I’m probably one of the last Mohican’s rocking old-school crt tv’s throughout the house, but I am planning to buy a HD TV this summer and finally upgrade to the higher resolutions of visual enjoyment .
Still all this info on the internets and models to choose from leaves me rather confused what tv I should best buy. The budget isn’t spectacular, I’m hoping to find something good between the 400 - 500 euro price range.
Any tips or models spring to mind Renoise users? Maybe tips on what brands/types NOT to buy? Trustworthy comparison sites would also be cool. I’ve googled, but most finds are online shop sponsored or old.
I want something that best displays the current gen consoles (360/ps3), do these current gen games even output to 1080p?
I like LG. They use blackbox linux so the firmware sourcecode is available, I haven’t seen anything for mods yet though, but I haven’t really looked in several months.
I spent a few weeks looking for mine, it is tricky.
May possibly want to wait though, because there is the introduction of google tv into the market coming soon.
Samsung. Look for one with “Game mode”. Most new LCD’s have it. It reduces delay. Oh and don’t bother getting anything over 60hz refresh. Its all bullshit interpolating and 60hz looks the most natural anyways. I love my Samsung!
+1000 on the Samsung… everyone I know who has one loves it, and the picture quality’s always great.
Typically the higher refresh rates (120+) are for 3d shutter glasses support. If you want 3d enabled, you’re going to be paying a bit extra, as less than 60fps models can’t produce 3d without literally causing headache due to flicker.
I went to projector and will never go back to TV. The quality of a good projector is every bit as good as a tv, but the one factor is that with a projector you need a reasonably dim room. Lights are fine (a dimmer helps) but direct bright sunlight doensn’t work well. If you are installing one in a bright room best to go with a white screen.
All that being said, in every other way I prefer projectors. You get about 100x more for your money!
I just read up on google tv and it is coming this fall, that’s to long for me to wait + the technology also will be available through a set-up box or how you call it? So one doesn’t necessarily have to get a new tv with the google functionality build in to enjoy it.
thanks for the game mode tip, never heard about it.
As much I like to be ready for the 3d future, I don’t think my budget will reach any of the +60hz type models , but maybe I’m wrong?
You mean a HD beamer? Yeah, I have very good experiences with beamers and love to have one, they’re getting cheaper every year, definitely an option, though my room isn’t the best dimm’able place. Maybe later, first things first…
Make sure it has MPEG4 decoding. In Denmark broadcasters will transmit in that format from 2012, so many people who bought a flat-screen not long ago will have to use a seperate decoding box when it switches.
Disclaimer: I’m not a TV freak, so there is a slight possibilty I may be wrong, just check up on it…
I third the Samsung LCDs. For the price you’ve quoted you’ll probably have to go for a 5 series. What size you looking at?
Although personally I don’t even own a telly and we have an old, 4:3 CRT in our house. I have worked in television/satellite broadcasting for the last seven years or so though, so do have a fair idea of the technology although I barely watch or care about TV myself.
Samsung LE32B650, LE37B650 or LE40B650, depending on your budget. The difference is only the size of the display. Bought mine last year when it was new on the market and i’m very satisfied with it. You get 100hz, USB with NTFS HDD support to watch MKVs (with a few restrictions like AC3 only, no DTS and up to High Profile 4.1 support), AVI and other popular media formats. But more important is, that it supports true 24hz output for stutter free Blu-ray playback. The TV has also a few internet gimmicks which i didn’t find really useful though, like Youtube video support and weather reporting. A friend tested his PS3 too on my TV and it worked without problems. Most PS3 games aren’t outputting a full 1080p resolution though, the consoles are simply to weak for this so it get’s upscaled from 720p.
mp4 is a compression file format right? My current crt tv can output mp4s that I play of my xbox just fine, not sure what you mean with decoding but I’ll keep my eyes open.
Not a particular size that I want to buy, but hope to at least get one that is bigger as the current 70 cm I’m looking at. Almost all the HD TV’s within the budget I’m looking at in the shops are bigger than that, so it’ll work out fine
Thanks for naming brand and type Byte, have them written down. I posted the same thread on other forums and it seems like the Samsungs are getting the most love.
Yes, it’s a compression format. In your case you use your XBOX to decode the format (right?), but imagine if your TV provider sent this format directly to your TV, then the TV should be able to decode MPEG4 too.
Right now broadcasters use MPEG2 I believe, but in the future they will likely shift to MPEG4 completely, the date in Denmark is 2012, too bad many people still buy MPEG2 TV’s because they are cheap, so they’ll run into some trouble in 2012 and probably need to buy an extra box to convert the signal.
Actually both DVB-T and DVB-T2 standards support both MPEG2 and H264 (MPEG4) encoding. It is true that the majority of broadcasters are using MPEG2 currently though, which actually quite surprised me when I first found out, and you are correct in that it can be hard to find out which standards are supported by a decoder. Not even one that supports H.264 with necessarily be able to deal with all Profiles or Levels that may be used in transmission. One of the good things about H.264 is that it is scalable, so even if your hardware doesn’t support the higher level it can still access and decode the lower ones, giving you an output even though not of optimum quality.
You probably want to check forums like avsforum.com or avforums.com (depending on region).
It’s not a big deal but some models are slightly different or have different number between the market regions.
In regard to the TV, in that price range it’s probably Samsung or LG.
They all have their flaws, depending on how critical you are.
E.g. On some Samsung models (especially the edge LED displays) they have quite bad clouding which can be seen on dark scenes (just search for it).
Not good if you’re an SciFi idiot
Plasmas have a tendeancy to degrade after X hours (even the newer Panasonic displays, search the net again).
Then again, if you’re looking for a TV in a €500 range then you’re probably going to forgive more than if you bought one for €2.5k-3k
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+ the technology also will be available through a set-up box or how you call it? So one doesn’t necessarily have to get a new tv with the google functionality build in to enjoy it.
