Any suggestions on LCD tvs?

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Melvil

Guest
SWMBO and I have regretfully realised that our telly is nearing the end of its useful life. Little things such as the colour of faces on the screen 'smearing' all the way to the side of it, and the occasional gaudy 'ghost' of an image suggests that the vacuum tube might be, to put it bluntly, screwed.

However, we both know absolutely nothing about the brave new world of LCD tv (we want an 'adequate' sized one for the living room, not a home cinema or anything) and were wondering if anyone has bought one and can recommend it?

Cheers!

Mel
 

domtyler

Über Member
I recently bought a Sony Bravia KDL-40V3000. It is a great telly and very low power consumption. Fantastic picture, nice shiny HD broadcasts look amazing, SD is 'just' very good. You have to pay more for the 40W3000 which has the 100 Hz motion flow gizmo but to honest I don't regret paying a lot less for mine as you don't see any blurring of fast moving pictures except in a few isolated situations.

If your current screen is a lot smaller than 40 inches don't worry you soon get used to it as long as you have a fairly decent sized room, it does't have to be the Albert Hall or anything.
 
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Melvil

Guest
domtyler said:
I recently bought a Sony Bravia KDL-40V3000. It is a great telly and very low power consumption. Fantastic picture, nice shiny HD broadcasts look amazing, SD is 'just' very good. You have to pay more for the 40W3000 which has the 100 Hz motion flow gizmo but to honest I don't regret paying a lot less for mine as you don't see any blurring of fast moving pictures except in a few isolated situations.

If your current screen is a lot smaller than 40 inches don't worry you soon get used to it as long as you have a fairly decent sized room, it does't have to be the Albert Hall or anything.

Sounds great - how much, dare I ask, do one of those bad boys cost?
 

domtyler

Über Member
Melvil said:
Sounds great - how much, dare I ask, do one of those bad boys cost?

I paid £715 from "Sound and Vision Online", but they don't seem to have it in stock at the moment.

Probably best to buy a few magazines and look at some up to date reviews wihc is what I did when I bought mine, but things move on very quickly in this field! :biggrin:
 
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Melvil

Guest
Cheers, guys, I shall investigate.

Can I also ask why so many of the images on the TV's in the showroom look so 'pixelated' - is that normal? It seems up close the picture quality is a bit worse than a vacuum tube tv?
 

marinyork

Resting in suspended Animation
Location
Logopolis
If you want more stuff on your HD tv other than euro2008 (what better time could there be to buy a tv than a football competition?) the blu-ray players and PS3s have started to fall in price.
 

domtyler

Über Member
Melvil said:
Cheers, guys, I shall investigate.

Can I also ask why so many of the images on the TV's in the showroom look so 'pixelated' - is that normal? It seems up close the picture quality is a bit worse than a vacuum tube tv?

That was my main fear too Melvil. I can only guess that it is something to do with the signal they send to the sets as mine does not do that, my signal comes from a Sky HD box via a HDMI cable and I'll bet the ones in the shops don't have anything like this quality.
 

domtyler

Über Member
marinyork said:
If you want more stuff on your HD tv other than euro2008 (what better time could there be to buy a tv than a football competition?) the blu-ray players and PS3s have started to fall in price.

Oh yes, I cannot recomend the PS3 highly enough, it is a revelation. It will transform what you use your TV for as it is so easy to stream music, movies and pictures direct to your new TV. :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
 

marinyork

Resting in suspended Animation
Location
Logopolis
Melvil in quite a few showrooms they show stuff in standard definition live BBC1/2 feed. Somewhere once I even saw e4 on a showroom telly, not the brightest thing to be showcasing as a channel it has one of the worst picture qualities. On other sets they've been showing stuff in HD but it's looked like they've not put it through HDMI or left some weird factory default settings on.

If you look close enough there is pixelisation on broadcast stuff, particularly on live events. If for the simulcast stuff you flick between beeb 1 and BBC HD you notice it is vastly reduced. I'd do anything (don't watch it was just interested in pq) was not the beeb's finest hour. The FA Cup semi final was also a problem. Then again to really notice the pixelisation on HD you have to sit about 3ft away or have a tv much bigger than mine :biggrin:.

To get no picture probs whatsoever there are a few things out there like Planet Earth, Ratatouille that are on blu-ray in AVC/VC1 and are fabulous quality.
 

simonali

Guru
Also in a showroom you're probably only a couple of feet away from the screen, something that wouldn't happen at home.

Personally, I'd buy Panansonic. I've had 3 or 4 of their TVs and they're all still going strong.
 
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