majik

I'm looking for a TV, and putting my budget at $1,500. Considering LCD, LED, or Plamsa. Looking for minimum 50"



There are several TVs in that price range, I just haven't done any research in a while. Anyone else been looking and can give me pointers?



I'm limiting it to $1,500, because after I buy a bracket and sales tax, it'll be $2,000. Stupid 9.75% tax...

TibbyTurbo

My Girl friends Mom just bought one last night I help them choose, the best one that you can really see the difference comparing any TV's next to it was the Samsung I dont exactly know which model it was but I know the specs:



55"

LCD

1080p

120HZ



for $1,499 at Bestbuy they also have it at Sams for $1,495. If you ever go to best buy look for a samsung with these specs and compare it to all tv around it its very big difference its very sharp and the contrast is great!

majik

unfortunately, every LCD I'm looking at has those specs. There are probably 5 different Samsung models with those specs, which is making it really hard for me. Consumer reports, CNet, all the reviews are so subjective. "The black don't appear as dark" - there are no objective numbers for me to compare!! Yeah, some are 120hz, or I can pay 70% more for 240hz that I probably won't notice.



I can look at two 55" LCD TVs with 120Hz and 1080p, but one is $1500 and one is $2300. Same brand, different model #s

radu_rd2

I paid $630 for a 42" Panasonic LCD (1080p, 120hz), no complaints. No sales tax either since I got it online (an Amazon store).



I think at 55"+ it makes more sense to go with a plasma, it's better value at larger sizes for what I recall. I would just make sure to get a recent model (the technology apparently has improved significantly in the last few years). I know I found some really good deals but the models were introduced 2 years ago which explained the lower price.

majik

I've been considering Plasma also. I really like the look of the LCD LED but the Plasmas are also showing a good value.



I've got a 40" Samsung LCD that's been great for 4 years. I'm replacing it with a 50-55-60" and moving the smaller TV to the bedroom.



I may need to increase the budget a little.

DTN

Majik, if you wish to have a great setup, you may consider using a computer to perform video processing. Also consider plasma as it has better contrast ratio and value.



Eg.

In my setup, live TV goes through a HDHomeRun box where it is distributed to my network and available to all clients http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-003-_-Product

I have a media center computer which performs all capabilities of a PVR, Receiver, CD player, Digital media player and network player. That could eaisly be replaced with a boxee box http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DSM-380.../dp/B0038JE07O

Boxee is based on the XBMC project and runs like a XBMC live cd. http://xbmc.org/download/

If you wanted, you could remove boxee and replace the software with XBMC.



The point of all of this, you can make even the crappiest television look much better by using post processing jobs like nearest neighbor. You can eliminate the glitching from interlaced over-the-air and cable Television by using deinterlace which will smartly turn a 50hz interlaced image into a 25hz progressive image. There are alot of other advantages to having a media center as well such as centralized management of music, video and pictures, as well as having a UPnP DLNA server which allows Windows Media Player to hook up to the media center as a client. On top of that, all computers in the house will function as a TV.



I'm not telling you that a better contrast ratio isn't good. I'm saying find something which handles at least 1080i and has a decent contrast ratio, cycles at least 70hz, then use a $400 setup to compensate the contrast ratio and greatly extend the functionality of both your media viewing pleasure and your home network as well as manage your library. You could find all of this in a Plasma for $1000.

majik

the problem I've found with TVs is that there isn't an industry standard on contrast ratios. LG might use a different measurements from Samsung or Panasonic, it just has to be consistent within the brand testing. So, 6,000:1 Samsung might be the equivalent to 8,000:1 on LG



While I see the advantages of a media center, I don't care to dedicate the time and work to setting it up. While I could download torrents all day long and use the HDMI output from my laptop to the TV, I don't take the time to do that now.



So you're telling me I can control the quality of the TV through a media center setup? And improve the quality at the same time? It has to be limited by the weakest of the hardware on either the computer output or the TV processing.

tibbytib

Just an FYI: Best Buy's in house brand Insignia Plasmas are made by Samsung. My buddy got one. Exact same tv, even down to the user interface and menus, buttons, everything.



The Samsung was over 700 for a 42", he got the Insignia for 449!

DTN

I generate my own content. I don't use torrents except when I miss recording an episode that I really wanted to see.



The boxee box above is ready to go as soon as you plug it in. You can extend the features to read from other devices in the house later.



This is a listing of my content which was recorded by MythTV and organized by my program mythicalLibrarian : http://pastebin.com/bwmv6QA0



Well, the bare minimum requirements for XBMC until recently was an XBOX 1. That's a 700mhz celeron processor with 64mb of memory. Of course that's 10 years old and newer technologies are available. The boxee box above will more then handle post-processing of video images. You get more processing options with more hardware like the new nVidia GPU with VDPAU technology which allows HD upscaling. My cheap $300, year old eMachines computer from walmart does a good job. I'd like to upgrade to the boxee box for HDMI though.



You know that digital cable and digital OTA video is MPEG-2 right? TV comes DVD-ready now-a-days. Not being able to put it onto a DVD is just wrong. You might as well get something to port that signal to a hard disk so you can record it. That's why I say get a $80 Dual Tuner HDHomeRun and run MythTV on your media center. One HDHomeRun channel for streaming live tv across your network and One HDHomeRun channel for watching live tv.



But yeah, you can generate your own legal content. You don't need torrents. A media center will improve your picture quality.

DTN

Sorry, that list was only the stuff on my Media Center hard disk. Here is the rest on my network attached storage: http://pastebin.com/eZPF8mAE



This is all legal content, except for a very small few I downloaded.