So, I'm buying a new TV

[Scrap Irony]

Summer school money is burning a hole in my pocket and I'd like to grab a big screen. Problem is, I haven't bought a new television since Reagan was in the White House. (I didn't even buy that one, as my great-grandmother passed it on when she did.)

I'd like to keep the spending down to $2,500 or so and am completely clueless as to what to purchase. Family has told me (repeatedly) to ignore outlet stores and buy from smaller companies with repair people I trust. But that's looking like an extra $500 or so just on the off chance it'd break down.

I need some help, people. My weeknight entertainment is depending on you!

[Cedric]

I researched for about a year and I came up with this tv. Hitachi is what I would consider as the best brand.

Stay away from Samsung or Toshiba. Their prices are enticing but their quality is horrible.

http://www.hitachi.us/tv/browse/plas...a/plasma.shtml

[macro]

Scrap, we had a conversation about this beginning last summer and continuing until this past January. You might want to check it out:

http://www.redszone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42392

I'm still interested in this subject, as well, but am not going to act too quickly. As of right now, too much of the programming is in the old square format, so you either have a distorted picture or black bars on the sides of the screen. I may wait until most or all programming is in widescreen format.

[Jpup]

Summer school money is burning a hole in my pocket and I'd like to grab a big screen. Problem is, I haven't bought a new television since Reagan was in the White House. (I didn't even buy that one, as my great-grandmother passed it on when she did.)

I'd like to keep the spending down to $2,500 or so and am completely clueless as to what to purchase. Family has told me (repeatedly) to ignore outlet stores and buy from smaller companies with repair people I trust. But that's looking like an extra $500 or so just on the off chance it'd break down.

I need some help, people. My weeknight entertainment is depending on you!

go to avsforum.com and do some research.

you need to buy based on the size of your room. How far are you going to sit from it?

vanns.com is a good place to purchase TVs online. free shipping and zero tax. they also have lower prices than most places. I have read a lot of good things about them.

I've been trying to decide for months now. I know what I want, but I don't want to let the money go. give me some more info and I'll try to help you.

[GAC]

Summer school money is burning a hole in my pocket and I'd like to grab a big screen. Problem is, I haven't bought a new television since Reagan was in the White House. (I didn't even buy that one, as my great-grandmother passed it on when she did.)

I'd like to keep the spending down to $2,500 or so and am completely clueless as to what to purchase. Family has told me (repeatedly) to ignore outlet stores and buy from smaller companies with repair people I trust. But that's looking like an extra $500 or so just on the off chance it'd break down.

I need some help, people. My weeknight entertainment is depending on you!

I just bought a Sony HD LCD TV for the new house last week.

Here's a link to the one I just bought. I shopped around a bit, and bought mine at Rex.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ist&sku=379052

Here are some reviews on it....

http://www.epinions.com/Sony_KDF_E55...splay_~reviews

Do your research Scrap. And when you go into the store play hardball and barter with them. Let them know you have been shopping around. There is steep competition, and right now everyone is coming out with new models, so you can get last year's models cheaper.

[beb30]

Stay away from Samsung or Toshiba. Their prices are enticing but their quality is horrible.

I'd disagree with this my dad owns a Samsung 50' DLP HDTV and its absolutely amazing and what i consider to be a front runner for me to buy here in the next couple of months.

A little background:

CRT

These are the TVs we all grew up with. As a technology that has been used for over a century, the cathode ray tube has evolved enough to offer outstanding image quality at a relative low price. But eventually these bulky, heavy TVs will be phased out and replaced by flat panel displays.

The CRT is a specialized vacuum tube that has a positive terminal (anode) and a negative terminal (cathode). There are electrons zipping across this tube from the anode to the cathode and by magnetism the flow of electrons can be directed anywhere against a screen. This flow of electrons is called electron beam, which on each pass hits a special phosphor coated screen. Why phosphor? Because it's a material that when exposed to some types of radiation can emit visible light.

In a color CRT TV, the screen is coated with Red, Green and Blue phosphors arranged in dots or stripes and there are three electron beams that moves simultaneously; one for the Red color, one for the Green color and one for the Blue color. This is the so-called RGB model of displays. (To read more about why this model uses the primary colors and the principles that make possible TV, check our TV: The Basics editorial from 2001.)

It is worth mentioning that for a CRT, the absence of the electron beam will result in a complete, slick-as-oil black.

What you need to know about CRT TVs

These dinosaurs are a species destined for extinction, but that doesn’t mean they are not a good choice now. No other existing technology offers a better image quality than a cathode ray tube TV and the reason they are being replaced by flat panel displays is because CRT can’t reach screen sizes bigger than 40’. With plasmas starting at 42” and all modern flat panel displays reaching maximum screen sizes above 50” and up to 100”, consumers prefer flat panel displays over cathode ray tube TVs, even if the former doesn’t offer an image quality as good as the older tube technology.

Advantages:
Still the best image quality
Relatively inexpensive
Excellent blacks

Disadvantages:
Screen sizes will never surpass 40”
Bulky and heavy
Always flicker, even with static images


LCD

Liquid Crystal Display TVs use a fluorescent backlight to send white light through two layers of polarized glass that sandwich a deposit of liquid crystals. By changing voltages these crystals can adopt different positions and that way allow or block the passage of the back white light. These deposits of liquid crystals are arranged in rows across the screen.

For color LCD displays, such as those used in notebook monitors and HDTVs, each pixel is made up of three liquid crystal deposits or cells that act as red, blue, and green filters, following the same RGB model found in cathode ray tubes.


Although LCD displays use a matrix of wires (thus having a discrete arrange of pixels), LCD displays are still analog.

Modern LCD TVs accept and process digital signals but, in order to display the image, they always need to convert signals to analog in the final step.

What you need to know about LCD TVs

The reason why everyone wants an LCD TV is because they take up such little space when compared to traditional tube TVs, while offering bigger screens.

Because of the nature of the technology, LCD suffers from some major drawbacks. First, these tiny crystals take some time to rearrange their position which results in some delay at the moment of setting up a pixel bright and color value. This can create a ghost image when the video source has fast moving visuals, such as those found in video games and action movies.

The time it takes a pixel to change from black to white (rise) and then go back to black (fall) is called response time, which is measured in milliseconds. A few years ago these response times were in the order of the 20 to 30 ms, and lately they have been reduced to 16, 12 and 8 ms. The lower the response time, the faster these crystals can reorder and therefore the better the LCD. If one could compare the response times of a LCD with a CRT, we could say that a cathode ray tube has a response time lower than 1ms.

Unfortunately, there is no standard method to measure the response times and that let manufacturers cheat in their measurement procedures by choosing different methods, creating even a gray-to-gray method that allows them to report lower response times. This method is the one used to market these new monitors from ViewSonic and Samsung as 2ms response time LCDs.

The other major drawbacks of LCD technology are that the backlight will eventually diminish and that LCD panels have a fixed pixel structure (also known as native resolution) whether they are on or off, meaning that any video signal with a resolution different than the one of the LCD panel, will have to be scaled up or down to be displayed on the screen, affecting the quality of the image. This can be easily noticed when you watch a DVD movie (480p) in a high resolution LCD. By being up-scaled to a higher resolution, the image looks pixilated or blocky.

Finally, we’d say that because the backlight is always turned on, LCD TVs have a problem drawing black pixels as these crystals don’t entirely block the back white light. In a cathode ray tube, the electron beam simply doesn’t impact on that pixel when a black pixel has to be drawn; that would be equal to turn off the backlight on a LCD to make a real black. This explains why CRTs still have the best blacks.

Advantages:
Large screen sizes
Compact and light
Doesn’t flicker with static images
Higher resolution than plasma at 42”
No burn-in risk (but has image persistence!)

Disadvantages:
Expensive (in large screen sizes)
Blacks not quite as deep as CRT
Ghosting depending on response times
Image quality is not as good as a CRT

Plasma

You could think of plasma as a combination of LCD and CRT. The plasma display technology is similar to LCD because instead of cells of liquid crystals it uses plasma-filled chambers. When electrical energy reaches these chambers, the plasma (a gas that can emit light) inside them glows like the phosphor coated CRT screens.

What you need to know about Plasma TVs

Because each pixel is lit individually, plasma produces very bright images which immediately catch the eye of consumers. But unfortunately, Plasma biggest drawbacks lie behind its bright images.

Once again, the nature of the technology is the responsible for both its advantages and disadvantages. First, being that the gas found inside these chambers can’t stop emitting light immediately, plasma cannot produce deep blacks as those seen in cathode ray tube screens.

But the biggest drawback found in plasma is the image burn-in. After an extended period of time, static images left on the screen (such as a network logo or a game menu) can produce a ghost or shadow that remains permanently on the screen. This forces you to avoid watching TV channels with station logos or pause video games and DVD movies for long periods of time.

Also, the gas inside the chambers (usually argon, neon or xenon) will eventually fade away, resulting in a typical life span for plasma TVs of 30,000 to 40,000 hours, which means six to ten years of normal TV viewing.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that plasmas have EDTV resolutions in most of the cases and only 50”+ have been able to go beyond a 1366x768 native resolution. Plasmas are also heavier than LCD displays and consume much more power.

Advantages:
Large screen sizes
Better contrast ratios than CRT
Excellent image quality
Good viewing angle

Disadvantages:
Expensive
Burn-in risk
Lower resolutions than LCD and DLP
Blacks not quite as deep as CRT
Consume lot of power
Heavier than LCD displays of same size

DLP

Invented by Texas Instruments, Digital Light Processing is basically a precise, state-of-the-art light switch. DLP is based on an optical semiconductor known as the Digital Micromirror Device, which was invented in 1987 by Dr. Larry Hornbeck of Texas Instruments.

This Digital Micromirror Device, aka DLP chip, is made of a rectangular array of up to 2 million microscopic mirrors that can tilt back and forth in response to on and off signals, reflecting the light coming from a light source.

After reading how the other technologies work you can guess how each pixel will be drawn on the screen.



Coordinated with a digital signal, a lamp and projection lens, these mirrors can reproduce images by tilting toward the light source, thereby reflecting a white pixel onto screen. Titled away from the light source, the correspondent pixel on the screen will remain dark.

With these elements, DLP would only be able to reproduce grayscale images so, in order to add color, most DLP systems introduce a color wheel between the light source (lamp) and the DMD mirror panel. As the color wheel spins, it allows red, green, and blue light to fall onto the mirrors that coordinated with the on and off states of these mirrors can produce more than 16 million of colors.

There are already several DLP chips powering a vast range of rear projection HDTVs and projectors, ranging from 720p DMDs (like the HD2), passing through the HD2+, and up to the latest HD3 and xHD3 chips capable of 1080p visuals. A three-chip DLP system is the one used for digital cinema.

What you need to know about DLP TVs

DLP is the world's only all-digital display technology, from start to finish. That means when you have a DLP TV with a DVI or HDMI input, the video signal will remain digital all the way until it is displayed on the screen, contrary to LCD and Plasma displays in which a digital signal will be transformed to analog in the last step.

Unfortunately no technology is free of problems and DLP is no exception. First, rear projection DLP HDTVs require a lamp, which requires a minimum depth of 12” for the whole system to work and must be replaced every 3,000 hours. Each lamp costs $200+. Also, this lamp takes up to one minute to warm up.

Also, as a consequence of the coloring system, DLP can produce a so called “rainbow effect”, a visual artifact that appears on screen as flashes of red, green, and blue shadows at the edges of the viewer’s peripheral vision. There is consistency with this artifact, but it appears to be more prominent on slow speed color wheels and single-chip systems. Over the last couple of years, televisions manufacturers have developed higher wheel speeds and added two sequences of red, green, and blue on a single wheel, reducing the chances that this artifact will appear, but there are still some instances where the color breakout (produced by the spinning wheel) can be noticed. Thee-chip DLP systems, such as those used in digital cinema, seem to completely eliminate the rainbow effect, but unfortunately a three-chip system is still expensive for the living room.

Advantages:
Large screen sizes
All-digital display technology
Excellent image quality
Good viewing angle
No burn-in

Disadvantages:
Lamp has to be replaced
Rainbow effect
Deeper than LCD and plasma


Personal reccomendation and reccomendation based off Advantages to Disadvantages - DLP

[vaticanplum]

Oh my lord...i seriously had no idea TVs were so expensive. I thought the high-end ones were at most $500.

What world do I live in? A world where I've lucked into TVs, I guess.

[ochre]

I picked up one of the sanyo 32" CRT TVs with the built in HDTV tuner and HDMI and all that junk for under $800 a couple of years ago. It's been great. I think that line has been discontinued in favor of their plasma and LCD options. I really like CRT quality better. The OTA tuner does really well and the component video looks pretty good too. I haven't tried HDMI on it yet, but I might, as my dvd player has an HDMI interface as well. I really can't say enough good things about this TV, particularly at the price I paid for it.

[beb30]

I was just at best buy the other day and they still are selling pretty big CRT HDTV's

[Johnny Footstool]

Oh my lord...i seriously had no idea TVs were so expensive. I thought the high-end ones were at most $500.

What world do I live in? A world where I've lucked into TVs, I guess.

You must live in a wonderful world of gaslights, buggy whips, and five-cent picture shows.

[vaticanplum]

You must live in a wonderful world of gaslights, buggy whips, and five-cent picture shows.

That would be nice (for about five minutes). Really I just live in a world of generous hand-me-downs. I am lucky...I didn't realize til this thread how lucky.

[GAC]

I was just at best buy the other day and they still are selling pretty big CRT HDTV's

The CRTs are still out there, but are gradually being phased out for the newer technology... LCD and DLP.

You can get a CRT for under $1000 pretty much anywhere. But if I'm gonna spend that much, then I'd seriously consider either saving or buying either of the above two.

Also....

And Sanyo, which years ago weren't that well respected in the field, have vastly improved. They ALL are pretty much getting their technology (parts, etc) from the same sources. In fact, alot of these TVs are being built by the same companies (overseas), and then they put their labels on them.

Just do your research before buying.

You can't go wrong IMO with Sony. They have an EXB model that is pretty good and is top of the line (as far as resolution), and runs between 3000-3500. rfs has one and really likes it alot.

[flyer85]

If you belong to Costco they generally have competetive prices and have the best return policy. You can return it anytime for any reason, period.

[KronoRed]

You must live in a wonderful world of gaslights, buggy whips, and five-cent picture shows.

25C baseball tickets

[Rob Dicken]

Okay....I work with Electronics daily, as I am a salesperson for Dell, Inc.

This is what you want to do:

STAY AWAY from Sony!! Sony has become rather chalky lately with TVs, and signification of that would have been them TOTALLY dropping out of the Plasma TV market a little over a 1 1/2 years ago. Have you heard that Plasmas will burn out or pool up after a few years? Thank Sony for that!

Fortunately, not all manufacturers are like that.

These are who you want to look into:

Dell
Panasonic
Hitatchi

Stay away from any others! Speaking indicidually and not as a sales person of Dell, they make some of the best TVs I have personally seen. They are cost effective, and have been ranked just under Panasonic in quality from consumer reports. Panasonic has been ranked number 1 for quite sometime. HOWEVER, Panasonic is VERY, VERY expensive. They will usually run anywhere from $500-750 MORE than their competitors.

Right now, Dell has some good deals going on:

42" Plasma Television, HD Built-IN : $1999 + tax
37" LCD Television, HD Built-IN : $1799 + tax
32" LCD Television, HD Built-IN : $1599 + tax

And I can personally vouch for ALL of those TVs, and the 32" especially, since I own one myself.