Alright, who has an HDTV. . . .

splinemodelsplinemodel
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I'm buying one so that I don't have to contribute anything else to the house, and my roommates already bought all sorts of furnature. (We've got the fooseball table, the dart board, and the other important things all set up ) They also bought a pretty serious digital cable package with all sorts of HD channels.



I'm looking at this model:

Sony KP-46WT510



It seems like a good deal. I'm not interested in a DLP or Plasma TV because they cost way too much, and 46" is certainly large enough. Anyway, I'm looking for something to the tune of 40-50 inches with decent picture and lots of varied inputs.



We watch a lot of sports and movies, so the HDTV is a nice thing to have. One of the other guys has a pretty decent sound system that will accompany it.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    jimmacjimmac Posts: 11,898member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    I'm buying one so that I don't have to contribute anything else to the house, and my roommates already bought all sorts of furnature. (We've got the fooseball table, the dart board, and the other important things all set up ) They also bought a pretty serious digital cable package with all sorts of HD channels.



    I'm looking at this model:

    Sony KP-46WT510



    It seems like a good deal. I'm not interested in a DLP or Plasma TV because they cost way too much, and 46" is certainly large enough. Anyway, I'm looking for something to the tune of 40-50 inches with decent picture and lots of varied inputs.



    We watch a lot of sports and movies, so the HDTV is a nice thing to have. One of the other guys has a pretty decent sound system that will accompany it.



    I have a Hitachi 53" HDTV widescreen rear projection.

    It's the best TV I've ever owned. I purchased it 3 years ago but my cable service has just recently begun broadcasting HDTV. The picture beats DVD's ( and with this being a progressive scan set it's really good at DVD's ) hands down. I was comparing The Hulk ( DVD to HDTV ) the other night and HD looks not only razor sharp the colors are better when compared with a DVD. When I shopped for it it was between this set and a Sony. The reason I chose Hitachi was it was the britest set in the store. However you can't go wrong with Sony and that looks like a really great set.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I believe that Mitsubishi is considered the top of the line FWIW. I helped my parents pick a Hitachi HDTV, and aside from the inherent nighmare of hooking up an entertainment center and having 50 remotes for them to attempt to make sense of, it works great.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    The trouble is that when I go to the store, they ALL look good. Sometimes little annoyances become the big differences, and these things tend to take a bit of use to notice. Hence the thread.



    Thanks for the input. It's a good thing, then, that we have HD video-on-demand.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by BuonRotto

    I believe that Mitsubishi is considered the top of the line FWIW. I helped my parents pick a Hitachi HDTV, and aside from the inherent nighmare of hooking up an entertainment center and having 50 remotes for them to attempt to make sense of, it works great.



    I saw a remote that has an LED-reverse-backlit LCD touch panel for buttons. Some control buttons at the top change the rest of the buttons. It was the best all-in-one remote I have ever seen. It's definitely on the list of things to get.

  • Reply 4 of 9
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Well I work at Sears in TVs. I like the LCD projections. They're a hybrid of flatpanel LCD and projection. They're pricier than projections but cheaper than flatpanels. They're brighter with a better angle. And real light, one of our Sony 42" is 64 pounds! I also like DLP. Currently Samsung is the only maker, I think, using a Texas Instruments chip, but Intel is going to come out with a chip so another company can make them. DLP uses more mirrors and the picture is so much crisper. I actually like it better than plasma because it has a theater "feel" to it and that's what I'd get, if money was no object. It's even more expensive and just like regular projections it's damn heavy! I wonder when OLED will hit. Mitsubishi and Hitachi and Sony are great, Philips is middle, same with JVC and Panasonic. RCA is crap. At least that's what I've seen in our department, comparing quality, features, return rates, etc. Just don't get a Sharp, of anything!! I've seen nothing but crap from them. Our 32" tv is a Sharp and the buttons on the front fell inside the TV and I have to stab it with a pencil to turn it on if I lose the remote, and the volume, the same, only it sometimes changes channels instead. I'm afraid I'm going to get electrocuted one of these days.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    zarathustrazarathustra Posts: 264member
    Quote:

    46" is certainly large enough



    Metres! Metres! A screen needs to be measured in metres. When will people get it?
  • Reply 6 of 9
    jimmacjimmac Posts: 11,898member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    Well I work at Sears in TVs. I like the LCD projections. They're a hybrid of flatpanel LCD and projection. They're pricier than projections but cheaper than flatpanels. They're brighter with a better angle. And real light, one of our Sony 42" is 64 pounds! I also like DLP. Currently Samsung is the only maker, I think, using a Texas Instruments chip, but Intel is going to come out with a chip so another company can make them. DLP uses more mirrors and the picture is so much crisper. I actually like it better than plasma because it has a theater "feel" to it and that's what I'd get, if money was no object. It's even more expensive and just like regular projections it's damn heavy! I wonder when OLED will hit. Mitsubishi and Hitachi and Sony are great, Philips is middle, same with JVC and Panasonic. RCA is crap. At least that's what I've seen in our department, comparing quality, features, return rates, etc. Just don't get a Sharp, of anything!! I've seen nothing but crap from them. Our 32" tv is a Sharp and the buttons on the front fell inside the TV and I have to stab it with a pencil to turn it on if I lose the remote, and the volume, the same, only it sometimes changes channels instead. I'm afraid I'm going to get electrocuted one of these days.





    You know that's funny what you said about RCA. I also sold TV's for many years back in the 80's and video has kind of been my hobby. For years back in the early 80's to late 90's I was a big fan of RCA. However lately they seem to fallen into the catagory of " ok " to " crap ". I wanted to get an RCA when I went shopping for a set years ago. However when I saw it like you say there was a whole bunch of sets that easily out did it.



    One thing I try to do when I go to the showroom is try to bring source material that I'm familiar with ( a DVD ) and ask if it can be played through the set.



    Also I ask if I can play with the controls. Most stores tend to turn up their TV's so they can compete with the showroom lights.



    Also you want to make sure if the color temperature control is set to " warm " as that is the most natural setting and should be the closest to 6500k which is the industry standard. If you're going to make an over a thousand dollar investment the store should be willing to let you do this.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    burningwheelburningwheel Posts: 1,827member
    we have a sony 30" , i forget what model but the picture is as good as some of the more expensive sony's. we also looked at the samsung i beleive but the sony has a slightly better picture. not sure about projection TV's. we paid $900
  • Reply 8 of 9
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    I have a Sony 70" (that's 1.78 meters) LCD rear projection TV.



    It's very nice.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    gizzmonicgizzmonic Posts: 511member
    I work with LCD/DLP projectors and TVs daily (haven't pulled the trigger on an HDTV for home use yet-but I do 'test projectors' a lot on the weekends



    My experience is that plasma offers a muddy image compared to LCD or CRT, and has a fairly short life. LCD is okay, but generally looks like crap if you feed it a signal outside its native resolutions. Hate to say it, as it's going away, but CRT still looks best!



    The best LCD panels I have seen are from Hitachi. They have excellent compression and scaling so that even SVGA 800x600 displays look good when fed with HDTV sources (DVHS movies, for example).



    I don't think LCD will surpass CRT with image quality until displays with hundreds of millions of pixels become affordable. Otherwise you are stuck with LCD's limitation dealing with non-native resolutions and of course, the aggravation of dead pixels.
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