needing a new tv 42inch £550ish - SOLVED / PURCHASED

chezybezy

Yep its another what should i get post - sorry

Ive spent a lot a time looking at the threads over the LGauto dimming ‘feature’ and followed many with extreme interest.

I have been lucky enough to be offered a refund on this TV(LG 42LE5900) due to this issue. I am now throwing myself at you guys for suggestionsof what to get. My worry is that i did a lot of research of what I needed and specs and ended up with THAT tv – everything else I love it does what I need. Dueto the TV being collected for the refund in several days I will find my self ina situation without a TV (shock! horror!).

Unfortunately my refund will be £533 and can maybe stretch that to close to £600 for something amazing!

Lets see am needing 42 inch minimum (bigger would be nicer but this is what I currently have and I don’t want to go smaller!)

Full 1080p HD

I use it for watching my movies, TV (sky both HD & SD - dont usualy watch sport but my uncle does twice a year!),and Xbox 360 gaming (FPS mainly) if this helps to narrow down the choices or restricts anything. These are all connected via hdmi.

It can not have this auto dimming thingy ma bob - if it can be turned off and stay off and not affect the TV that is fine!

I think it needs to have a good black scene response. I don’tknow if this is what I mean and if this even a problem with today’s TVs but I watcha lot of stuff with blacks / darker images and you used to have to get a TVthat could do this (is that present now a days?) My fav movies I noticed this autodimming option on in the darker scenes (all the alien movies, all underworld movies, all harry potter movies, all twilight movies, all the star trek movies were affected via this but maybe I need something with good black scene picture quality…?)

And I guess motion blur may be a problem due to my tv movies/ gaming???

I cant think of anything else I needed. Freeview maybe if I stop sky.

My current set up consists of tv, sky+hd and bluray, sound is being routed to my all in one surround system (think bluray player and combined amp all in one box). This is the LG HT305SU.

The only way I could fix a pause in sound at each advert which occurred when connecting the sky box directly via optical to thebluray/amp; was to take the sound from the sky box hdmi to the tv and from the tvto the surround sound system via optical. If you need any more info just ask.

Finally i should mention I'm rather picky with my tech and it needs to be good however i do have to wonder if I'll find anything better. Oh and penny punching is a good idea right now.

A.Penny.Saved

By the sound of it you are hard to please lol like myself.

Therefore lots of research will be needed to satisfy you.

Find some likely candidates and the look on the UK AV forum to see what experiences user have of the models that interest you.

By the sound of it, Plasma might not be suitable if you use consoles for long periods. Otherwise Plasmas would give the better picture for Movies and TV IMO, however that is only a personal choice because some people prefer the computery looking pictures that LCD/LED TV's usually provide. To me a good Plasma looks more natural.

If you wanted a Panasonic LED TV then Amazon were selling them at around 25% discount which would of put them well inside your budget. About £659 regular and under £500 discounted.

chezybezy

Yay I'm not the only one!

Guessing you own something way out of my price range?

Could you expand on this no gaming with plasma thing? Is it just due to being on it for hours? Lately i seem to be lucky to get 3 hours a session!

To be fare atm gaming will prob one session every six months. However my main gaming tv (in bedroom not lounge) might be developing a fault (am not sure tbh) so if that's the case ill have to use the lounge new tv.

Will have a look on Amazon at these lcds from Panasonic.

Someone did suggest i take a gander at the panasonic 42ut50, any opinions?

I guess i feel rushed with the time constraint and as i put a lot of time picking that one so thought I'd go with personal opinions as a starting point.

A.Penny.Saved

I should point out that the Amazon deal was only for Black Friday, they are not always at that price.

Some people seem to use Plasmas for console gaming because there are features which are meant to reduce the chances of screen burn which Plasmas tend to be susceptible to. How effective that will be for a stationary screen or taskbar type of situation for many hours I don't know because I am not into gaming. I cannot really recommend anything.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/index.php?

If I was you, I wouldn't rush it just because you will be without a TV because it's not the end of the world You might be able to borrow one from a friend or family. Even an old portable.

As long as you have one before Christmas that's the main thing.

inmypocketnottheirs

Have a look at https://www.kogan.co.uk. 55" LED for £499 inc delivery.

almillar

The screen burn thing is old hat. Don't leave a static image on screen for 24hrs. If you can't manage that, you need to have a look at your life, never mind your TV choices.
Plasma does still have better blacks than LCD (including LED) because you're still not pushing light through little crystals that are trying to block it. Motion, I think is about even depending on what you get.
Good news is you can afford 50 inch.
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/lg-50pa650t-full-hd-50-plasma-tv-12448410-pdt.html
I've no idea whether this does the dimming that annoys you, you would need to look at one. 42" Panasonic would be great too.
You're getting dropouts at the adverts as I guess it's switching between 5.1 and 2.1 sound. Some amps are slightly better at dealing with this, and the dropout might be for a shorter time, but I'll bet that the reason going through the TV has 'solved' the problem is that everything is now being 'downmixed' to 2.1 or stereo. You're losing all that surround sound goodness.If the dropouts really annoy you so much, get a proper AV amp (which you can plug all your HDMI devices into).

chezybezy

Awh thank you for explaining to me why it does that!
I never noticed any difference when comparing the same program directly to amp / via tv to amp so wondered if the tv just passed it through without processing -thinking about that then it wouldn't pause. Hmm.



Am liking the PANASONIC VIERA TXL47E5B, from richer sounds, it's 25 cheaper than Amazon and I could get a 5 year warranty using that reduction and adding to. The way my luck is with electricals this year I honestly think that is the way to go. Don't usually go for them this may be my first exception.

Anyone have this tv?
Anyone any thoughts?
Does it have that auto dimming / global dimming thing in dark scenes so it looks like flashing?

I had considered another lg but there attitude over the dimming etc I'm thinking best not to right now. But again I really don't know. Do you have experience with that plasma, the lg 50pa650t, I had a convo with an owner on Amazon (his review is the 1 star & my convo is in comments) and he sort of didn't seem impressed so thought maybe the led is better? Plus that doesn't seem to be full 1080p hd?

And I like to think Panasonic is better than lg. Picked led again as reviews I read on the plasmas didn't seem to imply better quality over the leds even going up to 750 (just to compare). Plus the weight and running costs *shrugs* but I really don't know, sorta lost. Maybe my bad experience of a tempory plasma is clouding things.

Could those two tvs (Panasonic /lg) really be compared? Would a same priced plasma give a better picture than the led, I kept reading dull /blur/ banding/ green at top etc for plasmas even 1000 ones! Oh and sure someone said they had to run screen wipe before watching a movie or anything good. That may have been that lg. I got the feeling they regretted it. :-(


I never noticed blur or anything with that lg so I expect everything else to be better than that and it doesn't seem to be. Maybe the blacks could be better but with all that flickering I can't say if that statement is true!

I am so confused!

Also anyone any experience with RS warranties etc?

almillar

That LG is definitely full HD, 1080p as is mentioned several times in the spec. I have no personal experience of that TV. My TV is a Panasonic 50inch G10 plasma which I have found to be excellent. It's not a 'Smart' TV, it doesn't have 3D, it just has a great picture.
It's very likely with this dimming stuff that you dislike, that you'll have to play with the TV yourself. There'll be a light sensor somewhere in the frame of the TV, probably beside where the IR receiver is, and if you cover it up, the screen will dim as you've tricked it into thinking it's dark. On my TV, it's called Eco Mode, and you can see it change in little steps, but I've never been annoyed by it on the rare occasion I've noticed it.
What you need to do is get stuck into AVForums.com - there's far more knowledge and experience there. You will always get people saying BUY LCD or BUY PLASMA but you should judge for yourself. I think picture quality is more important than energy use, but plasma energy use has plummeted in the last few years, and I genuinely think you don't have to bother looking at the figures anymore.

chezybezy

hi
thanks for the reply, what youve described is the eco / room sensor aspect of tvs that usually can be switched off what im having trouble with is not that feature. iv seen it in menus as global or auto dimming; essentially its a way manufacturers can increase their contrast ratio figures its a gimmick. i know it happens on led tvs not sure about plasmas.

your advice about the running costs has helped me try a plasma tv now. iv had a good mulch around avforums and they seem to highly rate the Panasonic TX-P50UT50B. its way over budget but seems to be awesome.

does anyone know if older plasma tvs are heavier than these new ones? im trying to work out if my current tv stand (piece of furniture not a tv stand) could take the weight of a 50inch plasma ><.

almillar

Newer ones will be a little lighter, size for size, as they'll have fewer components and have been getting thinner over the years. If you've had a 42 inch on it without any bending or anything, that sounds OK, but a proper TV stand would be better of course. TVs aren't as heavy as they used to be remember, a 50" plasma is way lighter than a 28" CRT (from experience!).
Global or auto (or local?) dimming?
This relates, I guess, to the TV turning the backlight up or down depending on conditions. This gives a brighter picture, in bright conditions, or darker blacks in dark conditions, which as you say, stretches out the 'Dynamic' contrast ratio. On plain old LCDs, there was 1 flourescent tube lighting up the show, which could go brighter or dimmer automatically if it had this feature. With LED backlights, there would be lots of little lights, lighting up the edge, or the back, of the picture. Some of these sets will have 'local' dimming, meaning that just some parts of the screen can go darker, giving much better control of the light needed, and letting you have brighter and darker shades in the same picture, making the contrast ratio better.
For plasma, each pixel sortof lights itself, whereas LCD is pixels blocking the backlight by different amounts. For this reason, all of the above is specific to LCD (that includes LED of course) screens.
Just remember in terms of running costs - the MAX figure for a plasma will be a plain white screen, at maximum brightness settings. I'm sure you don't watch that very often. The energy use of a plasma is affected by the brightness of the picture much more than that of LCD/LED.
That TV is 26kg BTW so get a child to stand on the table or something a bit safer maybe!

chezybezy

thanks almillar i really appreciate the explanation and the helpful advice.

well i decided to go for it and its arrived! just figuring out the basics atm but so far im impressed!

thanks a lot guys!