Advice on Plasma TV needed?

wallbash

That is true , apology accepted , dont bother asking for my advice again.
You didn't ... even better.

vyle

MORPH3US wrote: »

Not sure what knowledge / experience you base this on but I have an LG and the SD looks great to me. I would suspect (assuming you work in a shop selling TV's) that they aren't set up properly... mine out of the box was poor but setting it up made it look great.

Also my LG is a 42" and 720p and looks absolutely fine... in fact better than fine.

Very strange.

While it's true with the right calibration that many TVs can look very similar, we don't bother to do any ISF calibration on the display models at work for the following reasons:

It's not worth the time (70 TVs on display at any one time, it'd take forever), customers don't tend to calibrate their TVs, so if everything looked amazing due to calibration, they'd bring them back feeling they'd been ripped off.

So yes, out of the box with a little tweaking, the SD looked crap next to similar range panasonic, sony and samsung sets. I based that on my eyes.

As for the problems with the display models? I based that on my ears.

Perhaps LG has decent high end sets, but we don't stock them so I can't comment on those. I can comment on every piece of LG tech I've owned being rubbish though. Well, the LG cookie phone (worst touch screen eveR) and my LG DVD recorder where the on screen prompts don't correspond to any buttons on the remote control.

Usually, if you're going to buy an LG, there's a similarly priced, better samsung around.

rizla01

Well I have an LG DVD recorder/Surround sound and for the money, it taks some beating. The PJ650 (Check out the specs) I have just installed Looks great and the pic isn't half bad.

Like ALL flat screens there are issues - certainly not perfect, but then neither is the supply system of programming. They have launched the Digital Age before they were ready in my opinion and us suckers are the test bed for their new ideas - Brought out before they have gotten half way through perfecting the system that it is replacing.

Disgraceful behaviour IMHO.

Not as good as the ol' CRT granted but are you telling me that Samsungs have no issues?


For one thing, my LG recorder replaced a crappy Samsung.

penrhyn

They (who George Boole, Alan Turing, Tommy Flowers?) have launched the digital age before they were ready ( I was working on 2Mbps PCM in 1968).
Care to expand?

Inactive

vyle wrote: »

It's not worth the time (70 TVs on display at any one time, it'd take forever), customers don't tend to calibrate their TVs, so if everything looked amazing due to calibration, they'd bring them back feeling they'd been ripped off.



.

Sounds like Currys or Comet to me..( I may be wrong ).;)

vyle

Inactive wrote: »

Sounds like Currys or Comet to me..( I may be wrong ).;)

No, you're wrong lol.

See, the shop could spend a few hundred on ISF calibration training, and then have some of us calibrating every new display TV that comes in, but then who'd be serving the customers?

And when the customers mess around with the settings (as they inevitably do) it'll take twice as long to re calibrate.

Then the customers will buy the TVs and moan that their TV doesn't look like the one in the shop. There will be threads here saying that the company sold people TVs using misleading tactics and not telling them that to get a picture that good they'll need to spend a few hundred on getting an engineer round to calibrate it.

We've found that for customers, it's better to just get the TV out of the box, put it on the stand and show them it how it looks with minimal fiddling. Why? Because the kind of customers who come in get scared of tuning the TV in, let alone going into menus and changing settings.

I get phone calls every day from people who don't understand that if they plug a device into the tv, they'll need to switch to the correct input to view it.

Caller: "I bought a DVD player from YOU (emphasis on the YOU even if they bought it on my day off) and plugged it into my tv which I also bought from YOU! When I press play, it doesn't work."

me: "Have you put the TV onto AV 1 or 2?"

them: "WHAAAAT?"

me: Press the AV button on the remote.

them: "Oh my! The DVD has appeared! It's half way through! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

*I then go on to explain how to re start the film*

I spent two hours round a customer's house being given wine every time I asked for a cold drink (it was hot) trying to fix her TV.

She'd lost all her digital channels and I knew right away that the fix would be pressing the "digital" button on her remote.

The first thing I did when I stepped through the door was press that button and her channels re-appeared.

The next hour and 59 minutes were explaining what each menu did, writing instructions in plain english, explaining what analogue and digital meant, and then showing her what channel Dave was on because she likes the Dragons Den repeats.

Do you REALLY think it's wise to sell these people TVs based on how good they can look when they spend hundreds on ISF calibration (when they begrudge the notion of blu ray players, HDMI cables and sound systems) or sell them based on how they WILL look when they get them home.

rizla01

penrhyn wrote: »

They (who George Boole, Alan Turing, Tommy Flowers?) have launched the digital age before they were ready ( I was working on 2Mbps PCM in 1968).
Care to expand?

Yes. You are correct. Didn't think that thru before posting.

OK Not the Digital AGE but the mess that is Digital Broadcasting.

The fact is that Plasma & Lcd tv's are not giving as good a result as CRT has, ever since colour was introduced.

They have some impressive tricks admittedly but they are certainly not a finished product. They are progress in action. That's all.

Was a time when you went out, saw the TV that you liked and that was it. They all performed much as each other but there were market leaders (Sony, Mitsubishi and Philips among them).

No blurring or IR. No 'Dead pixels'. Etc Etc. They all had adequate sound built in (Or you could connect to existing system) and was all contained in one box. Today you often need a separate sound system and different boxes in order to receive the cacophony of TV channels (Mostly in one of three categories Ie. Poor, American or Repeats).

Terrestial is being killed off but less than two years (Apparantly) before due date, we still have Freeview and Freesat, often only available if you buy more boxes, and even then the displays show poor pic quality unless you receive HD (Whch should be the norm for these sets costing as much as they do) and even then only a few channels at present.

Buying a TV is very confusing for most of us and requires more research than buying a car, a house or any other major purchase, in order to get a reasonable viewing experience.

Trust to luck and just buy a TV on price alone and you will suffer far more than if you had purchased a Matsui, Sansui or Alba 20 years ago.

This should not be the case after years of 'improvement'.

Oh, and should anything go wrong with your Plasma or Lcd then be prepared to extend the mortgage.

I have no idea what the failure rate is, on new sets, but (perhaps because you hear more thanks to the www) they seem to have far more problems associated and woe betide anyone that doesn't have an extended warranty (costing another £100+).

Talking of which, am I also right in quoting a local store, that they will only replace with new up to 28 days after purchase after which time they will only repair?

Or has someone got their wires crossed here? I hope so.

penrhyn

I sympathise, the whole thing is confusing especially to folks that don't want to know or understand the technology behind products.
They/we just want then to work properly and be usable with the absolute minimum of phaphing (techincal term:D) about.
Little attention seems to be paid to ergonomics especially with epgs remote controls etc.
Why for example do remote contols have to appear so complicated and have tiny buttons.
On a non related topic I get fed up with the tiny displays at supermarket card readers, only M&S have ones where the diplay dos'nt send me searching for my reading glasses.

Thats better.

vyle

penrhyn wrote: »

I sympathise, the whole thing is confusing especially to folks that don't want to know or understand the technology behind products.
They/we just want then to work properly and be usable with the absolute minimum of phaphing (techincal term:D) about.
Little attention seems to be paid to ergonomics especially with epgs remote controls etc.
Why for example do remote contols have to appear so complicated and have tiny buttons.
On a non related topic I get fed up with the tiny displays at supermarket card readers, only M&S have ones where the diplay dos'nt send me searching for my reading glasses.

Thats better.

The remote controls now are amazingly simple compared to my parents' old VCRs. At least now you have clearly labeled buttons and on screen menus, rather than a single cryptic line of flashing green acronyms whenever something went wrong (or right?)

Inactive

penrhyn wrote: »

I sympathise, the whole thing is confusing especially to folks that don't want to know or understand the technology behind products.
They/we just want then to work properly and be usable with the absolute minimum of phaphing (techincal term:D) about.

I agree, why for instance does an item connected via HDMI need selecting via the menu, when an older style Scart connection will switch over automatically?

Progress nerd style I guess....:mad: