Techy help on TV's reqd

Rich9

Heres the deal - £1000ish to spend on 40" or 42" Plasma/Lcd/Led TV with 1080p and a Blu ray home cinema system. prefer 100hz for gaming, and pref 2.1 hs system to cut down the amount of gubbins around the room.

Samsung? Lg? Sony? Panasonic?

My mind is full of too much crap givien to me by over zealous salesmen. Can someone give me some proper man of the street consumer advice and recommendations

ta

psymon

i would say go to richer sounds, theres one in leeds.

they know their stuff, not usual snotty teenage saturday staff who know nothing.
plus really good deals.

and you can book tests of equipment.

smegurmum

psymon wrote:

i would say go to richer sounds.

+1

nicklouse

1080p is over rated.

you will only get it from a BD so look at the upscaling ability of the TV.

Also consider how long you want it for.

as soon all things will be 3D compatible.

.blitz

Very little to choose between any of them at a given price point, a bit like MTBs. The range of adjustment on any half-decent TV is enormous.

I think the source - rather than the TV - is the most important thing. PS3 XMB looks good at 1080p (but no better than yer average computer monitor) and of course most of the games are 720 or 480p. Digital camera pics and movies also look good.

Blu-rays are nominally 1080p but how was the source material recorded? Read the small print carefully and you will see that very little of it is natively recorded in 1080p - the detail's not there to begin with and any movie more than a two or three years old looks very ordinary.

Freeview comes and goes - some of the channels are like olde YouTube at times.

Basically just buy the one with the coolest housing and best looking remote.

Thewaylander

Ok,

Important things, you want to find a tv with 24p compatability, ie it can display at 24 frames a sec rather 25 as this is how Blu rays are bet played it gives a smoother moving image.

Next is deciding if you want LCD or plasma, LCD is more visually striking as they are brighter, but the colour tones and not great and blacks are average even on LED side lit screens.

I personally prefer plasma screens with there high contrast and more natural tones, but these can run fairly warm.

Go look at few set up properly.

VWsurfbum

smegurmum wrote:

psymon wrote:

i would say go to richer sounds.

+1

This^

On a slightly side note, as a avid film watcher, and a Oakley fan boi, they have just released perscription 3D glasses! Yay oh hang on i havent got a 3D TV or SKY yet? bugger

Thewaylander

most Richer sound employees are monkies to be fair gang.

Its a budget end end of line sales shop in essnece, i love the place to keep your eye on things as there are some great bargains. but I wouldn't take there advise with out a pinch of salt. Obviously this varies from shop to shop (like halfrauds) but universally its not known through the Hi-fi and Home cinema world as a wealth of knoledge and information.

Chunkers1980

Bet you Richer sounds people know more than the staff of Dixons PC world ect

Thewaylander

I consider them mostly to be a similar class off employee,

Go to a real sound and vision specialist if your deadly serious. Sevenoaks locally to me used to do some nice auditions and all.

Anonymous

.blitz wrote:

Very little to choose between any of them at a given price point, a bit like MTBs. The range of adjustment on any half-decent TV is enormous.

I think the source - rather than the TV - is the most important thing. PS3 XMB looks good at 1080p (but no better than yer average computer monitor) and of course most of the games are 720 or 480p. Digital camera pics and movies also look good.

Blu-rays are nominally 1080p but how was the source material recorded? Read the small print carefully and you will see that very little of it is natively recorded in 1080p - the detail's not there to begin with and any movie more than a two or three years old looks very ordinary.

Freeview comes and goes - some of the channels are like olde YouTube at times.

Basically just buy the one with the coolest housing and best looking remote.

There's a lot of misinformation there. I don't think there even IS a game currently available on the ps3 or Xbox that's 480p, although you're partially right, I think some of them are limited to 720.

Any FILM, as in, it was filmed, will originally have had far higher "resolution" than 1080p. They still use 35mm film for a lot of cinema, and digital systems have not yet taken over.
1080p is nice, but does not come close to the level of detail actually captured on film.
There is not a single "feature" film, that has been shot on 1080p equipment, to my knowledge. Some scenes, maybe, where getting a massive, super expensive camera into position is just stupid.
Digital cinema is a far FAR higher resolution than 1080.

Happy Harry

I don't know anything about TVs but Richer Sounds came second in Which? Magazine's survey of 100 High Street retailers. So they may be quite good.

Happy Harry

OK. Also from Which? Magazine. The highest rated 40+" TVs around £1000. Rated in percentage terms.

Samsung UE40C7000 72%
Samsung UE46C6505 70%
Panasonic Viera TX-L42D25 68%
Sony Bravia KDL40NX703 68%
Sony Bravia KDL-40EX703 67%
LG 42SL9000 66%
Samsung PS50C6900 65%

Highest rating is 75% for a 2K Samsung 55" model. Hope this helps.

leaflite

You can get 5.1 surround sound with wireless rear speakers-less clutter, but far better sound than 2.1. Sony also make a 5.1 system with tiny (about 1 inch squared!) speakers if you really want to reduce clutter.

a guide on wattage:
<300 watts: a bit under powered
500 watts: fine for most uses
750 watts: roomshaking
>1000 watts: rock concert

Anonymous

Holy cow, those sound like the stupid old PMPO wattage ratings. A decent 100 Watt stereo amp, and some decent hifi speakers will have plenty of output.

Rich9

I do plan a trip to Richer Sounds in the near future. However from looking at their website there seems to be a number of 'old' stock theat they've obviously bought up from the manufacturer. Dont want to end up with old technology.

Sony are catching my eye at the moment though as they have a VATback offer on. in particular the Bravia KDL-40EX503U in Richer SOunds for £699. Tag on a decent BR player, and bobs your uncle

will 3d catch on?? if so, do I stick with my ol' 28" widescreen for a bit longer to wait for 3d prices to come down. cant imagine sat watching TV in a pair of 3d glasses. Plus I wear specs, so it'll be a right PITA unless a spend a shed load on some prescription Oakleys :roll:

VWsurfbum

IMHO 3D will catch on, but its gonna take a few years yet, like HD. i mean how many people out there actually use the HD capacity on the HD ready TV's?
I'm genralising i know but i'm guessing most of the not knowing public would of bought their HD TV's believing that they now have HD? I was one of the Mugs who bought a HD DVD player to go with my brand new HD TV when it came out, the quality was better than blueray in my oppinion and everyone knew the term HD so why would it not be the one to buy? Doh!
This time i'll be sitting out the race to purcase a 3D TV and see what happens. plus there not all compatible with one another, E.g different glasses are used on panasonic say to Sony!

Anonymous

VWsurfbum wrote:

bought a HD DVD player to go with my brand new HD TV when it came out, the quality was better than blueray in my oppinion

The disc is just a storage medium. Saying that HD-DVD was better quality than BD is like saying that films look better played from Samsung hard disks than they are from Wester digital ones. it's just daft.
BD has more storage space though, so it can use lower compression ratios.

Rich9

Finally gone and done it!

42" Panasonic Viera Plasma, with twin HD tuner (freeview and freesat), & Panasonic 5.1 blu-ray home cinema system (which, weather permitting will arrive on Thursday )

TV looks huge after nearly 7 years with a 28" CRT, but creates more room space because of less bulk.

next purchase will be a freesat dish and Humax recorder

BTW, went to Richer Sounds in Sheffield. Not that impressed TBH. The lad that served me was more interested in selling me a balls out sound system that the TV. And plasma.... 'Ooh no no, you dont wanna do that sir'