Thread: TV or not TV......

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

Our very old...by tv standards....plasma tv is starting to show its age....the picture is still very good , but its operations are playing up vis not able to use both hdmi inputs, switching itself on and it will be on all night, or wont switch off, audio outputs playing up, plus.

We've had Philips tvs forever but we've had this one so long have no idea where to start as far as brands go.

let the forum be my guide....in 55" (why do they still use inches) does anyone offer good advice or have bad reports?

good time to buy now as well being eofy.

cheers Den

I found that going from a 42" 14 yr old panasonic plasma to a 50" 4 year old Samsung smart led very difficult. They are great for newer shows and movies but anything before like 2010 (guess) can look terrible at first and take some time getting used too. After a while you get used to the brighter colours and more frames per second but I still prefer to use my old plasma if I want to watch anything in it's original format mainly 90s and older shows and movies.
Even newer movies can be difficult to watch if your used to the plasma, a good example would be the lord of the rings. I have them on bluray and watching them on the plasma in 1080p was great, watching them on the newer TV everything looks extremely fake and badly animated because of the clarity and frames per second.
Having the newer TV for a few years I'm now used to it and watch anything without thinking it looks weird.
All depends what you into I guess but I'm happy with Samsung now, I also have a 32" 6 yr Panasonic lcd which is basically the same picture as my plasma just sharper and brighter which I prefer over the Samsung.

One thing you won't miss from the plasma is the power consumption

Cheers

I've found most newer TVs have "enhancement" modes which upscale, interpolate and try to perform motion prediction in order to present a "better" picture. These always default to on. If you can figure out how to turn them off so the TV is only presenting the signal in the most accurate manner you get a better result. This also includes adjusting the basics (colour, contrast and brightness) to go from "flashy" to "accurate".

Since we replaced the tube, we've had LG, Samsung and Sony flat panels. The LG was a disaster. It wasn't a fantastic telly anyway, and then the backlight failed about 3 months out of warranty. No joy from the dealer, LG or obtaining spare parts. The Samsung was an android based "Smart TV" and within about 4 years Samsung stopped supporting the software. We kept it for about 9 years before we traded up (42"->55") to a Sony. When we bought the Sony we deliberately went for the non-Android version. My wife uses Netflix on them (we liked it so much we bought a second one) and I've got them cut off at the firewall for anything except Netflix.

Once I managed to turn off all the image enhancement "features" I'm pretty happy with the picture quality. I used to exclusively use Blaupunkt CRTs because they had the most accurate colour reproduction. They looked flat compared to a Jap telly, but then the colours weren't grossly oversaturated.

The biggest thing for us is our TV used to be on about 18 hours a day and the power consumption of the older units was significant. One of the reasons I bought the Sony was the ability to turn on the "2 hour idle timer" and it's difficult enough to find in the menu that nobody in the house has been able to figure out how to disable it. It uses 1/4 of the power of the smaller unit it replaced, and it turns itself off. Win!

By Ausralian TV standards, all TV receivers use the same frame rate. The display side of things may try to do a faster rate for gaming etc but often this ends up a mess.

Plasma tvs were very prone to radiate interference to any radio type receiving device.

Back a few years a lot of models had artificial colouring and edging between shades/colours. They could not replicate facial tones and the graduations therein very well at all.

TVs are measured in imperial as the market is driven by countries that are not metricised.

If the overall colouring is not close to natural you are not setting it up correctly. Go for subtle, rather than dynamic.

Go for a better brand. Some brands are well known but still rubbish. Sansong (get my drift?) are great for features but hopless for fixing. _I won't have one.

My background - 39 years in tv studio and outside broadcast technical production.

If your finds permit a Sony Oled.

The Sony XR 80J 55” is a great TV but will set you back around $2K.

The Hisense UG8 55” is half the price but still has a decent pic.

I wanted the Sony but bought the predecessor of the UG8 a few years ago - it’s still going strong and I like it.

Be aware that the drawback of cheaper TV’s is that the Apps can be limited whereas the Sony and decent units will have full access to the android App Store so any of the streaming services apps can be downloaded.

Whatever you buy check this functionality if you’re into streaming services. I have half on the telly, a couple on the Foxtel box and the rest through my Apple TV - I navigate this fine but it is a bit of a hodge podge compared to how it would be with a better telly.

Originally Posted by rovers4

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TVs are measured in imperial as the market is driven by the country that has not metricised.
....

Fixed it for you!

You have to be care with features.

Frame refresh has largely disappeared from advertising as some manufacturers were quoting a refresh rate but it was the same image again not how often the image changed

Even within the same brand there is variance as different models that look the same are produced for different price points which impacts image quality. Need to understand the model numbers