Need a new TV! (Specs help...)

Hello,

I've had a 42" Philips 720p LCD since 2007, cost me £1000 at the time, and it's done cracking service but now my sister needs a TV urgently so it's the perfect excuse for me to upgrade a bit!

I'm not really looking for recommendations as such because the purchase is going to be kind of urgent so I may be limited to what I can find in stock at my local stores, but what I am out of date with is more general specification stuff.

So can anyone advise on:

-resolution- 1080p is a must, actually there's no real recommendations needed here!

- type- I'm out of touch with LCD / LED / Plasma, if I'm buying another 42", what is likely to be best at a £500 kind of price point?

- hz- do I need to worry about 100hz versus , um, whatever else is available?

- frame rate compatibility : I'm not sure if I have the right terminology but I remember when I bought my old TV being disappointed that the picture juddered quite badly when the camera panned from side to side with HD material, and discovering that this was related to my TV's ability to process certain frame rates. Not sure if I have this right, but if I do is that still a consideration or will all modern flat screens do this ok now?

- brand : any particularly good / bad brands for LCD/LED screens that I could look for?


Thanks tons in advance!

 

I doubt you can get anything less than 1080p these days. You'll probably find 4k sets out there (is 2 x 1080p res), but for a relatively small size of 42 inches, it's not worth it.

You won't find many (if any) plasmas out there now, especially at the smaller sizes you're looking at. So LCD it is. BTW, there are no LED TVs as such - they're still LCD but with LED backlighting (as apposed to fluorescent tubes). Basically, they all use LED backlighting these days. The only real choice is whether the panels a lit from the sides or directly from behind. The from behind method tends to be better (FALD - full array local dimming) for better contrast and black levels, so favor those.

Not really. Most of that is more marketing than anything else.

Motion judder still happens but it's more related to the source framrates rather than the TV. Pretty much all TVs have some kind of motion compensation setting which aims to smooth out the judder by interpolating frames. If this is done too aggressively, it can lead to unnaturally smoothed out motion commonly known as the Soap Opera Effect. Many people hate this more than the judder and disable the setting. However, if you choose a low enough setting level, you'll probably get the best of both worlds - judder nearly eliminated, but without getting too sea sick!

I always recommend Samsung. I've had a few over the years and have not been disappointed.

 

Wonderful, thank you for the advice! I'll be off shopping later this morning...

 

Sets in America are basically down to $10 per inch, so a reasonable 42" set will cost under $500 these days. Go for LCD local dimming, like one of the better LG or Samsung sets. In truth, a lot of HD displays these days are being pushed out in favor of 4K (technically UHD 2160), but the UHD standards are still in a state of flux and I don't think it's going to settle down until at least a year from now.

If you want a step up, I think the Sony LCD sets with local dimming LEDs are better than quite a few of the LG and Samsung sets, but a lot depends on the specific model you buy. While plasma was great for its time, it's pretty much a dead issue these days. OLED is very hard to make and is very, very costly, but looks fantastic.

 

I don't know if you plan to calibrate your display, but if U.K. shops are anything like U.S. shops the TVs on display will all be optimized to look great in the store under fluorescent lights. After calibration at home, you may or may not be pleased with the color and image quality, so be sure you can exchange it for a different model if needed.

 

Yes, thank you- that's a really good point. To be honest at this point I am barely looking at what's on the screens in the shop because they are never set up with consistent sources so it's pointless. One screen looked amazing displaying a slideshow of high quality photos, and the one next to it had a very compressed HD signal on it, so obviously looked much worse.

It's almost like they don't want you to judge them fairly against each other... Hmmm!

 

My sister recently bought a 55" X8500B and is really happy:

http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/tv/t/televisions?type=4k

All the reviews I read of the X9000B said that it was exceptional.

Why only 42"?


[Edit] - Vidiot forgot to mention, avoid the curved screens!

 

Yes I am definitely avoiding the curves, they're out of my price bracket anyway to be honest.

I was planning to stick at 42" because we don't sit very far from it at all, and actually sometimes I feel like it's a little too big to properly take in the whole picture at once (probably need my eyes testing!)

Also, my girlfriend said we weren't allowed to have anything that was even more dominant in the room than the current beast- although since we started looking, she's realised that the 42" we have, with its side mounted speakers and thick black frame, actually takes up more space than a modern panel with the very thin frames they have these days... So we may be moving on up to a 48"!

 

The o.p. specifically said "£500 kind of price point," and for that low price range, the 40" sets should theoretically have more features than the 50" - 55" sets. The 4K Sony KD-55X9000B is going to be about $3000, last I checked.

 

Yeah, but we all know how easy it is to blow through a budget!

 

Think I am going to go for this one unless anyone can see anything obviously terrible about it (for the price range...)

http://www.johnlewis.com/samsung-ue...-48-with-freeview-hd/p1451296#tabinfo-ratings

 

Here's a very positive review, but pay attention to the issues raised in case they have a bearing on your situation (viewing angle, # of inputs, etc.):

http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews...-and-lcd-tvs/samsung-ue48h5500-1278861/review

 

Vidiot, is there any equivalent to the older XBR series in Sony's offerings today? I have a 32" XBR6 here in my "edit bay" and love it, but I'll eventually be able to buy a bigger set and wasn't sure what Sony had in the line now.

 

I don't have any worries about the number of HDMI ports or the viewing angle, my only concern was them mentioning that the picture wasn't *quite* as good as the next model up (but I suppose that will always be true up and up the chain!)

This is the next one... It'd cost me an extra £100 or so. Wondering if there's anything obviously better about it, apart from 3D which I just wouldn't use.

http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews...nd-lcd-tvs/samsung-ue48h6500-1276034/review/2

 

Like most companies, Sony is slowly dumping all the HD models in favor of UHD (faux 4K). All the manufacturers are getting to the point where the low-end sets are HD, and everything over about $1200 is 4K (or at least at the low end of 4K). My opinion is that Sony is effectively abandoning the TV business by spinning it off to another company; they're not the TV makers we knew 10 years ago.

 

One thing you could do, and I have done it myself, is to take with you a USB stick with sample reference static images and video sequences and see how they are rendered. This will remove the source content randomness at least, if not color/gamma settings.

The UE48H5500 is okay - it's edge lit and has poor viewing angles off-center, but those things don't seem to be a problem for you. However, you did mention in the OP that judder was an issue and this set appears to be a little weak in this area (choose your USB test material with lots of motion and see how it's handled).

Other than that, the link you provided was a bit confusing WRT Wifi/DLNA support. In the blurb is says it is supported, but in the spec list below it says DLNA: No. This feature may or may not be important to you (it's about the ability to stream videos through Wifi directly from your PC/media server).

The UE48H6500 is the more capable set and should be better at handling motion. Test them both if you can, and if you don't see any significant difference, go with the cheaper one.

 

As Deesky mentioned, it has judder control, which should prove beneficial. Also, when I was buying my Panasonic plasma a couple of years ago, the view seemed to be that the processing needed to support 3D benefited picture quality for 2D. I have no idea whether that is true (Vidiot?), but I can tell you that we have only ever used the set in 2D mode and the picture quality is excellent.

I appreciate that the 6500 is more expensive, but, if I was you, I would try to do the value equation. Clearly, no one can spend what they don't have, but if you think you are going to have the set for X years, and watch on average Y hours per day, then you may find that the difference is minimal over the life of the set. The better picture quality should pay for itself then over the X years, especially if you are sensitive to judder.

Excellent tip about the USB stick. I would be inclined to ask the salesman before sticking it in, though. If you can find a store with both models, and can set them to the same default settings (e.g., Cinema, Warm, etc.), you could use two USB sticks to view the same stuff side-by-side.

 

I'm not aware that 3D processing has any side benefits for 2D motion. If there is a benefit it would likely be derived from a newer version of the processing engine as a whole (ie, where the 2D handling has been tweaked). But in general, plasma display technology has an inherent advantage over LCD tech when it comes to motion handling even before you get into specialized processing engines.

 

Ok then...

So it looks like a decision between the 5500, the 6400 and the 6700

Costs are £499, £599 or £649.

I'm really tempted, for the extra £150, to just go for the best option. It gets a better review for picture quality even if the features are pretty much the same.

 

Go with Oscar Wilde's philosophy: "I'm always satisfied with the very best."

 

So, what you are really saying is that he needs the 20 thousand pounds 80" Sony!?!?!

See, I knew we'd blow through the budget eventually!!!

 

No, I'm saying if he can choose between different monitors at £499, £599 or £649, go with the latter. There's a huge difference between a set costing 700 pounds and one costing 20,000.

 

I agree. £649 it is. Especially since it used to cost £700 MORE than the other option...

 

Would that be FWAF ?!

 

oLed TV's are the way to go, as I read somewhere, a 4K version is in the works and those clever Koreans have found a way of eliminating the possibility of screen burn-in.
Ill wait another couple of years to upgrade to one of these though.