…. last night our 8-year-old rear-projection TV developed a very ugly convergence problem that renders it essentially unwatchable, and the quotes I’m getting for repair are well in excess of what I’m willing to throw at an 8-year-old TV.
Consequently, it looks like I’m TV shopping.
My initial research suggests that LCD is probably a better fit for our room (due to the large amount of natural light; the rear-proj set was unwatchable for about 2h in the middle of the day, not normally a problem except in football season). We also like the lower energy consumption; a friend just got a (very large, very high-end) plasma, and you can feel the heat coming off of it from a foot away.
Given that we’ve tried to be careful and ended up with some Tivo-related burn-in anyway, I also like that LCD is said to be much less prone to the problem than plasma. For a while, it looked like DLP was a good idea, but those sets seem to have nearly vanished from the marketplace, so I’m gonna ignore them unless someone can tell me a good reason not to.
We’re going to try to be frugal here and not spend a fortune, so the ideal television will be:
- Probably 42″ or 47″ (replacing 55″)
- Will eventually go on the wall
- 720p is fine; 1080p is nice, but I don’t know how much I really care.
- Under $1700 or so; I don’t need to surf the ragged edge of quality here. Also, if we spend less and need to bump up in 5 years, it hurts less.
- Obviously HDMI is key, but I’m guessing it’s hard to avoid that at this point.
- Right now, we’re on standard def DirecTV, because we prefer the Tivo software to any of the generic DVRs. It’s possible we’ll upgrade to HD DirecTV next year, when DTV releases a Tivo-brand DVR again, but not before. (Basically, we find reliable and friendly DVR software to be a bigger value than higher resolution sitcoms.)
- We don’t currently have a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD deck, and have no plans for one YET. An upsampling player might be on offer, but we’re not feeling the need for more expensive movies given how good regular DVD can look with a proper upconversion.
We hear good things, and see good prices, about LG. The big boys (Sony, Pioneer) are very spendy, and I’m particularly unwilling to spend on Sony given their corporate behavior. What other brands should we look hard at, or avoid?
Any input is appreciated. Thanks in advance. Comments or direct email are fine.
Samsung means to come.
I don’t know about half of the stuff you’re asking for, but we’re happy with our Samsung HDTV
I agree Samsung is good and also Toshiba. I’ve had both rear projections and LCDs with these two companies and thought Samsung was the best bang for the buck, especially compared to Sony (Which is grossly overpriced). Imho, the picture quality on the Samsung’s (especially the newer gen with the higher refresh rates) kicks Sony’s tail and is of course much cheaper in price.
While DLPs are a bit harder to find, they still stack well against the LCDs and are typically a few $100 dollars cheaper. If you go that route, go somewhere with a good replacement warranty so that when they completely disappear from the market and when this one goes caput in >5+ years, they will automatically bump you up to a LCD.
Hope this helps!
DLPs were promising there for a while, but appear to have kind of vanished. Anyway, they’re not on-the-wall flat, which is something we wanted this time around.
See subsequent post in re: final choice.