Tell me again about flat screen televisions

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So we’ve determined that our big toy acquisition for the holidays will be the flat screen television, finally.

I’m initially leaning towards an LCD over a plasma for pricing and technology issues. But I’m not wed to it.

Here’s what I want:

  1. Something light enough to wall mount.
  2. Something with sufficient jacks to handle cable input, Wii, and DVD player.
  3. Price range between $1000 - $1500

We don’t watch a ton of television, I admit. But videogaming and movies are there significantly, especially with the younger set in the house.

So educate me, Dopers. Bring me your tired, your poor, your spaced out in front of the TV-types. Let them yearn to breathe freely in the confines of my living room.

2
  1. How big?

It’s possible to spend $1500 and get everything you want, and have it be too damn big to watch. Sort of like sitting in the front row at the movies. How far from the screen is your comfy chair going to be?

3

If you don’t want your electric bill to jump by as much as $150 then get an LCD. Robert Heron recommends Vizio, ViewSonic, and Westinghouse.

4

Some of those brands are other brands. Vizio is made by Samsung, for example.

5

True, and I’d be willing to bet that the bulk of the components were all sourced from the same suppliers. (As in Samsung uses the same parts as Sony.)

6

1 LCDs are lighter than plasma

2 The monitor you linked to has 1 HDMI (for HD cable), 1 component input (DVD player) and 1 S-video (Wii). If you can, it’s a lot easier to plug all three into the surround sound system.

3 LCDs are cheaper than plasma.

The only downside to LCDs is black. Plasma screens do black a lot better than an LCD, but unless you’re some sort of über-geek, you’ll never notice the difference.

7

I was thinking of starting a thread like this. I actually have two models in mind, both LCDs: a 40" Samsung (LN-T4065) and a 46" Samsung (LN-T4661). The 46" is about $200 more than the 40"

The differences besides size seem to be that the contrast ratio on the 40" is slightly better, and it has the glossy screen.

But now I’m intrigued with the Vizio… it’s a Samsung? Really?

FTR, the max distance from my big sofa to the wall is 18 ft. Probably will watch from a distance of 6 ft from the side to the 18 ft.

I’m a cheap bastard and probably won’t buy another TV for another 10 years… any recs?

8

I have a Sharp Aquos 42" LCD on a wall mount. It’s great. I’ve only had trouble watching things that were very, very dark and low contrast. Matrix and Supernatural are both fine, for instance. I looked at the Samsung too, but decided the Sharp had a better viewing angle and slightly better picture.

9

You guys are maybe operating at a ‘7’, here. Can we dial it down a bit? Maybe to ‘3’?

Assume I know little except what a pixel is and that more is (probably) better. Oh, also assume that I know that a smaller footprint is desirable. Part of my motivation for this is to claim back that large part of the living room near the fireplace in which the current television sits.

I’ve looked at models ranging from 40" - 46" because that seemed to be in my price range. But otherwise I’m flying blind.

10

Plasma gives better picture quality than LCD but is more expensive, heavier, and costs more to run. Neither are light enough to mount purely on plasterboard: you must mount the frame onto the wooden frame behind or onto brick. Be careful of the colour depths. Some displays don’t give a full 8 bits (or more) per colour channel, leading to banding. Remember 16-bit colour on PCs?

Don’t be gulled by salesmen who tell you that plasmas will wear out. Their life expectancy - 50,000 hours or more - is only an issue if you’re going to have the display on 24/7. Plasmas can still suffer from burn-in, though, but not so badly as they used to.

Be aware of the difference in being able to take a 1080p signal and being a 1080p display.

Your display should accept 1080p at 24 fps for proper display of videos.

You want 2 or 3 HDMI sockets, which should be v1.3. HDMI is the HD display connector and carries both sound and video. v1.3 is the standard. If you don’t use HDMI your HD picture may be degraded.

You also want 2-3 SCART connectors for non-HD devices.

There are two main HD standards: 720 and 1080. These refer to the number of horizontal lines on the display. They come in interlaced and progressive versions. You want a 1080p display. This has a resolution of 1920x1080.

Next you should consider the size. Just like computer monitors, the measurement is along the diagonal. It’s not a case of the bigger the better, because if you sit to close the picture quality deteriorates. For me, sitting at 9-10 foot, 42"-50" is about right, but with a full 1080p display, they’d be fine at 6 foot for gaming. If you’re not buying a High Definition source, then you need to consider how Standard Definition pictures will display at your viewing distance. At 9’ distance, 42" is on the upper limit for me.

Your new DVD player should be capable of upscaling. Try and get one from the same manufacturer as the display so you can use the same remote for both. I’ll let someone else explain the difference between Bluray and HDDVD.

11

For gaming you should probably go with an LCD. Plasmas don’t burn in as easily anymore, but it can still happen. Most games have at least portions of the image that remain static for long periods of time, which is the very thing that causes burn in. LCDs are immune to burn in due to differences in construction. As for plasmas looking nicer, that gap is pretty narrow these days. However, you do want to see the TV in action before you buy. Cheap screens may have a low refresh rate, which can create jerky images or trails.

12

Well, given my rural location it’s liable to be Circuit City, Sears, or Wal-Mart as my acquisition destination right after the new year.

13

One downside with LCDs, which they’ve claimed to improved but which I think is still noticeable, is off-angle viewing. Specifically, if you’re more than 30-45 degrees off the perpendicular when watching, the image is noticeably dimmer. So make sure you figure out the largest angle you’ll be viewing from on your setup and try it out in the store beforehand.

. I question the numbers in that article - 1450 kw-hr per year is 165 watts in standby mode. That’s an awful lot of power to keep an IR receiver juiced up. My Panasonic plasma claims to use 0.9 watts in standby.

14

Another question:

Can I mount a flat screen above a wood fireplace?

Would the potential heat and ash mess be detrimental to the electonics? (assuming that the fire is of normal size and contained in the fireplace).

Eli