Purchasing a new TV, and becoming increasingly frustrated - please advise

[The Teej]

Hey all.

I'm looking to purchase a new HDTV soon and I'm really trying my hardest to look online and do my own research into what TV would be best for me, but it seems the further I do my research the further down the rabbit hole I go, and it's becoming a headache :laugh: I'm not exactly a tech dummy, but with all of the misinformation in combination with the plethora of nitty-gritty tech specs, I'm feeling overwhelmed and almost starting to feel like I'm chasing my own tail trying to find a happy medium which may not even exist, with new found knowledge I'm picking up on the way.

My budget, BTW, is around ?500-600. I'm willing to go slightly higher then that, but bear in mind anything above ?500 I'll either be shoving on finance or pulling the money out of thin air (somehow), so be please be kind with my wallet!

Basically, I'm looking for a 42-47" TV that'll be ideal for games and movies. The brand and panel type (LCD/Plasma/etc) I couldn't care less about - however as I will be using this as a PC monitor as well, input lag (apparently) is something I should take into consideration, with some websites saying 32-40ms is acceptable and anything less is good news. Also, as I will be using this for movies I do want the picture quality to be decent (I'm comfortable with having to use different AV modes to get this done). I'm not exactly looking for the blackest blacks, but I don't want it to look like arse, either. The room I'll be using it in will occasionally be dark (mostly when watching movies) but typically will be standard household lighting. I would also like some form of motion smoothing as well, such as LG's TruMotion tech. I know sometimes its the bane of movie buffs but I do enjoy watching movies with it on :p

I've found that quite a few TVs have trade-offs for games vs. movies, i.e. one having very good picture quality but being awful for games, and visa versa. Is there such a thing as a happy medium?

Finally, are there other things to look out for when buying TVs with my scenario in mind? I'm willing to put in more leg work but I definitely need some help here, going about this myself probably isn't going to do me any more favours :p

Many thanks for any help you guys give :)

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Wanted to throw this out there.

(Edit) Plasma still gets burn in, it's not as common, but it happens despite the anti-burn advances.

My Samsung 43" Plasma has a faint ghost image of the Cartoon Network HD Logo that shows up under certain image backgrounds, despite the pixel shifting, and the utility to try and remove the ghost image. Ghosting is also not covered under "warranty" with samsung either.

Note: I watch a LOT of cartoon network in, far more than any other station.

(Edit) Meant Plasma, not LCD

[The Teej]

Wanted to throw this out there.

LCD still gets burn in, it's not as common, but it happens despite the anti-burn in advances.

My Samsung 43" LCD has a faint ghost image of the Cartoon Network HD Logo that shows up under certain image backgrounds, despite the pixel shifting, and the utility to try and remove the ghost image. Ghosting is also not covered under "warranty" with samsung either.

Note: I watch a LOT of cartoon network in, far more than any other station.

Many thanks, I wasn't aware this issue was still prevalent. To be fair, I'll be watching a fair amount of movies with this so hopefully this won't be too much of an issue with me :laugh:

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Quick Edit, Meant Plasma not LCD

[Daedroth]

LCD or even LED if you can find a good deal would probably suit your budget best.

Richer Sounds often do some good deals for TVs. I bought my 37" Samsung 1080p with Freeview HD for ?330 just after Christmas. Check out these deals: http://www.richersounds.com/products/home-cinema/lcd-and-plasma/lcd-led-tvs#4

Also, keep a look out on supermarket websites, such as Asda or Tesco. They often have great deals too.

Basically, you're after a good screen size, good contrast ratio (makes the blacks blacker I think...10,000:1 is better than 1,000:1 for example), good response time (lower ms/milliseconds are better) and a good price.

[Copernic Reporter]

I have a friend like you. I purchased my LG Plasma TV 2 years ago and told him to get one too but he is still looking. Stop reading internet reviews; go to your local shop and buy the one you like.

[The Evil Overlord]

Personally, for that outlay, I'd recommend the panasonic viera range, but that's purely because it's what I did.

I went to Curry's, bought an older 50 inch, bought an extended warranty, and got change from ?600.

I made sure it is full 1080p 600htz. And if anything happens to it. I get an identical one from the current range (assuming there are none left in stock)

They can image burn if you leave a game or something on pause for too long, so there is a downside... but this is the only downside I've experienced. And it will fix itself if I leave it on channel dave or something similar.

Some do say they use more power than lcd's but in all honesty I'm yet to see the difference in my electric bill.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Also, pay attention to the "Native Resolution".

My plasma can do 1080p, but native resolution is 720p.

When I force content to 720p (ex set remove 1080 options on ps3), it looks a bit better, but at times I can't tell.

Despite burn in potential, plasma does feature darker backs, and have very fast response times.

It tends to suffer from glare, however.

LCD are better in bright rooms, suffer from less glare.

I do know LCD has made strides to have better black, but not sure how far they come.

Refresh rates on LCD's have also progressed greatly.

The next HD standard is also coming out "UHDTV" or 2k/4k (same standard, different label) is coming out.

But they're going to be very expensive and there's not content for it at present.

The only real benefit of the new hd standards at this time will be hd data projectors and passive 3d tv's (flicker free).

[The Teej]

Does anybody have any specific recommendations w/ model number?

[Myrdhinn]

Here's one of the best resources to find out about plasma's and lcd tv's.

http://www.avsforum.com/f/

[HawkMan]

I would also like some form of motion smoothing as well, such as LG's TruMotion tech.

No you don't. firstly, it's one of the many reasons for input lag, secondly, it cases the picture to appear asif it'sunderwater, making a ~1inch "wave" around all moving elements on the screen. particularly visible in car scenes.

[HawkMan]

Wanted to throw this out there.

(Edit) Plasma still gets burn in, it's not as common, but it happens despite the anti-burn advances.

My Samsung 43" Plasma has a faint ghost image of the Cartoon Network HD Logo that shows up under certain image backgrounds, despite the pixel shifting, and the utility to try and remove the ghost image. Ghosting is also not covered under "warranty" with samsung either.

Note: I watch a LOT of cartoon network in, far more than any other station.

(Edit) Meant Plasma, not LCD

Several things wrong here.

first things first. Don't EVER buy a samsung plasma, buy Panasonic firstly, then LG if you Absolutely can't get a Panasonic, and if you're absolutely desperate and you can't even import, then you can consider a Samsung. Samsung suffered worse burn ins(image retention the last 5 years actually) than any other brand, faster and easier than any other brand for longer than any other brand.

Secondly, Samsung actually DOES consider image burn in a faulty panel and will service the TV for free to replace the panel if it has burn in. that's over here anyway.

As far as Panasonic go, they have something called the 5 day guarantee for image burn in. Something about the TV being able to be on for 5 days without burn in, provided it's not a static paused picture. TV logos should not burn in in those 5 days as I recall.

Personally, for that outlay, I'd recommend the panasonic viera range, but that's purely because it's what I did.

I went to Curry's, bought an older 50 inch, bought an extended warranty, and got change from ?600.

I made sure it is full 1080p 600htz. And if anything happens to it. I get an identical one from the current range (assuming there are none left in stock)

They can image burn if you leave a game or something on pause for too long, so there is a downside... but this is the only downside I've experienced. And it will fix itself if I leave it on channel dave or something similar.

Some do say they use more power than lcd's but in all honesty I'm yet to see the difference in my electric bill.

Panasonic has several option to fix or reduce burn in.

1: new panels take a long time to burn in/get image retention

2: you can turn on a special image shift function that will essentially eliminate the risk, by moving the picture 1 pixel every now and then.

3: most of their TV's also have a burn in remove that removes burn in by flashing the screen or something black and white.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

I've had Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Sony HDTV's, and through personal experience, I feel that Sony are the best all-rounder when it comes to features, interface speed, audio and picture quality. Although if you're connecting to external audio equipment then I would probably buy a Panasonic.

I would personally not buy a Plasma because of the restrictions on tilting the tv vertically, but that's a personal preference.. A lot of people will never tilt their tv's that far. :p

[AnDom]

I did significant research when replacing my DLP not long ago.... the happy medium really depends on what you are trying to do.

For a room with controlled light, plasma was pretty much the hands down winner for movies... some of them also have significantly better response times then LED/LCD for gaming, but personally I've never found that to be an issue for anything but fighting games. As other have said, the downside for gaming on a plasma is burn-in... in my own experience (Panasonic), ghosting can happen even after a short period of time (especially when the set is first turned on), but generally goes away quickly so long as you don't have static content for long periods of time.

I have yet to have "permanent" burn-in, but for example after playing nothing but Bioshock Infinite for 50+ hours (not consecutively), remnants of the health bars were visible on all white screens, and didn't completely go away until 20+ hours of watching other content.

LCD/LED work better in places where lighting cannot be easily controlled, and largely do not suffer burn-in (though most of the ones I've seen have uneven coloring), but tend to have poor response time.

All that said, personally what I ended up doing was using the Plasma for movies and games that I don't play for long periods of time, and then bought a very low response LCD computer monitor (w/ HDMI) for playing things like fighting games/FPS/anything with really static UI's etc.

[HawkMan]

As far as PQ goes

LCD:

- brighter picture, sometimes to bright.

- Lack of detail in bright and dark areas due to the technology. the backlight has to shine through the panel, this causes issues with burning out the highlights and not enough control on the dark areas and you lose details. can be improved by running the screen in movie mode, with brightness set to at most 50, that increases the panels ability to control the light by an order of magnitude, as the panel doesn't have to fight the light so to say.

- gaming modes have reduced PQ due to the way the panel is change to shift color faster in game mode, essentially the pixels will never go to full saturation but only 50% before going back in order to shift fast enough. of course you can generally game on movie mode as well the panel will be fast enough anyway as long as all the post processing is of.

- light bleeding. ALL even the top end LCD panels suffer from light bleeding. go to a store, look at a samsung 8000 series and get it to show a black picture or a very dark one, the powerful store light might camouflage it though, and watch the left and right edges of the screen, particularly the corners and you'll see they are brighter than the middle of the screen. can be reduced by the same 50% brightness trick mentioned earlier, it's what these screens should be run at anyway.

- 3D, IF you care about 3D. there's something important to know about LCD and 3D. in effect all LCD's are usually half the frequency they're advertised as, a 400 screen is in effect 200, but appears as if it's 400 due to the motion smoothing. anyway, an LCD can't shift pixel colors very fast. it's fast enough that you don't get ghosting or streaking or invisible footballs on normal viewing. BUT for 3D it has some issued. active 3D(the best 3D in effect) works by changing the picture 60/100/200 times a second depending on the screen. a 400hz(200hz) LCD can't actually fully change the picture from black to white 200 times a second, even though that's what it's supposed to be able to. This means you will get something called crosstalk, or in plain English, ghosting/double vision in your 3D. your left eye will see a ghost of the right eye picture and visa versa. Passive 3D on the other hand has other technological and PQ issues such as jagged edges.

Plasma:

- Not as bright as LCD. not necessarily a bad thing

- true 180 degree viewing angle. same picture quality even when not viewed straight on.

- Full true spectrum contrast. while a LCD can have high contrast when measured form black to white(dynamic). a Plasma has darker blacks and full details in shadow and highlight areas.

- For gaming a Plasma panel is faster than LCD. though for most you don't notice, the input delay is about the same on both types and low enough it doesn't matter. the panel itself is course much faster at shifting. but again, in regular usage LCD is fast enough it doesn't matter much. could have more of an effect on newer 50/60 FPS media and games. But nothing major

- No light bleeding, each pixel makes it's own light.

- no reduced PQ in game mode.

- 3D, again only IF you care about 3D. Plasma has had virtually no crosstalk issues since they where first released with active 3D. the 600Hz plasma screen, with 0.001ms reaction time is more than fast enough to keep up with the active shutter glasses, even up to much smoother 400hz active 3D. Stay away from passive screens here to as active is far better on plasma anyway.

- Price: Plasma is far better on your wallet compared to LCD. and generally, as far as panasonic go, and as long as you're inside the 1080p range, they all in reality use the same panel. the difference between them is the coating of the glass, the user variables and the panel driver, giving the more expensive TV's slightly better blacks.

For your price range, you should be able to get one of the cheaper Panasonic 1080P Plasma models in the last gen 50 or the new 60 range. But if your room as Windows placed so they would reflect on the tv into your sitting position(generally right behind you) you might consider going up a model for better coating. LG plasma's are really cheap and generally score very high on PQ, BUT they're not quite as good quality as Panasonic AND IF something should happen to them, the reason they're cheaper is because LG decided the best place to cut money is in the Customer support department, and to avoid repairing their products as much as possible, basically, expect to fight for your legally required warranty rights.

I've had Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Sony HDTV's, and through personal experience, I feel that Sony are the best all-rounder when it comes to features, interface speed, audio and picture quality. Although if you're connecting to external audio equipment then I would probably buy a Panasonic.

I would personally not buy a Plasma because of the restrictions on tilting the tv vertically, but that's a personal preference.. A lot of people will never tilt their tv's that far. :p

What, are you mounting them in your roof or something.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

What, are you mounting them in your roof or something.

No, but just knowing that tilting too far can damage the tv is enough for me to want to avoid them completely. :p It's an expensive item to accidentally damage!

[HawkMan]

For a room with controlled light, plasma was pretty much the hands down winner for movies... some of them also have significantly better response times then LED/LCD for gaming, but personally I've never found that to be an issue for anything but fighting games. As other have said, the downside for gaming on a plasma is burn-in... in my own experience (Panasonic), ghosting can happen even after a short period of time (especially when the set is first turned on), but generally goes away quickly so long as you don't have static content for long periods of time.

Plasma TV's do have a Burn int/run in time(unfortunate crash of terms). generally the manual suggest that for the first not sure what it ids on new tv's, but it used to be 50 hours you shouldn't have much static images on the screen. after that however they are much harder to get image retention on.

No, but just knowing that tilting too far can damage the tv is enough for me to want to avoid them completely. :p It's an expensive item to accidentally damage!

It's not entirely true though. the rule is generally there for long transport hauls. and the reason is due to how the TV's are packed. generally they're supported on the sides and Plasma's tend to be heavier. This means that if they're laid flat during long transport hauls. the middle of the TV will start to sag under the weight, slightly deforming the TV and potentially damaging it. Same rule applies to large and heavier LCD's to now that 50+ is so common.

Never seen anything about tilting limits on Plasma's though, and I know they have been mounted at 90 degree angle in roofs without issues before.

[TAZMINATOR]

I have a 50" plasma TV... I usually watch movies/shows and play Xbox games... No burn-in images on my screen.

Plasma TVs use lot of watts... charge you lot on your bill... depends on how much TV you use.

LCD/LED TVs use less watts.... not a problem.

Like others say... do not play still images on your screen too long... otherwise you get burn-in images...

Good luck with TV purchase.

I've had Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Sony HDTV's, and through personal experience, I feel that Sony are the best all-rounder when it comes to features, interface speed, audio and picture quality. Although if you're connecting to external audio equipment then I would probably buy a Panasonic.

I would personally not buy a Plasma because of the restrictions on tilting the tv vertically, but that's a personal preference.. A lot of people will never tilt their tv's that far. :p

I have no problems with that... I have swivel/tilt-mount on my wall for my TV.

[Lamp0]

I have a 40" Samsung LED & it's great!!

The only thing that bothers me about it is a subtle flicker on the screen from the backlight (I don't know what the technical term is).

It's really obvious when the backlight is set low. But it can still be visible when it's all the way up. It depends whats on the screen. It can be really prominent when using menus in games for example.

I generally get around it by using the LED Motion Plus. It removes the flicker, But it also dims the screen. I don't really notice any other difference with it.

[HawkMan]

Plasma TVs use lot of watts... charge you lot on your bill... depends on how much TV you use.

LCD/LED TVs use less watts.... not a problem.

The reality is that the power usage isn't that different. a large plasma will use between 180-220 Watts, a large LCD will use around 120-140. the difference is about a single old lightbulb and won't really affect your power bill much. your heater and AC has a much bigger effect in a single day than this has the whole year.

[The Teej]

Many thanks for all of your advice guys, I've definitely learned some extra stuff here! I have decided to go with this model:

http://www.hughesdirect.co.uk/vision/televisions/pan-txp50st50b/product

I've seen it in store and it looks absolutely amazing. Once again, thanks for all of your advice!

[HawkMan]

You should be very happy with that.

[+virtorio MVC]

That's a fantastic TV.

[(Account no longer active)]

What makes me most upset about modern TVs is their rubbish sound.

My old (30" or whatever it was) Sony Trinitron CRT TV had true hi-fi sound. I used to listen to CDs on it because it sounded so good. Today, even on a high-end LCD, you get average sound. You're expected to spend and extra $300 to $1,000 on a sound bar/hi-fi system.

Once again, manufactures are focusing on form instead of function.

I know what you mean - it's so damn hard to find a "good" TV these days.

[HawkMan]

What makes me most upset about modern TVs is their rubbish sound.

My old (30" or whatever it was) Sony Trinitron CRT TV had true hi-fi sound. I used to listen to CDs on it because it sounded so good. Today, even on a high-end LCD, you get average sound. You're expected to spend and extra $300 to $1,000 on a sound bar/hi-fi system.

Once again, manufactures are focusing on form instead of function.

I know what you mean - it's so damn hard to find a "good" TV these days.

HiFi Sound, not so much, but older TV's did have better sound yes(the only TV's that could claim HiFi sound was B&O). however you're not going to get good speakers in a flat TV, Grundig actually has decent sound on theirs though.

Just get a soundbar or a pair of PC speakers if you need good sound though. that high def flat screen that's far better than your old sony, remember in pure price and especially if you calculate inflation in there to, costs a fraction of your old Trinitron. so you can afford to buy a decent soundbar with it.