I’m about to buy an HDTV. I know I need something that’s 1080p and 32 inches. It also has to have a USB port and the ability to play video files (the more file extensions it can play the better).
Most specs don’t seem to list what file extensions TVs support, so if anyone knows a brand that can play most video files let me know.
The TV will be hooked up to an external hard drive and an HD DVR.
The remaining questions are which brand should I buy and whether there is anything else I should consider when buying the TV?
Unless you already own or are planning on buying a Blu-ray you actually don’t need 1080p. Nobody broadcasts in 1080p anywhere, and at screen sizes lesser than 36" or so the difference is negligible to most people. YMMV.
As far as brands go, all I can tell you is try to stick to brands you already know (Sony, Samsung, etc.).
…when sitting at normal living-room viewing distances. I can see the HDTV details on my 27-inch computer screen just fine when I am sitting in front of it, but that’s a lot closer than regular couch-movie distance.
Edit: and playing computer files is a bit random. Computer video files are ‘containers’ that can contain both audio and video information, and both of these can be encoded in many different ways (audio sampling rate, mono vs. stereo, video pixel resolution, etc, etc). It’s a bit of a crapshoot whether any file will play; I once had a disc player that refused to play MP3s that were encoded with other than 128 kbit/s sampling rate.
How close do you plan on sitting to your 32" 1080p TV?
According to this chart, you have to sit 4 ft from one to get the full benefit of 1080p. Between 4 and 7 feet, there’ll be a noticeable benefit to 1080p but not as much. Beyond 7 ft, there’ll be absolutely no noticeable difference between 1080p and 720p.
The room that this TV will be in is eight feet in length. Depending on where the TV ends up I’ll be sitting around seven feet away from it at most. So it looks like 1080p is a good fit for me.