Television sets, what to get

[jimmyj]

Thanks for the heads up, I'll stay away from them! Who makes a Kubota quality TV? (6 pages, someone had to say it!)

My wife got right ornery when I said I was going to paint the new TV orange!

 

[dmccarty]

My wife got right ornery when I said I was going to paint the new TV orange!

Smart women. She knows that Green is the color of quality.

Try to paint the TV JD Green. I think she will be ok with that color. :thumbsup:

Later,
Dan

 

[jimmyj]

All I say about that is.....

 

[Brad_Blazer]

I work for Corning so I have to say thanks for buying LCD. I am very happy with my 46" Samsung LED edgelit.

Some features coming soon are frameless screens (picture extends to the edge) and Gorilla Glass cover glass.

If you can receive local broadcast and you have high speed internet you can ditch the cable and satellite providers and subscribe to Netflix or a similar service for about $10/month. I pay $11/month for Netflix to mail me blue-ray disks plus provide streaming video on demand which includes lots of movies and plenty of TV series from the Addams Family to Mythbusters to Nip and Tuck. It is wild watching those TV shows without commercials. The episodes don't last 20 minutes. Resolution is very good but digital compression is noticeable over swaths of similar color.

Some TV's and many blue-ray players have the interface for Netflix. You can also get a free disk from them which allows you to use a Wii or other game console. My Samsung blue-ray player has an ethernet port and I have it wired to my router with a 50' cat5 cable. If you get the same brand of player and TV the remotes work well together and share many functions. Look specifically for Netflix as a device feature. I think the Blockbuster service is very similar. The way it works is that you manage your lists of instant-view and Blue-ray movies on the computer. On the TV, your instant-view list is all that you see. It's all online so you can log in and watch the instant movies on any computer with a high speed connection. It doesn't matter if someone else is watching a movie at the same time on your account.

I haven't added it up but I am sure the money saved by not paying for cable/satellite and not buying so many movies on disk more than pays for the new TV.

Brad

 

[KB9UDE]

We have an LG 42" LCD in the living room

 

[KB9UDE]

And also one in the master bedroom. Kids room has the old 27" tube style tv.

 

[Wooddust]

Our TV is 27 yrs old. We may be the last home in the USA to have a TV that old. And we only have one TV.


I know soon the old bugger will blow and I dread it.

All this tech talk makes my head hurt. But I suppose that is progress.

 

[jinman]

Our TV is 27 yrs old. We may be the last home in the USA to have a TV that old. And we only have one TV.


I know soon the old bugger will blow and I dread it.

All this tech talk makes my head hurt. But I suppose that is progress.

Funny thing about TVs is that they have maintained or come down in price for the same size screen while improving the picture dramatically. If you go buy a new similar sized LCD screen today, I'd bet it will be lighter, brighter, and cheaper than your current model was when new. Your TV sounds like it was in the era when the Sony Trinitron was the latest and greatest TV on the market.

BTW: I have a 35" tube type Philips HDTV that weighs 200 lb. When it blows up, I may cut it up into pieces so I don't have to lift the whole thing. My main living area is on the 2nd floor and I had to use my tractor to lift the TV up to get it into my house.

 

[Wooddust]

Funny thing about TVs is that they have maintained or come down in price for the same size screen while improving the picture dramatically. If you go buy a new similar sized LCD screen today, I'd bet it will be lighter, brighter, and cheaper than your current model was when new. Your TV sounds like it was in the era when the Sony Trinitron was the latest and greatest TV on the market.

BTW: I have a 35" tube type Philips HDTV that weighs 200 lb. When it blows up, I may cut it up into pieces so I don't have to lift the whole thing. My main living area is on the 2nd floor and I had to use my tractor to lift the TV up to get it into my house.

I started the upgrade process last winter. Looked into various TV's, figure to replace my Bose surround sound since the CD cartridge wont eject....gonna maybe take a big screwdriver to it when the time comes, will do the bluray thing...we don't have DVD player yet, and may even give up on having a VCR but LOML says we still need to have it just in case she wants to watch something( she has not in 5 years but...)

It wont be a huge TV probably 42 inch cause we cannot have a TV dominate the decorating scheme and Ill build the cabinet to fit whatever we buy. Ive been told that the cabinet must look like the one we have now that I built 10 years ago.

Its hard when life gives you such strict requirements. In the meantime the Magnavox still keeps cooking along. Plus its like going to a museum for my high tech friends.

 

[jinman]

I started the upgrade process last winter. Looked into various TV's, figure to replace my Bose surround sound since the CD cartridge wont eject....gonna maybe take a big screwdriver to it when the time comes, will do the bluray thing...we don't have DVD player yet, and may even give up on having a VCR but LOML says we still need to have it just in case she wants to watch something( she has not in 5 years but...)

We have neighbors who have an extensive video tape library and have offered to loan us tapes. We have a VCR, but it's not even hooked up. We have become so accustomed to DVDs and now Blu-ray that normal video tape is a hassle. Even so, VCRs are dirt cheap and will not put a huge dent in your budget if you have to keep peace in the family.

 

[Bird]

I have a 35" tube type Philips HDTV that weighs 200 lb.

The 32" one we had wasn't quite that heavy, but whatever it weighed, it was all I cold do to lift it by myself. That was one reason we gave it to a daughter and son-in-law and bought flat screen TV's that I can pick up to move if I have to.

We have a VCR, but it's not even hooked up.

We have an old Apex VCR & DVD player that we used to use quite a bit, but no more. However, it is hooked up to the little TV in the bedroom. But a couple of years ago, when we bought the flat screen TVs, we also bought a Samsung VCR/DVD recorder that's hooked up in the living room. I still occasionally play some of our old VHS tapes, but if I record anything off the TV, it's on a DVD instead of tape. DVRs and Blu-Ray are still mysteries that I haven't seen a need to learn.:laughing:

 

[deepNdirt]

I still occasionally play some of our old VHS tapes, but if I record anything off the TV, it's on a DVD instead of tape. DVRs and Blu-Ray are still mysteries that I haven't seen a need to learn.:laughing:

I have held on to all of our old VHS movies, several hundred of them, Many of which I have purchased DVD's of the same, I can't help but to think how much $$$ has been invest on the VHS to think that now they are not worth anything..... I thought a few years ago when purchased a DVD recorder might take time to record all the VHS's to DVD's.... I actually attempt a few and did not turn out, evidentially the speed of the VHS has to be set to the correct length of record time on a DVD, because when playing back the recorded DVD I had not record approx 20 minutes of the end of the movie....
so I tried it again and with the same results, I give up on that Idea
besides I have been told that DVD's will not last with a quality pix but for just so long, I think it was 8-10 years, as to where the VHS stays on forever,
Have you heard of this? however I have played back some of my older collections of DVD movies and is very bad quality themselves,

 

[Bird]

I have been told that DVD's will not last with a quality pix but for just so long, I think it was 8-10 years, as to where the VHS stays on forever,
Have you heard of this? however I have played back some of my older collections of DVD movies and is very bad quality themselves,

I don't know anything about how long they'll last, but that's not surprising. I don't really have many, but some of mine are not the greatest quality anymore.

Nearly twenty-two years ago, when we were getting ready to become full time RVers, I had a lot of 33 rpm phonograph records, and a few 45s. So I copied them to cassettes. So now I have about 75 cassettes with music I like, and wish I had an easy and cheap way to copy them to CDs.

 

[deepNdirt]

I don't know anything about how long they'll last, but that's not surprising. I don't really have many, but some of mine are not the greatest quality anymore.

Nearly twenty-two years ago, when we were getting ready to become full time RVers, I had a lot of 33 rpm phonograph records, and a few 45s. So I copied them to cassettes. So now I have about 75 cassettes with music I like, and wish I had an easy and cheap way to copy them to CDs.

correction: I meant to say my Old VHS collection are now of bad Quality ....
Bird, with a usb input on your computer the Old Cassettes can be transfered to CD's through a coping software, I've got this thing called Dazzle component design to transfer analog video/sound to the usb input of my PC, I used it to download and record some hi-8 recordings onto a DVD, a bit complex to do the editing but it did copy, I'm sure could also connect a cassette player as well, :thumbsup:

 

[Bird]

I'm the one who wasn't clear there. I knew you were talking about VHS tapes, and my less than good quality tapes are also my VHS tapes. My music cassettes still sound OK, but I don't know about transferring that music to CDs.

I can transfer my VHS tapes to DVD with the recorder I have, but like you, I've messed up on the timing on some.

 

[alchemysa]

Well I guess this is a subject that will never die so I bumped this thread back to tell you what we just bought...

A Panasonic Viera 42" Plasma V series. The picture on this is simply sensational and makes our LG 42" LCD look very second rate. I'm very fussy about picture quality, especially skin tones, so I spent a lot of time looking around and this has got the best picture of anything I've seen at a reasonable price. This one was 'on special' for $1350 Australian. (The top quality 3D plasma units display 2D beautifully but cost twice as much). The new plasmas like this V series are definately a step up from any previous models. The other concerns I had about plasma have also been addressed with this model. It has a non-reflective screen and a built in sleep mode to prevent 'burn in' if the screen is 'still' for too long.

Everything looks better on this telly than on any of the 3 LCD's we own. Sport is better too because the plasma's don't have the 'refresh' issue that makes fast action look fuzzy on an LCD. The sound is excellent, it has a good 'program guide', and the remote is easy to use. All in all i couldn't recommend this TV highly enough, so if you want a really good telly check out the latest Panasonic 'V' series Plasmas. This is the first 'big screen TV' I've owned that hasn't left me pining for the days of old fashioned CRT technology.

(Edit - I should have said its a 'low reflection' screen, not 'non reflective'.)

 

[jimmyj]

Glad you like the new telly Alchemysa!

Does anyone know if you can turn of the "power on sound" on the sony Bravia?