Looking for a good value TV monitor capable of HD
Goes on a fireplace mantle, or bolted to thw wall above the mantle like at a sports bar
Like to be under $1,000, want color, lifetime, maintenance free.
What's the best value for the dollar?
I would look first at Vizio, which represent terrific value for the money. But I can't recommend a specific model. You'll have to look carefully yourself.
My first reaction was 'What a dummy'. Let's look at your requirements.
NOW if you combine 5 and 6 into 'Reputation for low failure rate', you do have something reasonable.
First of all, stay away from the house brands sold by Best Buy; stay away from the RCA, Westinghouse, Sylvania, Polaroid, Memorex, etc. 'Names' that are no longer being built by the companies that made them famous. And stay away from the Emerson, Haier, Coby, etc that never had a good reputation.
Second, I would suggest staying away from Vizio unless you buy it from a company such as Costco, which adds a second year to the warranty and has a 'no questions asked' return policy. Vizio's warranty repair service usually requires you return the TV to thier service center at your expense. And they have no factory authorized repair service once the TV is out of warranty.
My suggestion is to buy a Panasonic 46" 1080P Plasma TV. Panasonic plasma TVs have a reputation for better long term reliability than Sony, Samsung, and LG, and for better color rendition than LCD.
PlainBill
Per William Sommerwerck:
I got a Vizio bco the lower cost vs comparable devices feature-wise.
That was about a year ago - and it's still working, but acting funny - losing the sound when I change program sources. When it does that, I have to select another program source and then select the desired program source again and the sound comes back.
Also, their implementation of PIP (which was my "Must Have" feature) leaves something to desired. If you have the TV in PIP mode and then shut it down, it does not restore it's state properly when started back up: it comes back in single-screen mode tuned to whichever program source was in the front when it shout down.
Likewise.... the implementation of what Vizio calls "Widgets" is sloppy. Open up a Widget in PIP mode, and PIP mode goes away never to return until you re-establish it manually.
-- PeteCresswell
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Thank you for your reply. I had heard several good comments about Vizio, including their color fidelity. Plus, they distribute out of Costco, which makes a good 'buffer'
15"
I purposely ask questions in a naive manner. It prevents antagonizing potential responders and illicits some of the best information.
For example, thank you for recommending a specific model. Plus, making me aware that the plasma monitor has the best color fidelity.
y.
Thank you for the detailed description of the SW problems in Vizio. Although Vizio has been recommended by several people (including neighbors) it is worthwhile to be aware that their SW will cause frustrations.
On Jul 30, 1:12=A0pm, snipped-for-privacy@yawhoo.com wrote: ...snip...
...snip...
I read and reread this. This is EXACTLY the kind of information that seems to be obfuscated everywhere.
Sony [salesman] claims the best is the Sony LED backlit LCD screen because it has INFINITE contrast ratio. In digging into that claim I discovered that only means the pixels are completely independent. But he could not answer why that was not also true for the fluorescent backlit panel, which intuitively seems like it should operate the same.
Wikipedia! very small mention that plasma has a wide dynamic display range - black is black because there is no energy, where as backlit LCD screens can only go to gray.because they are 'covering up' the backlit source.
New wrinkle is that plasma eats power and weighs a ton more.
Is there any objective reporting anywhere on display comparison?
For example, dynamic ratio of display, color fidelity, light output vs power input, contrast ratio, etc etc
Sommerwerk(sp?) comment about KURO set to maximum sharpness makes sense. Edge enhancement helps solve my myopia.
Regards, Robert
PS During the time google newsgroup acess died, I changed to eternal- september but @#$%#@% so I'm back to google access to this Usenet. and google access seems to have stabilized a bit.
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'Eats Power' is relative. Samsung's PN50C550 (50" plasma) draws 165 watts, and costs an estimated $2.50 a month to operate. I've got a Sony KDL-32XBR4 (32" LCD) that would draw 190 watts if it were working. I have a 42" plasma in the family room that draws about 350 watts - and is 6 years old (I bought it 'dead', fixed it for under $10, and put it in use.
Seriously very few things about purchasing a TV are objective. You can slap a 'Kill A Watt' on the power cord and determine how much power it draws. Brightness can be measured with appropriate equipment, as can the frequency response of the audio system.
It may have escaped your attention, but most of the critical parameters are subjective, and on that subject, you are the expert. Get you kiester over to Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Costco, or where-ever and look at some sets inclose proximity. Write down the model numbers, go home and do some research. If you don't like the picture on a $999 LCD in the store, odds are you aren't going to like it better at home.
PlainBill
While I agree that plasma has better color, but life issues and power consumption differences are hard to ignore. We bought a 55" LG LED set last fall that is very impressive (1.2" thick, 80 lbs) AND it does that on a paltry 78 Watts (measured with a Kill A Watt). The color is very good. I used to do monitor alignment at a THX certified telecine facility so I'm not just blowing smoke. Remember the the biggest enemy of electronics is heat and 80 Watts spread out across a 55" monitor only gets barely warm. The HDMI link from the HTPC does 1:1 pixel mapping so is a most impressive computer monitor and is oustanding for recorded HDTV shows.
Bottom line is check them out before dismissing them out of hand. Of course when the OLED monitors show up all of this will be moot. I've seen the 30" Sony BVM OLED on a demo and it puts EVERYTHING else to shame though at $30,000 it's expected. Remember the first CD players at $900 so its only a matter of time.
G=B2
I walk by a plasma tv in the store and I can feel the heat radiating. Plasma is pretty much out of the question, as all I have seen have shiny or have glair. It's also easy to feel the tops of the tv's in the store and compare heat.
My new, cheap tv, is a little different. I have seen lcds loose brightness off to the side. Mine just loses contrast.
Greg
...snip...
I read and reread this. This is EXACTLY the kind of information that seems to be obfuscated everywhere.
Sony [salesman] claims the best is the Sony LED backlit LCD screen because it has INFINITE contrast ratio. In digging into that claim I discovered that only means the pixels are completely independent. But he could not answer why that was not also true for the fluorescent backlit panel, which intuitively seems like it should operate the same.
Wikipedia! very small mention that plasma has a wide dynamic display range - black is black because there is no energy, where as backlit LCD screens can only go to gray.because they are 'covering up' the backlit source.
New wrinkle is that plasma eats power and weighs a ton more.
Is there any objective reporting anywhere on display comparison?
For example, dynamic ratio of display, color fidelity, light output vs power input, contrast ratio, etc etc
Sommerwerk(sp?) comment about KURO set to maximum sharpness makes sense. Edge enhancement helps solve my myopia.
Almost everything preceding is incorrect or misleading.
There is no LCD or plasma set with an "infinite" contrast ratio. LCDs cannot block "all" light, and plasma cells have a small bias on them that causes them to emit light even when the signal is full-black.
LCDs can have as good color fidelity as plasmas. Neither has an inherent advantage.
It's Sommerwerck. Note the "c".
Yes, but when you sit there and watch that drop-dead-gorgeous 60" picture, the 5 cents/hour operating cost fades away.
"Have glair"?
Those of you into photography know that a gloss print has higher contrast than a matte print. Why? Because glossy surfaces reflect the light at the same angle it struck, while matte surfaces /scatter/ it -- to your eye -- lightening dark areas.
The fact is that, regardless of display technology, you're going to get the best picture only in a dim or dark room. In a dark room, surface reflections from a glossy surface aren't much of problem.
not
Apologies for misspelling. Memory for alpha characters is zip, memory for numbers last for years.
Yes, you caught the subtlety of Sony's "infinite contrast ratio" claim, that adjacent pixels are independent, but their INDIVIDUAL contrast ratio is as expected. More useless marketing blather.
Thank you for pointing out there should be little difference in color purity between the plasmas and the LCDs. I was leaning toward the LCDs because of lower power, lighter weight, and I actually understand LCD technology. I once worked with an LCD company that had the brightest, highest contrast ratio, widest temperature range LCD screens - at one time this company's LCD's were the only fully qualified displays for use in military fighter cockpits. I think it was called Image Quest, absolutely awesome technology.
Regards, Robert
PS google newsgroup access seems to be back. That's how I caught this reply. Using eternal-september absolutely missed it somehow.
You can build LED-backlit LCD displays in at least two ways:
- have a single diffuse backlight as with regular LCD displays, but use LEDs to illuminate the diffuser rather than fluorescent lighting;
- break the backlight up into multiple sections, effectively giving you a high-resolution LCD filter on top of a low-resolution LED display.
The latter does indeed give you better contrast ratio, since you can turn down the backlighting selectively in darker areas. The former's cheaper and simpler, though, so it's more common.
-- Adam Sampson
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