi-def "adaptable" or "ready".
Click to expand...

Not exactly true. A tv can be hd "ready", where you would need a high def receiver or it can already have high def where you can just plug in the cable and it is good to go.

Also, LCD is a great choice and now with the technologies of "no burn in" anything is an ok choice. The only thing I have a problem with in lcd's is that the black is not very dark. Almost greyish but is acceptable. Look at westinghouse. they used to be a crappy kmart brand but now are up and coming quality goods. I am looking at a 40 in lcd 1080p from them for cheap and my friend already has had one for some time. It's nice.
 
I totally disagree with this.. I've had satellite, and hated losing service when it rained lol.. but I so don't care enough to debate satellite versus cable. I'm sure the cable in different areas of the country are completely different anyway. Just ask some locals how their high-def service is, and do your homework before slapping that dish on your roof.
 
a9ballbr8k said:
Not exactly true. A tv can be hd "ready", where you would need a high def receiver or it can already have high def where you can just plug in the cable and it is good to go.

Also, LCD is a great choice and now with the technologies of "no burn in" anything is an ok choice. The only thing I have a problem with in lcd's is that the black is not very dark. Almost greyish but is acceptable. Look at westinghouse. they used to be a crappy kmart brand but now are up and coming quality goods. I am looking at a 40 in lcd 1080p from them for cheap and my friend already has had one for some time. It's nice.
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I have a 32" Viewsonic LCD with HDMI hook-up.
For now, I'm very happy with it.
 
My 52' is a Phillips Magnavox with Ambilight, my 40' is an LG, my 26' is a Samsung, and my 20' is a Sanyo and I've never had a problem with any of them.
 
I have a 42" Phillips Magnavox with Ambilight plasma tv. It has done ok, other than needing a software upgrade. I am a frequent user of www.epinions.com It's a non-biased website that the average person uses to give and receive opinions of various products. I highly recommend them.

Mattman
 
We have a 60" HD plasma Vizio from Sam's Club, paid $2,500 about 6 mo ago. Picture stays the same for 20,000 hrs (more years than I will live). Great TV hooked to Comcast for High Def. I also have it hooked to my computer network and we watch TV, pool matches, etc online. Kay displays family pics from the computer when we have a party with Comast radio in the background.

I have had no trouble with this set and recommend it.

We also have a 10 foot Samsung HD projection TV (my wife is leagally blind). It too is a great tv and gives us a true home theater with quality the same as a commercial theater and comparable to the plasma. Only trouble with these really big sets is that it needs a dark room and we only watch it at night as one of our walls is a window wall. Bulbs for these big guys cost $300.00 and they last about 2,000 hours. It too hooks to the computer and everthing else.
 
Bastian said:
Agreed.. the pixel refresh rate is higher on LCD, leading to less trailing during high-action sequences. They also require less maintenance than a plasma.

And for my shameless opportunity to right a wrong:
I paid $3500 for my Sony XBR1 SXRD 60 inch a couple years ago. As a lifelong Sony fan I thought I couldn't go wrong. A year later I had a yellow line running down the middle of the screen, a little problem with Sony's light engine. It's now reglarly 4 or 5 different lines, and getting worse. Sony has finally agreed to fix it, of course, but will need my TV for 6 weeks or more to do so.

Regardless of what you buy, don't make the same mistake I made.. pay extra for the Best Buy (or wherever) service plan.. don't count on the manufacturer to correct their mistakes.

My 4 year old 32 inch Sony Wega TV has lost it's red color, and my 2 Sony DVD players have died after less than a year of usage. Whatever is going on over there in sonyville, they won't be getting any more of my money.
Click to expand...


I have the same TV! it's really nice and gets the pest picture available IMO! I paid a little more though $4100
 
The XBR2 is supposedly fixed, but the XBR1's are all slowly failing with various light engine problems.. so many that they stay continuously backordered. Be sure to look into it (google xbr1 yellow stain) and be prepared.. they extended the manufacturer warranty on these TV's light engines until 08, after class action suits erupted, but even folks who got the fixed light engine had the same problems months later.. is why I've hesitated to get mine fixed.. I figure I'll wait until just before the warranty runs out so hopefully they have fixed all the problems with it.
 
Absolutely stick with LCD over plasma.

(Though in the latest Popular Science, they claim that Gamers prefer DLP sets over plasma or LCD)

For my MBR, I recently put in the new Mitsubishi 52" LCD 1080p (read: "expensive" :D ) It's visually stunning - better than the theatre.

I have another new Mitsubishi 52" DLP 1080p in the den, and absolutely love it, but DLP sets don't exactly go on the wall. But if you're not going to mount your TV on the wall, DLP 1080p is fantastic. And MUCH LESS $ then LCD.

However, for my Family Room I JUST (this weekend) ordered the new Sharp Aquos 52" LCD 1080p. I selected this model because it has 10,000:1 dynamic contrast - picture is fan-freakin-tastic even in a very bright room. No glare. (This is one of the advantages that plasma used to have over LCD. Not anymore. You just have to buy the latest-gen LCD model)

I really wanted a 60" LCD 1080p, but they cost more than a Szamboti!

And the lamp life on this Sharp model is 60,000 hrs. Safe to say I won't watch that much TV in the next 30 years!

-von
 
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