Looking to buy a new LED HDTV, opinons wanted

[Evo_Spec]

Hey guys, i'm looking to buy a new LED TV and i'm getting really flustered and can't make a decision and was wondering if i could get some opinions, i'm not even looking for expert opinions but would like educated opinions.
Now just to clear, i do know my way around electronics quite so you guys don't have to try to explain stuff to me as i understand most of the current technologies, i mainly posted this cause i have a HARD time making decisions XD

Now onto what my preference are for TV's
-I'm very open minded to all brands as i believe no company is better than any other but i do believe off-name brands are not as good so i'd rather stick to "bigger" companies.
-I'm looking to get a 50-55" LED TV and have a budget of around 1500, i really don't mind paying more if i think it's worth it.
-I don't care for 3D at all but my budget seems to include it.
-I don't care what hertz the TV is since it's pretty useless to have anything over 60hz and because i probably won't do much more than movies/TV (opinions welcome here) (Also, PC gaming FTW!)
-I don't need a smart TV but it seems nifty, but if there's a great tv that's not a smart tv i'd definitely go that way since that's probably cheaper and i have a PS3 and hook up my computer for anything i'd need
-i would REALLY like a full array LED TV but they seem hard to come by since everyone's doing edge-lit so i might have to "settle" for an edge-lit (1st world problems XD)
-now this point isn't THAT important but the GF wants a "pretty" TV with a thin border (0-1.5") she hates how "ugly" our current one is. (well that and the burnt red dots EVERYWHERE)

Now i've been looking at these 2 TV's but would definitely take any suggestions you guys might have.
The GF and I really like how this TV looks and i do like samsung http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/ ... 66043.aspx There's another samsung 55" that is the same but without 3D but it has a thick ugly border (even i don't like it)
We were also looking at this one http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/ ... 486469en02 I know the sharp aquos has the quattron extra yellow sub pixel but does it really make a difference? i was comparing the 2 TV's and i did see a difference but i really believe that the difference will be much smaller when the TV is properly calibrated (Also the guy at futureshop offered me the 240hz Aquos for the same price as the 120hz Aquos so i'd probably get the 240hz http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/ ... 4ffff3en02)

i realize that probably only a handful of people can actually help me with this but i figured i'd give it a try anyways.
Thanks in advance.

[Nd4SpdSe]

Gaming is where Hz is THE most important.

Question, why do you want specifically LED LCD TV?

Personally, I'm a big plasma fan. I picked up a 46' Samsung LED TV a few months back cause I couldn't get a plasma at Canex, I'm not completely happy with it. People call me crazy, but I can see the bluriness in LCD's, and the 120/240Hz tv's make TV shows and movies look stupid and fake.

Don't care for 3D either, just a gimic, but i really like what Sony did with the PS3 for multiplayer.

[RS_OBD'oh_2]

I am a Samsung fan. Never liked plasma myself. I was a digital Tv installer, and now inspect the installs. I get to see many different setups.. lets call it 5 a day.. 3 sets on average/ house. I like the features and picture on the Samsungs the best.

[MrMazda92]

Gaming is where Hz is THE most important.
Personally, I'm a big plasma fan.
I really like what Sony did with the PS3 for multiplayer.

This is pretty much where I stand. I'll say this though, my plasma does seem to tire my eyes out quicker than my LCD TV. That may be in my head, but I've spent as much as 10 hours with little break in front of both, and the LCD was easier on my eyes. Granted, the plasma is a 50+", and the LCD is a 22".

I'm agreed on the PS3 thing, ALMOST enough for me to swap over from Xbox. Too bad their controllers are so cramped.

[Tavman_1213]

I got a 50 inch Samsung plasma and love it!!

[Evo_Spec]

Gaming is where Hz is THE most important.

Question, why do you want specifically LED LCD TV?

Personally, I'm a big plasma fan. I picked up a 46' Samsung LED TV a few months back cause I couldn't get a plasma at Canex, I'm not completely happy with it. People call me crazy, but I can see the bluriness in LCD's, and the 120/240Hz tv's make TV shows and movies look stupid and fake.

yeah see that's what i figure about the Hz too, but i don't watch sports or game on my tv.

Well i know plasma's now a day virtually don't have an issue with image retention and can give the deepest color contrast and stuff but the 2 plasma's i've had burnt, one i knew why it burnt when it was too late and the 2nd i got used from my brother and it was very minor but only got worse even though i used methods online to try and fix it so plasma's never really sit right with me now. The TV's going in my living room that's facing the window and because plasma's have glass they're horrible for glare, i'm hoping with the matte finish and intense brightness of LED TV's i can over come the glare.
I'm a pretty big gamer and have gamed using LCD monitor for many years so i'm very used to LCD screens as it is. Also both me and the GF turn things on and get side tracked and leave things on and i hate having to worry about burning my screen all the time. (again i'm aware plasma's are really good with that now)
Although i do want to add that if i were to setup a theater room i would definitely get a plasma.

Your not crazy, it's probably not really the "blurriness" that your seeing but the...gap? between the pixels that your seeing. (if you cram your face in your monitor you'll get what i mean, i have pretty bad eyesight so that's not an issue for me =P) I had a friend that has hawk like eyes that stuck with a CRT monitor because he would "see each pixel" till about last year when he was making so much money he didn't know what to do so he bought a 32" and 2 27" monitors lol
I also know and agree what you mean with the TV shows/movies looking fake and stupid but there's options in TV's to change that.

This is pretty much where I stand. I'll say this though, my plasma does seem to tire my eyes out quicker than my LCD TV. That may be in my head, but I've spent as much as 10 hours with little break in front of both, and the LCD was easier on my eyes. Granted, the plasma is a 50+", and the LCD is a 22".

I'm agreed on the PS3 thing, ALMOST enough for me to swap over from Xbox. Too bad their controllers are so cramped.

i don't think it's in your head as most plasma's will do 600hz and maybe that high refresh rate is raping your eyes, although the 50" might do that too =P

The PS3 multiplayer thing is pretty cool, i'd still totally be like "QUIT LOOKING AT MY SCREEN!!!"
i'd never switch away from my PS3, i hate how the xbox's look and how big the controllers are (i do admit the game selection is awesome but i PC game anyways so it doesn't make a difference to me)

[MrMazda92]

Ahh, well my eyes fatique VERY badly, especially while driving at night... Watching TV is the second worst for me.

Ahh, well I have pretty big hands haha. The playstation controllers are tiny for me.

[Nd4SpdSe]

Your not crazy, it's probably not really the "blurriness" that your seeing but the...gap? between the pixels that your seeing. (if you cram your face in your monitor you'll get what i mean, i have pretty bad eyesight so that's not an issue for me =P) I had a friend that has hawk like eyes that stuck with a CRT monitor because he would "see each pixel" till about last year when he was making so much money he didn't know what to do so he bought a 32" and 2 27" monitors lol

I see the blur from the low responce time from the LCD pixels. I can also see the pixelation caused by too much motion on screen where the TV uses a controller that must downgrade the resolution because the processor can't handle all the motion. My Samsung blurs when there's too much motion on the screen, it's pretty obvious in RockBand when it doesn it because of the verticle lines for the notes. I actualy thought it was a performance problem with my 360.

Anyone I know with Plasmas only have temporary image retention issues after say playing a game for several hours, but after a dozen minutes of watching something else, it would go away. My parents have an LG plasma, they're not really gamers, but we've had it for 4 years now, there's nothing that's burnt in.

[DeadMaker]

Even the best lcd led tv in the world can not catch the qaulity of a full hd plasma tv.
It's the technology which makes the difference..In a general way every pixel in plasma is individual and has it's own energy where in lcd the pixel takes life from background diode.
Some details..


Plasma flat screen technology consists hundreds of thousands of individual pixel cells, which allow electric pulses (stemming from electrodes) to excite rare natural gases-usually xenon and neon-causing them to glow and produce light. This light illuminates the proper balance of red, green, or blue phosphors contained in each cell to display the proper color sequence from the light. Each pixel cell is essentially an individual microscopic florescent light bulb, receiving instruction from software contained on the rear electrostatic silicon board. Look very closely at a plasma TV and you can actually see the individual pixel cell coloration of red, green, and blue bars. You can also see the black ribs which separate each.


LCD (liquid crystal diode) displays, by contrast, utilize electric charges to twist and untwist liquid crystals, which causes them to block light and, hence, emit blacks. The higher the voltage passing through the liquid crystals in a given pixel, the more fully those crystals untwist and effectively block light - all of which makes these pixels darker. As opposed to plasma, LCD displays use the most power when displaying a very dark or black image. This is a difficult process, and despite recent improvements in LCD black levels, only the best LCD displays (like those produced by Sharp and Sony) have managed to topple the 1000:1 contrast ratio barrier. Recent improvements have brought LCD displays up to the level of plasma.(which i doubt for that) The one continual drawback here for LCD is off axis viewing, when black levels consistently drop.

[SuperK]

OK, so SuperK actually does know what he's talking about when it comes to display screens, so let me be a bit of a know it all for a moment:

Hz don't mean diddly for gaming or for movies. no source material video-wise exceeds 60hz, blu ray for example. "upconverting" it to 120/240hz won't add any type of visual improvements.

Hz also doesn't mean "less ghosting" on gaming. That's what's called the "response time" and is measured in ms.

At this time, and for years to come, hz will only be important for 3D output. since 3D material shows two alternate frames vs 1 conventional, it does require at least 120hz.

Plasma itself has improved tremendously, as does "burn in protection" but the worst part is each pixel color does significantly drop in brightness after the first few hundred hours of use... so you get a "inconsistent "color pattern if you have static images. Plus when you have things like HUD or taskbars in the background, then burn-in does become reality again, if there's a PC connected, do *not* go plasma.

Also note that in most cases, the "burn in" protections creates a "static screen" that tries to equalize the brightness of colors across the board by "burning out" the brighter colors to match the dimmer ones.



When you look at computer monitors, there's been a defining factor in quality for years: Screen production technologies.
Cheap screens are called TN (twisted nematic) screens. they benefit from "high response times" but low color reproduction, viewing angles, and contrast.

Current high quality screens are called IPS displays (In plane switching). These generally have lower response times, but amazing color reproduction, viewing angles and contrast. IPS displays are what drive the apple cinema LCD's, for a more "well known" example.

For years HDTV's were never marketed as TN/IPS until late last year.

BUY a IPS display HDTV! The quality difference is unbelievable compared to cheap TN panels.

[Daninski]

Ok Mr SuperHDTV you didn't comment on Smart TVs. I like to stream moves from my media hard drive, Netfix or what ever. Don't smart TVs allow me to do this without using an interface like a PS3. Thanks

[Evo_Spec]

Ok Mr SuperHDTV you didn't comment on Smart TVs. I like to stream moves from my media hard drive, Netfix or what ever. Don't smart TVs allow me to do this without using an interface like a PS3. Thanks

well yes, smart TV's will allow you to watch Netflix, youtube and other similar programs from the tv's interface and you can hook up a USB hard drive directly to the tv and play it from there but obviously you don't really NEED it if you use your PS3 to do that and i sometimes hear some TV's won't play certain files but i think those are less common files it won't play so it wouldn't really matter.
but i'm basically saying that if you found a nice TV you liked and there was a non-smart version for cheaper, why wouldn't you go that way. in my case there isn't a non-smart version or at least not the same exterior styling

[SuperK]

smart tv's are pretty much just a regular television with wifi or ethernet access and the preloaded netflix/hulu/etc streaming program built in. Yes they are convenient, however the wifi and network are usually high latency and I've known several people call in complaining that their smart tv's were buffering awful lot.

You want to at least have a dual band router that supplies wifi n signal at 5ghz, not 2.4ghz, I would reccomend a set top box like a roku or the logitech revue over a smart tv. You have more flexibility to purchase a quality tv for a cheaper price, and 60-100 bucks can get you a set top box.


What I did is I built me a HTPC, build on an AMD A8 APU, so I can netflix/hulu/play games/blu ray or ANYTHING I want to, instead of being limited. If you build it right, my HTPC only absorbs 50watts idle tops, and on load, 150 watts, so it's extremely efficient.

[Daninski]

I'll PM you Kris so I don't jam up this thread. Thanks EVO

[Evo_Spec]

I'll PM you Kris so I don't jam up this thread. Thanks EVO

it really doesn't matter as i'm pretty sure i'm gonna get the samsung but any information is interesting to read about and gives me more things to think about.
thanks for realizing the possible thread jacking =P