The most interesting post I read around the internet was from someone tracking HDTV prices since thanksgiving. Prices are peaked right now, with the cheapest prices coming 2 weeks before the superbowl (46" 120hz lcd was < 2k then)
If you have NO tv now.. and need one.. then buy. If not.. just hold back a bit. I personally want one before easter due to family coming over... but a big fluctuation in prices would be clutch.
Just remember... every tv out now has some issue with it.. its all about what you can live with. Prices will always fall too.. its all about getting the most for your current dollar.
RoundBoy on
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
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MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
If you have NO tv now.. and need one.. then buy. If not.. just hold back a bit.
Oh. Thanks for telling me that now. Jerk
Bought it from CC online w/ in-store pick-up. Came in just under $2000 after on-line rebate and taxes.
Looks awesome, but has some artifacts/grain that I've got to play around with. Using component, so when HDMI cable comes in, we'll see if that makes a difference.
Short review - it's teh huge! Will have to replace our small TV stand with an enclosed unit.
I need some help in deciding what CRT TV to buy. I want a tube TV for all my old game systems and I am wondering if I should get the Samsung slimfit series or try and find a EDTV. What I don't know is if they have a native res? I was assuming all CRT's didn't have a native. I just want to make sure.
What's the best mid-size HDTV I can get just for playing X-Box 360? My apartment is tiny (~150 sq. ft), so I don't need a huge TV, and the biggest I could go with the space I have is 32", but 30" or 28" would work for me, too. I don't watch any movies or TV here, so this would be used for the 360 and maybe a PS3 only.
Hensler on
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MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
What's the best mid-size HDTV I can get just for playing X-Box 360? My apartment is tiny (~150 sq. ft), so I don't need a huge TV, and the biggest I could go with the space I have is 32", but 30" or 28" would work for me, too. I don't watch any movies or TV here, so this would be used for the 360 and maybe a PS3 only.
How far will you be sitting from the screen?
A 30-32" LCD will still look pretty good from a few feet away. Even if they offer higher options, 720p is as high as you'd need to go.
What's the best mid-size HDTV I can get just for playing X-Box 360? My apartment is tiny (~150 sq. ft), so I don't need a huge TV, and the biggest I could go with the space I have is 32", but 30" or 28" would work for me, too. I don't watch any movies or TV here, so this would be used for the 360 and maybe a PS3 only.
How far will you be sitting from the screen?
A 30-32" LCD will still look pretty good from a few feet away. Even if they offer higher options, 720p is as high as you'd need to go.
Never more than 8-10 feet. The part pf the apartment I'm placing this TV is only 10 feet across, and my chair will be somewhere between the walls. Are you saying that I just need 720p because the screen screen size is so small or for another reason?
Hensler on
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MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
Yes, from what I've heard, you wouldn't be able to see the benefits of 1080 on a < 32,30" screen. Obviously you'll want to compare in store.
Distance-wise, 8-10ft should be fine. If it's 10ft, I personalluy would lean towards a 32.
Can anyone suggest anything good to add to the OP?
You might want to add some info about 120hz, and/or "anti-judder/smoothing" as those seem like the newest buzzwords.
120Hz is designed to address an issue only with LCDs. One drawback to LCDs vs. plasma or DLP is fast action can appear blurry, so by refreshing the screen twice as fast (120 compared to 60hz), the image can appear smoother. Typically this is described as looking more like video and less like film. In practice, however, the set also needs a smoothing, or "anti-judder" technology as well. The name and intensity of this feature varies by manufacturer. That is, the "Low" setting on one model may be "High" on another. As it's personal preference, viewing in-store is a must.
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MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
So here's a question I was asking myself when I did my TV shopping: Why did the Vizio LCDs look so much smoother than other LCDs at the same store, in the same lighting, with the same source? There was something about the picture on the Vizios that was noticeably different... not only smoother, but a little darker. In a GOOD way. (And no, I wasn't looking at the Vizio plasmas. :P )
My best guess is better out-of-the-box factory settings, but I figured maybe someone here had experience with Vizios and could give the details.
HarshLanguage on
> turn on light Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
Be very wary about what you see at the store. I have seen regular tv just multiplied over and over and put out to a wall of tv's.. I've seen a blue ray player only outputting 1080i to a 1080p capable tv..
Also, turn off , then on the tv you like.. this should reset the settings if the tv is in demo mode... they like to crank up the brightness and other settings to make them look attractive.
1080p is 1080p .. no matter what tv. The difference comes in from the overall quality (lcd vs plasma vs DLP vs ?) .. once you get over contrast ratios, you get into motion compensation & processing. The big names like Sony can look much better then a Toshiba, but for 75% of the cost, are you ok with 90% of the quality.
The next factor is quality. A sony will last.. your chances of a repair are low.. whereas someone with an off brand is more likely to use that warranty service, and bitch that they are out of pocket. Cheap TV's often have hidden costs over the lifetime.
With regards to a specific TV looking much better over the other in identical situations... check the source.. the 'true' picture is via HDMI input with a high def source.. Standard def over component, etc is really up to the tv... but thats just a factor on how well the tv can upconvert a picture.
EDIT: the 46" 120hz 1080P tv I had my eye on is $2050 shipped from buy.com.. THAT is the type of price fluctuation i said to watch out for. The real question is to buy it now or wait even more? its like Russian Roulette.
Okay, after reading this thread I went and checked out a few different stores for 32" LCD's in the $600 price range yesterday. I'm just going to be using it for gaming in a small room, so that is plenty big for me. And from what I saw, the 2 I like most in this price range are Vizio and Westinghouse. I've never heard of either brand - are they reliable? The displays looked identical to me, but the Westinghouse is cheaper in most of the stores I went to. Which of those two would you reccomend? Or is there a better 32" I can find for around $600?
Westinghouse is actually a pretty good brand. My roommate has a 42" Westinghouse and loves it. Had a problem with it within the first week, but since it's been replaced it's working really well. I think he's had it over a year now without and problems. So I'd say that's a good bet Hensler.
Vizio is quite a well-represented brand these days, actually. More so than Westinghouse, Vizio is in all the big box and warehouse stores and sells well. Reviews overall seem positive for both. Like I said a couple posts above, I was impressed with Vizio picture quality compared to other TVs in the same store, with the same HD source. I just don't know why the Vizios looked different/better there, and I haven't seen any in a properly set-up home environment. As for reliability, I think Consumer Reports included some Vizios in their recent HDTV comparisons, and they were decent. I don't have the pages I saved in front of me right now, though.
HarshLanguage on
> turn on light Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
tvs are more then just a lcd panel and a tuner. The bigger name brands include hardware & firmware to compensate for inherent LCD issues (motion blur, 'screen door' etc) .
You might never see it.. especially if you watch tv 100% of the time and never delve into blue ray. Besides this, you are paying for reliability & better overall quality. You are very likely to have a great experience with that set... and you would be ahead of the curve in price vs what you get out of it.
Woe is you if you develop a problem past 1 year though. This is true even in the big name brands, but you are exponentially less likely to see problems in them beyond a very small initial window.
People that have these set up on blue ray players, or other high quality sources will see a big difference in the sony vs Vizo vs Westinghouse set... if you will? Thats up to you. If it looks great with the stuff you watch, then you should get it. Especially if the price is right.
Can anyone suggest anything good to add to the OP?
You might want to add some info about 120hz, and/or "anti-judder/smoothing" as those seem like the newest buzzwords.
120Hz is designed to address an issue only with LCDs. One drawback to LCDs vs. plasma or DLP is fast action can appear blurry, so by refreshing the screen twice as fast (120 compared to 60hz), the image can appear smoother. Typically this is described as looking more like video and less like film. In practice, however, the set also needs a smoothing, or "anti-judder" technology as well. The name and intensity of this feature varies by manufacturer. That is, the "Low" setting on one model may be "High" on another. As it's personal preference, viewing in-store is a must.
Eh, not entirely. Another ability of 120Hz - actually the main one I've heard - is that it works in conjunction with 1080p/24-capable outputs to reduce the judder associated with 3:2 pulldown.
For those who don't know, 3:2 pulldown is the process by which a TV or DVD player converts the 24fps output you get from a film and converts it to something that a 60hz TV can display it (it'll double every frame in the end to go from 30fps to 60fps). It goes through a process of repeating and interpolating frames just-so in order to get the right framerate, and in doing so it introduces what's called "judder" - basically, a decrease in smoothness of the picture playback.
A 120Hz TV can take the raw 24fps and just show every frame 5 times, no fancy interpolation necessary. My new TV is 120Hz, though I don't have any 1080p/24-capable devices to try it out.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
tvs are more then just a lcd panel and a tuner. The bigger name brands include hardware & firmware to compensate for inherent LCD issues (motion blur, 'screen door' etc) .
You might never see it.. especially if you watch tv 100% of the time and never delve into blue ray. Besides this, you are paying for reliability & better overall quality. You are very likely to have a great experience with that set... and you would be ahead of the curve in price vs what you get out of it.
Woe is you if you develop a problem past 1 year though. This is true even in the big name brands, but you are exponentially less likely to see problems in them beyond a very small initial window.
People that have these set up on blue ray players, or other high quality sources will see a big difference in the sony vs Vizo vs Westinghouse set... if you will? Thats up to you. If it looks great with the stuff you watch, then you should get it. Especially if the price is right.
What about for gaming purposes? Will I see any problems going with a cheaper brand when I'm using the TV for X-Box 360 and, eventually, Playstation 3?
What about for gaming purposes? Will I see any problems going with a cheaper brand when I'm using the TV for X-Box 360 and, eventually, Playstation 3?
If you use a TV with a crappy refresh rate and no internal means of compensating for it, yeah, your gaming (and likely sports broadcasts) will suffer. I think, though, that LCDs have come far enough that even the cheap brands aren't too bad. Don't buy something like Magnavox and you're probably safe.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So I got my new TV properly calibrated, and I'm ready to recommend the hell out of it. It's a Sony KDS-50A3000, and it's all that. It's LCoS, and Sony is discontinuing them (and all their other LCoS TVs) to focus solely on LCD and plasma, since that's what the market wants. Shame, because it's a beautiful TV, and pretty affordable (MSRP is $1800, but you can find it for as cheap as $1400).
The reason I jumped on it was that it's one of the few TVs to do 1080p over component (yay, 1080p 360!) and it has native support for 1080p/24, which will come in handy when I pick up a Bluray player. It's one of the Bravia line, which is their semi-high-end brand, right below XBR. The color reproduction is fantastic - it was rated as having the best color reproduction of any rear-projection TV pretty much ever - and the picture is extremely crisp, especially with a 1080p source. The TV also comes with some fancy filters that help smooth the motion. Normally that sort of thing is gimmicky and useless, but these actually do create an improvement, once you get them set properly. In their default settings, the motion is actually so smooth it looks like little people are running around in your TV. Seriously, it's amazing and almost unsettling at how lifelike the picture is. Unfortunately, the default settings also produce horrible jittering, especially from 1080p sources. With a little tweaking, you can sacrifice a little smoothness to kill the jitter, and still have a fantastic picture.
I highly recommend this set to anyone who's not married to the idea of hanging their TV on the wall. Unfortunately, it's becoming impossible to find in stores, so you'll probably have to order it online.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I think I have the same situation with the TV I want.. the Samsung LN-t4671f .. word is , new models will drop in march, and whatever is in stock of this model is out already... no more to be made..
Theory is to prevent blow out sales.. and therefore lower prices on new models.. I really want this tv .. but prices are all over the place.. 2050 -> 3100 !
See, that's why I steered clear of LCD (well, besides mediocre black levels). I can't bring myself to drop close to $3000 on a 46" screen.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So my wife and I are sick of our current huge-ass HD rear projection TV. We got it in Jan '03, it does 720p and 1080i, I think, but it's a matte screen and, well, massive. We want something we can put on the wall since we live in a rowhouse and even though the rooms are a good size, there's a premium on space.
We watch almost all movies -- don't watch sports, my wife sometimes watches Ninja Warrior (say, once a month) -- and the occasional tv series on DVD. We measured last night, and from a panel on the wall we would be about 10.5 feet from the screen. That puts us in the "720p is fine" range, for the most part, and the room is dim even during the daytime so glare isn't an issue.
We were quite interested in the Samsung 4665, but it sounds like a 50" plasma like the panasonic PX75U will not only save us $400, but should perform better for the vast majority of stuff we watch. I'm not worried about burn-in, but is my reasoning sound? It sounds like avoiding issues of clouding blacks, overall black levels, blurring and so on is enough to deal with the added weight (and relatively fragility) of a plasma.
Reasonably priced plasmas are essentially 720p, but we sit too far away to really notice the bump up in resolution. More importantly, it seems like the LCDs to get are the 4671/81 line, which are way out of our price range.
120hz is the next thing to make the picture look nice.. but the 4665 is still an awesome TV.. you will just see more bluring buring fast motion which is LESSENED on the 120hz set.
4665 is going fore insanely cheap too.. Keep in mind that plasmas aren't sized for true hd res, they adjust to fit the size... how that affects real world will vary... there are 1080p plasmas.. but they are $texas.
If you watch mostly movies.. then 1080p is great... look to get a blue ray player or a ps3 .. and you will wonder why you ever watch SD
...i JUST bought the 4671 set.. sometimes you just need to jump right in.
Im in the market for a 32"lcd, that i will buy before getting an xbox360 in 3 months or so, but i really dont feel like doing all the detective work required to get a new tv this days.
Will i be fine if i just stick with the big brands? (sony, panasonic, samsung, sharp, maybe LG).
Overall best picture right now, IMHO, is 1080p plasmas. They have the fewest drawbacks in terms of picture quality, and they're getting surprisingly cheap. That's why I bought one. I saw jaggies and motion blur in every LCD tv I looked at, plus the usual light black levels on most models, and the viewing angle of DLP/LCD projectors isn't good. So, I love my Panasonic (TH-50PE700U, same as the -50PZ700U but with a different stand). Consumer Reports loves it too, if that matters to you. All of the Panasonics in that series (PZ7) are excellent by all accounts. The TV I bought is normally $2300 at CostCo/Sams.
HarshLanguage on
> turn on light Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
They do look awesome... but the 1080p model i wanted was $texas. A properly calibrated LCD will look very good as well. Never use the TV as is out of the box.
They do look awesome... but the 1080p model i wanted was $texas. A properly calibrated LCD will look very good as well. Never use the TV as is out of the box.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
We were quite interested in the Samsung 4665, but it sounds like a 50" plasma like the panasonic PX75U will not only save us $400, but should perform better for the vast majority of stuff we watch. I'm not worried about burn-in, but is my reasoning sound? It sounds like avoiding issues of clouding blacks, overall black levels, blurring and so on is enough to deal with the added weight (and relatively fragility) of a plasma.
My mom recently picked up a Panny PX77U (which is just the 1080p version of the PX75U), and it's a damned nice TV. Good color, very crisp image. Assuming the PX75U is pretty much the same, it'd serve you well.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I was flipping between the PX77U page and the 75U, and it actually looks like the only difference is the glare reduction screen. All the specs for the PX77U seem to say it's the same 1366 x768 resolution. But hearing you say that it's a sweet TV is good to hear.
Our budget is pretty limited for the TV -- neither of us wants to spend more than about $1500, if possible, so we can upgrade other elements of the living room as well (new AV receiver, surround sound, etc.), and that telly seems the way to go within that price limitation. Everything that's "better" is substantially more money, for not really that much visual difference.
I was flipping between the PX77U page and the 75U, and it actually looks like the only difference is the glare reduction screen. All the specs for the PX77U seem to say it's the same 1366 x768 resolution. But hearing you say that it's a sweet TV is good to hear.
My bad, my mom's was the PZ77U, which is the 1080 equivalent. I have no experience with the PX77U. I would expect, though, that Panasonic would use similar parts and technologies across their plasmas. In general, Panasonic makes fantastic televisions (with one or two exceptions), so it's probably still a good one.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
many of them use a professional calibration service. The difference between home and 'pro' calibration is that they have equipment that can measure the actual output of the various settings, and can access the service menu of tv 'x' and calibrate the gray levels, etc that the consumer can't / isn't supposed to touch.
Supposedly the results are stunning... but about $300 or so.
The difference between a professional calibration and one performed by a reasonably intelligent person with a $25 kit is supposedly not that great, though most people who've dropped $300 on a pro-job aren't going to admit that even to themselves. I haven't seen the results of a pro-job myself, but I know the difference between an amateur calibration and the TV out of the box is amazing for most TVs.
For an amateur, there are two ways to go about things. The first is to use a disk made for that purpose. You can buy one for $25 or so, or you can use the THX calibration tools that come with any THX-certified DVD. I would wager that pretty much anyone reading this thread and interested in pretty TVs owns one - movies like Star Wars and the like, big-budget pretty films. They walk you through the process and have you tweak controls until certain things show up or disappear or whatever. Very easy, takes about 30 minutes.
Alternately, you can do it yourself with random DVDs you have lying around. It can yield pretty effective results, but only if you have a good eye and know what a properly calibrated TV should look like to begin with. To start, you should use a black and white film with a good transfer, though a color film will work in a pinch. Find a scene with a full range of contrast values, from white all the way to black. The scene should have a good amount of variation in the dark shades, too. Pause the film. From here, jack the brightness way up, and pay attention to the details you can make out in the shadows. You want to make sure you preserve that detail. Next, drop the brightness until the darkest blacks are as black as you can get them. From here, you need to play with the brightness and contrast until you find settings for which the blackest black is very deep, yet all the detail in the shadow is preserved, and the brightest whites are still really white. It'll take some trial and error.
Next find a film with a good, clear, natural sky scene in it. Again, you want to use a film with an excellent transfer. Find a scene with a good shot of the sky, and pause. You're using sky because everyone knows what color the sky is. From here, play with the color and tint settings until the sky looks sky-blue. Next, find a scene with some people in it, just to confirm that your people look like people and not green-tinted alien folks, or something.
Finally, go in and drop sharpness pretty much to zero, maybe a little above. All sharpness does is artificially enhance the edges, which generally highlights any noise in the picture. Unless you really have a hankering for compression artifacts, you don't want this.
As a rule of thumb, you'll probably find that you've dialed the brightness and contrast way down, and desaturated the picture (turned the color down) relative to the default settings. The default settings are designed to make the picture stand out in a crowded showroom, not look like anything approaching reality. Heightened contrast and brightness and saturation are great if you want people to see your television from across the floor, but not much else.
Oh, and it goes without saying, but make sure you calibrate your TV with the lights in the room roughly as bright as they'll be when you're watching. If you calibrate your TV in a bright room but always watch in the dark, your settings will probably be way too bright, for example. You want to optimize your TV for the preferred lighting levels. If your TV allows it, you may want to have different calibrated settings for different lighting levels.
ElJeffe on
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I will be doing the above when the TV arrives thursday..
but the 'pros' have equipment (ala the spyder ? calibration device) and they use menus that the home user can't touch (service menu, it voids your warrenty unless you are allowed to be there)
I agree that $300 vs DIY is probably not worth it for most people, but to claim that pros just adjust the contrast and color from the user menus is incorrect.
Right, I didn't mean to imply that. Only that the changes that you can make can generally make the image look very close to what it would look like with a professional calibration. There generally aren't any aspects of the picture that a pro can adjust and an amateur can't - the pros just get some more advanced adjustment options.
From what I understand, the biggest thing the pros can do is manually set the color temperature, which lets them set it exactly to 6500k, as the NTSC standard dictates. Generally, though, TVs come with multiple color temperature settings available to the non-pro, and chances are one of these is going to be pretty close (usually it's the "Warm" setting).
Figure that a novice with a copy of DVD Essentials or Avia is adjusting settings to within the limits of his perception, while a pro is adjusting them using precise equipment. For the most part, if it takes a sophisticated machine to tell you that your settings aren't exact, it's probably not a dramatic improvement.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I said "to hell with it" and purchased the Sony XBR 4, 52". It came down in price another $400 this week at Best Buy, putting its price within sniffing range of online, and Best Buy has a 3 month price guarantee, so I'll be watching pretty closely to see if they'll give me more money.
It's not being delivered until I take possession of the new house, so I've had the time to think about a couple of things.
The first is professional level calibration. Even on AVS Forum, about 20-30% of posts that I found were DISPLEASED with pro calibration. This freaks me out. Other people warn of "knowing the reputation of your calibration tech" and the like! I mean, seriously, like I have time for that shit, or have anyone that I know that has ever used pro calibration before.
On the Sony XBR 4... How effing bad could it BE out of the box? Why should I spend 10% more on this damn TV for someone to possibly mess it up?
Anyway, I think I'd want to at least see the difference before I paid some guy. I'll check around and see if I can look at something before / after calibration. I've never seen the difference.
The second thing I'm thinking about is a stand. I think I have one picked out. It has an arm that comes up, and you can rotate the TV on the arm, and cool thing is, the arm is hollow so you have instant cable management.
The third thing is rear speakers. I want them to be as-wireless-as-possible. Basically, I don't want to rip up my house. So, I think I'm going to get one of those transmitter jobbies (but not actual wireless rear speakers, I've read bad things).
And finally - I'm pretty sure I'm going to put a real HTPC on the TV, because I've done the "Xbox to Media Center" and "PS3 to PC" shit for a couple of years, and frankly, I'm sick of all the little stupid limitations. Limited formats, no games, can't use web, etc etc. I did XBMC, too, but didn't think it was all that - no high def, really.
The first is professional level calibration. Even on AVS Forum, about 20-30% of posts that I found were DISPLEASED with pro calibration. This freaks me out. Other people warn of "knowing the reputation of your calibration tech" and the like! I mean, seriously, like I have time for that shit, or have anyone that I know that has ever used pro calibration before.
For an amateur, there are two ways to go about things. The first is to use a disk made for that purpose. You can buy one for $25 or so, or you can use the THX calibration tools that come with any THX-certified DVD.
Good catch, ElJeffe, I forgot about the THX. FatmanGames, those AVS Forums are great for freaking you the Hell out. It's pretty much a super-distilled group of very-very passionante people.
Posts
If you have NO tv now.. and need one.. then buy. If not.. just hold back a bit. I personally want one before easter due to family coming over... but a big fluctuation in prices would be clutch.
Just remember... every tv out now has some issue with it.. its all about what you can live with. Prices will always fall too.. its all about getting the most for your current dollar.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
Oh. Thanks for telling me that now. Jerk
Bought it from CC online w/ in-store pick-up. Came in just under $2000 after on-line rebate and taxes.
Looks awesome, but has some artifacts/grain that I've got to play around with. Using component, so when HDMI cable comes in, we'll see if that makes a difference.
Short review - it's teh huge! Will have to replace our small TV stand with an enclosed unit.
How far will you be sitting from the screen?
A 30-32" LCD will still look pretty good from a few feet away. Even if they offer higher options, 720p is as high as you'd need to go.
Never more than 8-10 feet. The part pf the apartment I'm placing this TV is only 10 feet across, and my chair will be somewhere between the walls. Are you saying that I just need 720p because the screen screen size is so small or for another reason?
Distance-wise, 8-10ft should be fine. If it's 10ft, I personalluy would lean towards a 32.
Great, thanks for the help. Are there any other special features I need to keep in mind when I'm shopping, since this will be used for gaming?
You might want to add some info about 120hz, and/or "anti-judder/smoothing" as those seem like the newest buzzwords.
120Hz is designed to address an issue only with LCDs. One drawback to LCDs vs. plasma or DLP is fast action can appear blurry, so by refreshing the screen twice as fast (120 compared to 60hz), the image can appear smoother. Typically this is described as looking more like video and less like film. In practice, however, the set also needs a smoothing, or "anti-judder" technology as well. The name and intensity of this feature varies by manufacturer. That is, the "Low" setting on one model may be "High" on another. As it's personal preference, viewing in-store is a must.
My best guess is better out-of-the-box factory settings, but I figured maybe someone here had experience with Vizios and could give the details.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
Also, turn off , then on the tv you like.. this should reset the settings if the tv is in demo mode... they like to crank up the brightness and other settings to make them look attractive.
1080p is 1080p .. no matter what tv. The difference comes in from the overall quality (lcd vs plasma vs DLP vs ?) .. once you get over contrast ratios, you get into motion compensation & processing. The big names like Sony can look much better then a Toshiba, but for 75% of the cost, are you ok with 90% of the quality.
The next factor is quality. A sony will last.. your chances of a repair are low.. whereas someone with an off brand is more likely to use that warranty service, and bitch that they are out of pocket. Cheap TV's often have hidden costs over the lifetime.
With regards to a specific TV looking much better over the other in identical situations... check the source.. the 'true' picture is via HDMI input with a high def source.. Standard def over component, etc is really up to the tv... but thats just a factor on how well the tv can upconvert a picture.
EDIT: the 46" 120hz 1080P tv I had my eye on is $2050 shipped from buy.com.. THAT is the type of price fluctuation i said to watch out for. The real question is to buy it now or wait even more? its like Russian Roulette.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
You might never see it.. especially if you watch tv 100% of the time and never delve into blue ray. Besides this, you are paying for reliability & better overall quality. You are very likely to have a great experience with that set... and you would be ahead of the curve in price vs what you get out of it.
Woe is you if you develop a problem past 1 year though. This is true even in the big name brands, but you are exponentially less likely to see problems in them beyond a very small initial window.
People that have these set up on blue ray players, or other high quality sources will see a big difference in the sony vs Vizo vs Westinghouse set... if you will? Thats up to you. If it looks great with the stuff you watch, then you should get it. Especially if the price is right.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
Eh, not entirely. Another ability of 120Hz - actually the main one I've heard - is that it works in conjunction with 1080p/24-capable outputs to reduce the judder associated with 3:2 pulldown.
For those who don't know, 3:2 pulldown is the process by which a TV or DVD player converts the 24fps output you get from a film and converts it to something that a 60hz TV can display it (it'll double every frame in the end to go from 30fps to 60fps). It goes through a process of repeating and interpolating frames just-so in order to get the right framerate, and in doing so it introduces what's called "judder" - basically, a decrease in smoothness of the picture playback.
A 120Hz TV can take the raw 24fps and just show every frame 5 times, no fancy interpolation necessary. My new TV is 120Hz, though I don't have any 1080p/24-capable devices to try it out.
What about for gaming purposes? Will I see any problems going with a cheaper brand when I'm using the TV for X-Box 360 and, eventually, Playstation 3?
If you use a TV with a crappy refresh rate and no internal means of compensating for it, yeah, your gaming (and likely sports broadcasts) will suffer. I think, though, that LCDs have come far enough that even the cheap brands aren't too bad. Don't buy something like Magnavox and you're probably safe.
The reason I jumped on it was that it's one of the few TVs to do 1080p over component (yay, 1080p 360!) and it has native support for 1080p/24, which will come in handy when I pick up a Bluray player. It's one of the Bravia line, which is their semi-high-end brand, right below XBR. The color reproduction is fantastic - it was rated as having the best color reproduction of any rear-projection TV pretty much ever - and the picture is extremely crisp, especially with a 1080p source. The TV also comes with some fancy filters that help smooth the motion. Normally that sort of thing is gimmicky and useless, but these actually do create an improvement, once you get them set properly. In their default settings, the motion is actually so smooth it looks like little people are running around in your TV. Seriously, it's amazing and almost unsettling at how lifelike the picture is. Unfortunately, the default settings also produce horrible jittering, especially from 1080p sources. With a little tweaking, you can sacrifice a little smoothness to kill the jitter, and still have a fantastic picture.
I highly recommend this set to anyone who's not married to the idea of hanging their TV on the wall. Unfortunately, it's becoming impossible to find in stores, so you'll probably have to order it online.
Theory is to prevent blow out sales.. and therefore lower prices on new models.. I really want this tv .. but prices are all over the place.. 2050 -> 3100 !
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
We watch almost all movies -- don't watch sports, my wife sometimes watches Ninja Warrior (say, once a month) -- and the occasional tv series on DVD. We measured last night, and from a panel on the wall we would be about 10.5 feet from the screen. That puts us in the "720p is fine" range, for the most part, and the room is dim even during the daytime so glare isn't an issue.
We were quite interested in the Samsung 4665, but it sounds like a 50" plasma like the panasonic PX75U will not only save us $400, but should perform better for the vast majority of stuff we watch. I'm not worried about burn-in, but is my reasoning sound? It sounds like avoiding issues of clouding blacks, overall black levels, blurring and so on is enough to deal with the added weight (and relatively fragility) of a plasma.
Reasonably priced plasmas are essentially 720p, but we sit too far away to really notice the bump up in resolution. More importantly, it seems like the LCDs to get are the 4671/81 line, which are way out of our price range.
4665 is going fore insanely cheap too.. Keep in mind that plasmas aren't sized for true hd res, they adjust to fit the size... how that affects real world will vary... there are 1080p plasmas.. but they are $texas.
If you watch mostly movies.. then 1080p is great... look to get a blue ray player or a ps3 .. and you will wonder why you ever watch SD
...i JUST bought the 4671 set.. sometimes you just need to jump right in.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
Will i be fine if i just stick with the big brands? (sony, panasonic, samsung, sharp, maybe LG).
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
My mom recently picked up a Panny PX77U (which is just the 1080p version of the PX75U), and it's a damned nice TV. Good color, very crisp image. Assuming the PX75U is pretty much the same, it'd serve you well.
Our budget is pretty limited for the TV -- neither of us wants to spend more than about $1500, if possible, so we can upgrade other elements of the living room as well (new AV receiver, surround sound, etc.), and that telly seems the way to go within that price limitation. Everything that's "better" is substantially more money, for not really that much visual difference.
My bad, my mom's was the PZ77U, which is the 1080 equivalent. I have no experience with the PX77U. I would expect, though, that Panasonic would use similar parts and technologies across their plasmas. In general, Panasonic makes fantastic televisions (with one or two exceptions), so it's probably still a good one.
My new TV (32" Vizio) will be here today - how do I make sure an HDTV is "properly calibrated?"
Vigorous shaking.
Or, lacking the proper agitating equipment, you can check out AVS Forums. Look for a "Official Calibration Thread for Model XXX"
Other options include buying a calibration DVD; I think they're about $25.
Supposedly the results are stunning... but about $300 or so.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
For an amateur, there are two ways to go about things. The first is to use a disk made for that purpose. You can buy one for $25 or so, or you can use the THX calibration tools that come with any THX-certified DVD. I would wager that pretty much anyone reading this thread and interested in pretty TVs owns one - movies like Star Wars and the like, big-budget pretty films. They walk you through the process and have you tweak controls until certain things show up or disappear or whatever. Very easy, takes about 30 minutes.
Alternately, you can do it yourself with random DVDs you have lying around. It can yield pretty effective results, but only if you have a good eye and know what a properly calibrated TV should look like to begin with. To start, you should use a black and white film with a good transfer, though a color film will work in a pinch. Find a scene with a full range of contrast values, from white all the way to black. The scene should have a good amount of variation in the dark shades, too. Pause the film. From here, jack the brightness way up, and pay attention to the details you can make out in the shadows. You want to make sure you preserve that detail. Next, drop the brightness until the darkest blacks are as black as you can get them. From here, you need to play with the brightness and contrast until you find settings for which the blackest black is very deep, yet all the detail in the shadow is preserved, and the brightest whites are still really white. It'll take some trial and error.
Next find a film with a good, clear, natural sky scene in it. Again, you want to use a film with an excellent transfer. Find a scene with a good shot of the sky, and pause. You're using sky because everyone knows what color the sky is. From here, play with the color and tint settings until the sky looks sky-blue. Next, find a scene with some people in it, just to confirm that your people look like people and not green-tinted alien folks, or something.
Finally, go in and drop sharpness pretty much to zero, maybe a little above. All sharpness does is artificially enhance the edges, which generally highlights any noise in the picture. Unless you really have a hankering for compression artifacts, you don't want this.
As a rule of thumb, you'll probably find that you've dialed the brightness and contrast way down, and desaturated the picture (turned the color down) relative to the default settings. The default settings are designed to make the picture stand out in a crowded showroom, not look like anything approaching reality. Heightened contrast and brightness and saturation are great if you want people to see your television from across the floor, but not much else.
Oh, and it goes without saying, but make sure you calibrate your TV with the lights in the room roughly as bright as they'll be when you're watching. If you calibrate your TV in a bright room but always watch in the dark, your settings will probably be way too bright, for example. You want to optimize your TV for the preferred lighting levels. If your TV allows it, you may want to have different calibrated settings for different lighting levels.
but the 'pros' have equipment (ala the spyder ? calibration device) and they use menus that the home user can't touch (service menu, it voids your warrenty unless you are allowed to be there)
I agree that $300 vs DIY is probably not worth it for most people, but to claim that pros just adjust the contrast and color from the user menus is incorrect.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
From what I understand, the biggest thing the pros can do is manually set the color temperature, which lets them set it exactly to 6500k, as the NTSC standard dictates. Generally, though, TVs come with multiple color temperature settings available to the non-pro, and chances are one of these is going to be pretty close (usually it's the "Warm" setting).
Figure that a novice with a copy of DVD Essentials or Avia is adjusting settings to within the limits of his perception, while a pro is adjusting them using precise equipment. For the most part, if it takes a sophisticated machine to tell you that your settings aren't exact, it's probably not a dramatic improvement.
It's not being delivered until I take possession of the new house, so I've had the time to think about a couple of things.
The first is professional level calibration. Even on AVS Forum, about 20-30% of posts that I found were DISPLEASED with pro calibration. This freaks me out. Other people warn of "knowing the reputation of your calibration tech" and the like! I mean, seriously, like I have time for that shit, or have anyone that I know that has ever used pro calibration before.
On the Sony XBR 4... How effing bad could it BE out of the box? Why should I spend 10% more on this damn TV for someone to possibly mess it up?
Anyway, I think I'd want to at least see the difference before I paid some guy. I'll check around and see if I can look at something before / after calibration. I've never seen the difference.
The second thing I'm thinking about is a stand. I think I have one picked out. It has an arm that comes up, and you can rotate the TV on the arm, and cool thing is, the arm is hollow so you have instant cable management.
The third thing is rear speakers. I want them to be as-wireless-as-possible. Basically, I don't want to rip up my house. So, I think I'm going to get one of those transmitter jobbies (but not actual wireless rear speakers, I've read bad things).
And finally - I'm pretty sure I'm going to put a real HTPC on the TV, because I've done the "Xbox to Media Center" and "PS3 to PC" shit for a couple of years, and frankly, I'm sick of all the little stupid limitations. Limited formats, no games, can't use web, etc etc. I did XBMC, too, but didn't think it was all that - no high def, really.
Good catch, ElJeffe, I forgot about the THX. FatmanGames, those AVS Forums are great for freaking you the Hell out. It's pretty much a super-distilled group of very-very passionante people.