Can we talk televisions?

[groucho]

I'm gonna get a new TV. Nothing crazy. I'm not the guy that needs the biggest TV in the neighborhood. So, I'm seeing a butt load of good looking pictures for around $600-$800 at Sears and Costco (around 42"). Are they still measured diagonal like my Flynstone set? So, what am i looking for? LED, LCD, LMNOP...................? Thanks

[squirrel]

probably LED.

I shop for one that has a remote with a conveniently placed MUTE button. But that's just me.

[DanStokes]

My favorite brand is WOSAC - Whatever's On Sale At Costco. So far, it's served me well. As far as type - I just go with what looks best to me in the store. Remember, they're all hooked up to the same input so the comparison is reasonably valid.

Dan

[groucho]

probably LED.

I shop for one that has a remote with a conveniently placed MUTE button. But that's just me.

Why, do your wife & kids constantly interupt while you're watching TV? LOL

[milner351]

We've gotten a couple in the last few years, both from tiger direct super sales, one a vizio, the other LG, happy with both, we are not videophiles however.

The one annoying feature of the LG is some kind of auto powersaving mode that dims the screen at night.... we turn it off so the screen is full brightness all the time.

[Scott Liggett]

42" is plenty big unless your living room is huge.

I'd get one with the screen surround is black. For some reason the picture is better than the ones that are silver.

LED's are the new type of screen. Light Emitting Display.

[Ron Ward]

I recently purchased a Vizio and am very happy with it. I chose it with a tape measure. I did some modifications to my solid oak entertainment center (originally set up for a 27" CRT) and was able to plop a 42" unit right in and still retain all my stereo and surround equipment.


Ron

[Vegaman]

So here's a question then. Not trying to hijack as this may pertain to the original question, but ..with a CRT screen you had to have speakers that were magnetically shielded, does this still apply with the LED and Plasma TV's?

[JOES66FURY]

I'd go for whatever LED is on sale in the size you want. I have a Panasonic LCD and a sony LED, the LED picture is okay in reg diff but blows away the pic quality of the LCD...and I think the LED stand up better over time. My LCD is about 8 years old and I am starting to get a large dark spot where I suspect the kids hit it with something...no one will own up to it of course but...thats kids I guess.

[squirrel]

there are two types of displays: plasma and LCD. The LED thing is the backlight--either it is LED or CCFL (flourescent tube). The LED backlight should last forever, but the CCFL will fade after several years. LED backlit LCD tvs also use less electricity compared to Plasma and CCFL.

CRTs use magnetic deflection to "draw" the picture on the screen, but the modern digital TVs don't, so there's no need to shield them from normal magnetic fields, or degauss them.

[pdub]

So here's a question then. Not trying to hijack as this may pertain to the original question, but ..with a CRT screen you had to have speakers that were magnetically shielded, does this still apply with the LED and Plasma TV's?

With reasonable confidence, I'd wager "no." The technology is different. The CRT's have/had color guns that excited phosphors on the inside of the picture tube. Daddy bought us a color TV way early in the game, and Mama right away ran the vacuum cleaner near it and it Gaussed the picture tube. Mama just knew she had ruined it, but the TV guy came and waved his magic circular wand in front of the picture tube and fixed it right back up again.

We've got a 50" Sanyo from WalMart and a 60" LG from Tiger Direct. Both are the meter-zinging heat-the-room-up plasmas. We only ordered the 60" from Tiger direct because they didn't sell anything that big in the local stores. I'd recommend Tiger Direct to anybody, if ordering one on the net.

For a long time, the plasmas were said to have the best picture, but these days it's probably a matter of opinion. With the LCD/LED ones, they've mastered the indirect-view problem those had early on. Like, if you're not directly in front of the screen, there was no visible picture. They've fixed that.

And the plasmas are heavy - our 60" weighs 180 pounds. The LCD/LED ones are light enough to hang on the wall if you want to go that route. The plasma was the way to go for a big screen early on, compared to the mini-van sized projection screens, but the picture quality came at the expense of weight and power consumption.

To do it all over again, in today's market, I'd go with one of the L-ones versus plasma. And the cool thing is they keep getting bigger, lighter, AND cheaper as time goes on.

But the one awe-inspiring thing about the REALLY big screen is Hi-Def. Man, that's...just like seeing TV for the very first time again. WOW. When we got the 50" we didn't have a Hi-Def setup here and it was just a big ass TV screen. It took a couple weeks to get hooked up on a Hi-Def service (We were renting an apartment here at the time) and when that got turned on.....WOW.

[squirrel]

high def these days means stringing a wire up somewhere to pull in broadcast TV signals. But I guess you could pay for it every month if you really want to.

[Monk]

I like LED and any brand that begins with S

[pdub]

high def these days means stringing a wire up somewhere to pull in broadcast TV signals. But I guess you could pay for it every month if you really want to.

Yeah, that was another thing. When the local broadcast stations went Hi Def, it really had Direct TV on the ropes. Lot of houses including ours for a time, had two dishes on the roof, one for network and another one for "other."

I'd never thought about it until now, but I wonder how many millions of dollars it took Direct TV to hardware up for that transition. Like they didn't see it coming. Like they weren't ready.

[skullbucket]

Plasma is for darker lit rooms.
We have a 55" vizio in the living room and a 42" Sanyo in the basement. Both 1080P and both are LCD.