Help me find a television!

[Ignatius]

Quality & size. We've got a 27" currently, and I'd like to keep it around the same size. I've never owned an HDTV before so I'll probably be blown away by the picture no matter what, but I'd still like to have the full 1080p if it's possible at that price.

There are a handful of 32" 1080p sets, but I doubt you'll find one for less than $500. I wanted 1080p when I was shopping for an HDTV, but I couldn't afford it and it made me glum. However, when I hooked up the 720, the picture was such a huge improvement over what I was used to that I'm not sure 1080p would have made a difference to me. Next time, I'll look into it. I think you can probably find a decent 26-32" set at your price. Go to a store just to check out sizes. When you're really used to SD screens, it's hard to compare the dimensions intuitively. At least, it was for me. When my tv showed up it was much bigger than I expected.

[diesel_powered]

With what you want to spend, you're looking at between a 22 and 26 inch without cutting corners on cheapo brands. At that size, you're not really going to notice the difference between 720p and 1080p unless you plan on sitting a foot away from the screen. Incidentally, you're supposed to sit closer to HDTVs. THX guidelines put optimal viewing distance for a 50" television (I assume at 1080p) at about 6 feet. At average viewing distance (8-10 feet) you don't really notice the jump in resolution much above 42 inches, assuming your glasses prescription is current and you're sitting really close to the screen. In addition, the only way you'll get 1080p materials is either with a blu-ray player, off a computer, or through cable/satellite on-demand services. Nobody broadcasts in 1080p at the moment. If you have a system that works with it, 1080p is great, but it requires more than most people want to or need to invest.

Same rules apply as before. Avoid no-name crap, buy name brand. At that smaller size, Viewsonic and Sharp do really well, but pretty much any name brand will give you something decent.

[diesel_powered]

Two more things:

1. If you're considering buying an HDTV, seriously consider picking up a blu-ray player in the future as well. Aside from providing you with the most amazingly film-like presentation you've ever seen in your home (and there are technical reasons for this, I can get into them if anyone really really cares), the blu-ray player will also scale up your regular DVDs to look optimal on your fancy new HDTV. Digital TV is a bit different than analog and the technology companies have done a really shit job of educating the consumer about how to get the most out of it. That's not to say that you can't use your existing DVD player (or VCR, for that matter) and you might even squeak some better performance out of it (if you have a progressive-scan player), but chances are it wasn't built specifically to work with an HD set. It'll work, but you won't get top performance out of it.

2. Prices are going to go down as we get closer to the holidays. Prices will come down again as we get close to the Superbowl. That's just how the market works. Blu-ray players can already be had for about $150, expect a sub-$99 by the holidays.

[Greg Nog]

You can get a TV for 300 bucks, but honestly, no TV under $1500 is worth it; maybe you could just use more money to afford a better TV?

[Greg Nog]

In seriousness, though, engadget had this thinga while back; I dunno how up-to-date it is, though, as it's from almost three years ago.  And dealnews usually has a bunch of TVs on sale.  Like, here's a Memorex 32" 720p LCD HDTV for $280, for example.

[elpollodiablo]

That Memorex looks pretty much perfect.

Yeah upon further investigation d_p it doesn't look like I need 1080p anyhow. I've got no interest in blu-ray (we don't even watch DVDs, just cable & stuff from my computer) and the Xbox is only 720, anyway. *

Let's say I don't wanna spend the extra $200 on one of the classier brands... Are there any cheapies (like Memorex) that are better than others?


*Then again, 1080 is a higher number...

[diesel_powered]

Ugh. Short answer, no. You know how I feel about that.

Sceptre, Olevia, and Vizio can usually be had for cheap and I'm fairly certain all three actually manufacture their own parts (or at least design their sets around the parts they're buying). Viewsonic is also pretty excellent and you can find cheapish, reliable refurb units on the "outlet" side of their website. Like I said before, the issue with Memorex, Polaroid, Insignia, Dynex, Westinghouse, Magnavox, RCA, Advent, etc. is that they cobble together their sets out of whatever cheapo components they can find at any given time instead of designing them around parts manufactured for that specific model. For the most part, those "brands" aren't even who they used to be, historically. They're just some cheapo manufacturer that's licensing the name from the remains of the previous company. It's like going to a junkyard and building a car out of whichever parts you can find cheapest. Yeah, it'll probably run, but not as well as just getting something off the assembly line where everything is designed to fit together. Ultimately, $300 is a perfectly acceptable budget for a good TV in the size range you're looking for and you shouldn't have to settle for something cheap and unreliable. Hold on to your money and keep an eye out for sales. Now really isn't the most ideal time to be shopping for a TV and like I said, prices are going to come down around the holidays.

That being said, if you really don't care and just want stopgap until you plan on replacing it a couple years down the road (assuming it lasts that long), then just get whatever is biggest for the money. Most of the no-name brands all use pretty similar bulk panels and assuming you luck out with dead pixels, etc. it'll get a picture on the screen. Google to make sure nobody has had problems with hooking up the Xbox, etc. One of the major problems with the Westinghouse I have is that the engineering on the HDMI input (the ideal hook up for HD sources) is so shit that the copy protection doesn't handshake properly with other devices. This means that I can't hook up my nice blu-ray player over HDMI and have limited resolution options, particularly with playing DVDs. Also, I'd recommend buying it at a brick and mortar shop that you can hassle about return policy instead of buying online. At least then on the off chance that you do run into trouble, you can argue with a person at a store instead of a faceless customer service department.

[diesel_powered]

And if you happen to find a 1080p set in your size and price range, it's not going to look worse than the 720p set. If anything, you can stick it somewhere where you would be watching it from two feet away or use it as a secondary computer monitor if you pick up something else later.

[milly balgeary]

man! you should really go at least 32. you can get a knockoff lcd 32 incher for 300 probably. at that budget, you can't expect it to last years and years (maybe a year max), but you'll want to go bigger by that point, and prices will be down, anyway.

[girl]

Do you not see buying something that large that you know you'll be replacing in a year as bad for the planet?

[diesel_powered]

He could recycle it?

[Andrew_TSKS]

Do you not see buying something that large that you know you'll be replacing in a year as bad for the planet?

Milly does not strike me as someone who ever considers anything on anywhere near that long-term a basis.

[milly balgeary]

i'm sorry andrew, i didn't know you were part of captain planet. what's up next for you, young planeteer?

[Andrew_TSKS]

He also seems unable to differentiate between original text and quoted text.

[girl]

I missed that. Hilarious.

(Does this mean I get to be Captain Planet?)

[Andrew_TSKS]

Totally.

[diesel_powered]

What's yr power?

[girl]

I hope it's setting people on fire with my mind!

[diesel_powered]

I'm down.

[auto-da-fey]

hey diesel, thanks for the advice upthread. I just picked up a Panasonic 32" at Best Buy, on sale for $399. no service plan, so it'll probably die in precisely 28 days, but if that happens, I guess I'll consider it a four-hundred-dollar lesson that I should in the future put security before my bold warranty-ubermensch stance.

here it is in action

[diesel_powered]

Sweet! Looks awesome. Make sure you hook up your DVD player through component video (that'd be the little red, green, and blue RCA connectors) for best picture. You also should be able to get your local stations in HD with a good set of bunny ears if you care about that sort of thing.

I've had some experience with Panasonic warranty repairs in the past and they're usually good about having an actual shop you can take it to if you need service. I wouldn't sweat not having Best Buy insurance on it, if it explodes within the first year you should be pretty well covered. And, usually, stuff like that is either D.O.A. or lasts forever.

[auto-da-fey]

So far so good with the new TV, but I just tried to hook up my laptop for Netflix instant viewing, and I'm confused about the best way to do this. When I set it to fullscreen, it looks kinda stretched out, like this:



The only other option, as far as I can tell, is 4:3, which seems better on aspect ration but leaves the image boxed on all fronts:



Is there a trick I don't know to blow that image up? The instruction manual recommends Input-->PC adjustments-->Input resolution, but in practice the Input resolution is not an accessible option--it shows up on the menu, but I can't select it.

My other idea is the remote-control Format button; with DVDs it allows 4 options: Full/Just/4:3/Zoom. I would think the Zoom here would do it, but it's not an option when projecting Netflix, just Full and 4:3.

[diesel_powered]

Mac or PC? How are you hooking it up?

[YojimboMonkey]

Get an Xbox 360 for Netflix viewing, also get the games we recommend to you and play them online with us

seriously though I don't ever hook up my PC to the TV so I don't have much in the way of ideas, weird that it gives you limited options with that input.  Are you hooking it up via SVideo or does the TV have a direct VGA or DVI option?  Or are you mister fancypants HDMI?

[elpollodiablo]

hey diesel, thanks for the advice upthread. I just picked up a Panasonic 32" at Best Buy, on sale for $399. no service plan, so it'll probably die in precisely 28 days, but if that happens, I guess I'll consider it a four-hundred-dollar lesson that I should in the future put security before my bold warranty-ubermensch stance.

here it is in action

Nice! This is exactly the size & type of TV I've got my heart set on, and I'm hoping I can get one for three hundo or less around the holidays.