The big "How do I choose an HDTV?" thread.

Thin_J wrote:

I've actually heard good things about Vizio's new TV's in that size range. Supposedly to do better you have to spend quite a bit more money. The 40 inch should be below $400, at least in the US. Not sure how pricing will work out up in Canada.

VIZIO E400i-B2 is the model number on the one I read positive impressions of.

Yeah, I was looking at that model, I just can't find it for sale anywhere in Canada.

So my friends were griefing me this weekend about needing to calibrate my ZT. They said my whites were blue. What do y'all suggest? I have done literally nothing, except possibly to set the inputs I use to Just Scan.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

So my friends were griefing me this weekend about needing to calibrate my ZT. They said my whites were blue. What do y'all suggest? I have done literally nothing, except possibly to set the inputs I use to Just Scan.

True calibration requires taking account your viewing space as well.. so generic settings will only take you so far..

Fedaykin98 wrote:

So my friends were griefing me this weekend about needing to calibrate my ZT. They said my whites were blue. What do y'all suggest? I have done literally nothing, except possibly to set the inputs I use to Just Scan.

I would suggest trying one of the warm color temp settings and see if you like it. Generally THX standards call for a warmer temp than most TVs are set to out of the box, and it can take awhile to get used to.

On the other hand, if it's only bothering you because a friend pointed it out, I'd say just leave it as is.

Well, the menu may have settings for a 'pro mode' or possibly a 'movie mode'.... I had an older Sony HD CRT, and when I set that to Pro mode, it was instantly perfect in every way I could measure, save for a little bit of barrel distortion that was only visible with test patterns. I'd dig around for something like that... you might be very impressed at the results.

Barring that, you could pick up a colorimeter, or you can even bring in a pro to do it for you.

Fed, do you have a My Best Buy card (used to be Reward Zone)? They used to run a perk of having a free calibration (or home theater eval, etc...) if you were a certain level. I used mine to get my plasma calibrated about a year ago. Guy came out and hooked up to the TV with the colorimeter and a laptop, it was pretty cool to watch.

I go with whatever "movie" mode it has and go through Disney Wow! It's a great, cheap calibration disk (<$20). It comes with the color filters you need to do the color calibration. I learned lots just going through the process and had a lot of fun.

You won't get a perfect calibration without one of those color calibration tools, but those are over $100. Not really worth it in my opinion unless you were building a home theater in a light controlled room.

After you go through it, you'll cringe anytime you walk past TVs on display in the electronics department of a store.

Not really worth it in my opinion unless you were building a home theater in a light controlled room.

Also not worth it if you have a cheap TV, but in Fed's case, he's got one of the best TVs ever made, so it's not quite so nuts as it otherwise might be.

Hemidal wrote:

Fed, do you have a My Best Buy card (used to be Reward Zone)? They used to run a perk of having a free calibration (or home theater eval, etc...) if you were a certain level. I used mine to get my plasma calibrated about a year ago. Guy came out and hooked up to the TV with the colorimeter and a laptop, it was pretty cool to watch.

I have the card, but I doubt I have any perks coming to me. I seldom buy things there these days.

Malor wrote:
Not really worth it in my opinion unless you were building a home theater in a light controlled room.

Also not worth it if you have a cheap TV, but in Fed's case, he's got one of the best TVs ever made, so it's not quite so nuts as it otherwise might be.

You make a good point. If it's in a living room with windows and the lighting changes throughout the day, I still wouldn't bother with it, though.

Fed, I used the Disney WOW disk to calibrate my ZT and it worked quite well as far as I can tell.

For the free Reward Zone calibration, you should be in the Platinum level just for buying the TV. If you call the store you bought it from, you should be able to get the "Geek" Squad to come out and do it for free. I don't let people who are not me touch my electronics, though, so I did it myself.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Malor wrote:
Not really worth it in my opinion unless you were building a home theater in a light controlled room.

Also not worth it if you have a cheap TV, but in Fed's case, he's got one of the best TVs ever made, so it's not quite so nuts as it otherwise might be.

You make a good point. If it's in a living room with windows and the lighting changes throughout the day, I still wouldn't bother with it, though.

It is in the living room. I don't know how awesome you have to be get one of these man caves I hear about, but apparently I'm not as awesome as that.

Hoppa - I didn't buy it from them. I bought it from Amazon, like everything else except for booze.

Where do you guys look for reviews? Like Gaald, I'm looking for a 40" TV that's preferably isn't smart since I don't need it. I do hope to get something with HDMI ARC so I can control the volume on the soundbar that I end up getting (also taking recommendations for that).

Here are the ones I've seen recommended on various sites.

Toshiba 39L1350U 39-Inch 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV by Toshiba http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BN3W19Q/...

Samsung UN40EH5300 40-Inch 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV (2013 Model) by Samsung http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0074FGR74/...

VIZIO M401i-A3 40-Inch 1080p Smart LED HDTV (2013 Model) by VIZIO http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CI3BP06/...

Not a lot of great TV review sites IMO. I trend to just Google the model and look for a review that presents quantitative measurements of black levels, color accuracy, and input lag. I like hdguru.com but they rarely do reviews these days.

Fwiw the 2014 Vizios are very promising for their full array local dimming panels, but I haven't seen reviews yet. These two both come without smart features and support HDMI ARC
VIZIO 40” Class Full-Array LED TV (New 2014 Model)
VIZIO 39” Class Full-Array LED TV (New 2014 Model)

I like Cnet for TV reviews, but I'm not really an expert.

Make sure you consider display lag.

Fwiw my TV is smart but is set to ignore all of that stuff and just act like a basic panel. I would guess that's pretty standard.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I like Cnet for TV reviews, but I'm not really an expert.

Make sure you consider display lag.

Fwiw my TV is smart but is set to ignore all of that stuff and just act like a basic panel. I would guess that's pretty standard.

Yeah unfortunately even with game mode turned on, smart TVs still tend to have more input lag than dumb TVs due to the crap they keep running the background. Looking strictly at input lag, Sony TVs are among the best.

That was why I jumped on a Panny S64 last year.... relatively cheap, but a truly excellent screen for the price, and very low lag, mostly because it's a relatively stupid TV. It still has a few things built in, like Netflix, but there just isn't a lot to it, and that's exactly how I want it.

Losing Panasonic plasmas was a bad thing for gamers. The cheaper Samsungs are badly laggy and apparently pentile screens to boot. That's okay on a functional screen, like a phone, but I wouldn't want a TV using that tech.

The Sony TVs I've seen have been very expensive; it's a shame that low lag, high screen quality, and reasonable price are so hard to get these days.

Malor wrote:

Losing Panasonic plasmas was a bad thing for gamers.

I'm still pleased with my old Panasonic plasma, as are many folks on here. It had sort of become the standard recommendation for a while, I wonder what will step into that role, if anything? I do want to eventually step up to a 1080p set, and even my wife comments occasionally that 50" just doesn't seem so big any more.

Malor wrote:

Losing Panasonic plasmas was a bad thing for gamers. The cheaper Samsungs are badly laggy and apparently pentile screens to boot. That's okay on a functional screen, like a phone, but I wouldn't want a TV using that tech.

Not all Samsung plasmas are pentile displays. My 51in (non-smartTV) does not have one. I haven't had a chance to game on it yet, but my research on its display lag said it was kind of middle of the road.

EriktheRed wrote:
Malor wrote:

Losing Panasonic plasmas was a bad thing for gamers. The cheaper Samsungs are badly laggy and apparently pentile screens to boot. That's okay on a functional screen, like a phone, but I wouldn't want a TV using that tech.

Not all Samsung plasmas are pentile displays. My 51in (non-smartTV) does not have one. I haven't had a chance to game on it yet, but my research on its display lag said it was kind of middle of the road.

Right, oddly, which of the Samsung (5300 I think?) are pentile depended on the screen size, not the particular model. I think the larger ones are pentile, like 60" and up.

fleabagmatt wrote:
Malor wrote:

Losing Panasonic plasmas was a bad thing for gamers.

I'm still pleased with my old Panasonic plasma, as are many folks on here. It had sort of become the standard recommendation for a while, I wonder what will step into that role, if anything? I do want to eventually step up to a 1080p set, and even my wife comments occasionally that 50" just doesn't seem so big any more.

Nothing really... any LCD will simply be judged against the old standards and will eventually get pretty close to be "good enough".. But the inherent technology flaws of LCD will prevent it from ever being 100% equal to the best Plasma sets.

If the market rejects 4K and TV sales continue to be depressed then perhaps we will see further investment in OLED technology to bring that to the market in a more usable and consumer friendly mode.

fleabagmatt wrote:
Malor wrote:

Losing Panasonic plasmas was a bad thing for gamers.

I'm still pleased with my old Panasonic plasma, as are many folks on here. It had sort of become the standard recommendation for a while, I wonder what will step into that role, if anything? I do want to eventually step up to a 1080p set, and even my wife comments occasionally that 50" just doesn't seem so big any more.

Honestly nothing until OLED becomes affordable, and even if it does it's not necessarily going to be better than plasma in one aspect: motion resolution. Current OLED displays, for whatever reason, refresh like LCDs, meaning one row of pixels at a time. It happens fast enough we don't notice it, but it means that without amped up refresh rates image resolution drops to SD levels for moving images (it also means the bottom of the screen has more input lag than the top). Plasmas do a full screen refresh at once, allowing them to maintain 1080 lines of resolution at all times. Granted it's not that easy to see the loss of resolution in moving images, so most people won't notice unless they're looking for it.

Of what's available today, it sounds like the 2014 Vizio M-series is going to be a great value--full-array LED backlighting means a more consistent image, and the large number of dimmable zones means near OLED levels of contrast with minimal blooming. Only real problem is the limited viewing angles, but all LCD screens suffer from this. Interestingly Vizio is moving away from 3D completely, except I think in their forthcoming UHD sets.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Of what's available today, it sounds like the 2014 Vizio M-series is going to be a great value--full-array LED backlighting means a more consistent image, and the large number of dimmable zones means near OLED levels of contrast with minimal blooming. Only real problem is the limited viewing angles, but all LCD screens suffer from this. Interestingly Vizio is moving away from 3D completely, except I think in their forthcoming UHD sets.

That's the kind of thing that would make me buy one of their sets, just to try and reinforce the thought that home 3D should go away!

On a related note, I seem to recall news out of CES 2014 that one of the second tier makers was going to have cheap(ish) 4K sets in just about every size. Was that Vizio? Did it happen?

You can get 4K TV's for less than $1000 now.. Not sure why since there isnt that much to really watch.. especially native 4K.

There are Chinese makers selling <$1k UHD (4K is for theatre screens only) sets, but they are complete crap.

Vizio is coming out with some, but I doubt they will be as cheap as that. A touch cheaper than Samsung/Sony/LG/Panasonic perhaps, but they are starting to position themselves as a more premium brand, so expect that at least some of the models to be pretty expensive. I think they don't come out until late 2014 though.

Content is still slim, but Netflix is a strong supporter. Breaking Bad is now available in UHD/4K, I believe, and more shows are on their way. I think UHD sets will be around longer than 3D, though they may actually help 3D stick around since they can do 3D HD content with passive glasses like the ones you wear in the theater (no batteries, lighter) without dropping resolution.

Watching the World Cup has convinced me that higher resolution is indeed the eventual future, but I'm assuming 4k requires a lot of bandwidth.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Watching the World Cup has convinced me that higher resolution is indeed the eventual future, but I'm assuming 4k requires a lot of bandwidth.

Working at a large scale video website, I can definitely say that 4k gives our backend engineers headaches to think about implementing.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Watching the World Cup has convinced me that higher resolution is indeed the eventual future, but I'm assuming 4k requires a lot of bandwidth.

Why do you think that? 4k/UHD doesn't provide much benefit until you get to really large screen sizes, larger than 65", assuming a standard viewing distance. Sports broadcast in 3D certainly failed to convince anyone they needed to watch sports in 3D, so I'm not sure sports will drive higher screen resolutions either. I think 4K's success will depend on TV networks getting on board first and foremost, and they'll need to be convinced it's worth the cost of investing in the new equipment. I can't see Netflix/streaming content providers leading the charge as broadband speeds can barely meet the needs of 1080p material.

Anyone we ever speak to at Comcast has shown very little excitement over 4K.. Their infrastructure would struggle given that most everything still is RF (Head End in the Sky) based.. not sure if they can squeeze that much more HD channels into their offerings let alone swap out HD for 4K on 50+ channels..

Perhaps the NFL will directly stream in 4K through Sunday Ticket if the see consumer interest in that OR can figure out a way to make everyone pay for it.. but given the nonsense around the structure of the DTV deal as well as the TV deals with the Networks/Cable I don't see that happening anytime soon.