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32"+ LCD TV

S

Stokes

Senior member
I will be in the market soon for a LCD TV to actually watch tv on. I don't have HD though and will be watching normal cable and I hear that the quality is a joke on these?

Do you stick to brand names?

having the HDTV feature would be a nice one to have for maybe in the future, but I have no plans on getting HDTV.

Can anyone offer me some suggestions as far as models and brands a good price range?
 
Resolution. 1024X768 is minimum.
Refreshrate. 8 ms or less would be nice
Tuner. Since you want HD, you should also look for one with built in HDTV tuner, not just HDTV ready

Costco used to have a Sceptre which has a resolution of up to 1920x...something.

Depends on how much you really want to spend, I wouldn't go over 1300 for a 32". The cheapest can be found for around $700-$800. Go to Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.. and compare the picture quality.
 
If you're just watching regular cable on it, it might not be worth it to spend so much on it.

The way prices keep dropping it might be a better bet to just get a SD tv until you want to move up to HD.

Does it need to be LCD, or would a CRT work for you? ( although not as cool 😛 )
 
I suggest Sharp Aquos LC-32DA5U 32. Aquos is consider to be the leader in lcd technology.
It doesnt come with a hdtv tuner though but it is hdtv ready. Price range is $1100-$1700
 
i like the Dell and Panasonic LCD TVs below 40". like someone said, look for one that has a built in HD tuner instead of being HD ready.

i also personally look for ones that have HDMI instead of just DVI. 1 cable for HD video and audio instead of just the DVI + audio cables.

if you have cable through Comcast, i believe they offer an HD receiver for an additional $5. DVR is like another $10.
 
For TV, is a 32" widescreen big enough?

If your budget stretches to around $1,500-1800 you can get either a
- 42" plasma ED (752x480) Panasonic
- 42' LCD RPTV 720p (1280x720) Sony A10
- 46" DLP 720p (1280x720) Samsung HLR-xx-67
 
Thank you all for the well thought out responses.

From my understanding the myth about HDTV LCD TV's and regular cable quality is just untrue for the most part?

I can't say though that I know the difference between plasma and lcd tv. The most important aspect for me is it must have the depth of an lcd. I don't have any room in my room for a big ol crt. I definately could push the budget around the 1,500 price range. Also what about DLP technology?

And is it just the best idea to go to best buy look at the ones they have there and just see which picture quality I like better? don't they feed in HD though to their tv's to make the picture look better though?
 
If the native resolution is 1366x768, you're screwed if the TV dosen't allow options to change scaling mode. Most LCD TVs made by Syntax Olevia have this problem (well, they are a 3rd tier manufacturer for the price they sell their TVs at)

This only applys if you want to connect it to your computer via DVI/VGA and achieve 1:1 pixel mapping, or you would get a less crisp scaled image.

If you have a Geforce 6 series video card, you can do 1366 via DVI only because of it's DVI. Geforce 7 should do VGA and DVI from both from what I have read.

Radeon X1k series will do VGA and DVI, along with a few less known video cards, Matrox Parhelia and Kyro II.

Besides those card, you can only achieve 1368 or 1360 because horizontal res must be divisible by 8 for older cards (even the X850XTPE!). So it gets scaled horizontally for 2 pixels or 6 pixels. So if you are lucky to get a TV with scaling options, you can just let it overscan 2 pixels or underscan 6 pixels.

hope that helps.
 
Originally posted by: Oxy
I suggest Sharp Aquos LC-32DA5U 32. Aquos is consider to be the leader in lcd technology.
It doesnt come with a hdtv tuner though but it is hdtv ready. Price range is $1100-$1700
Click to expand...

Sharp Aquos the one I would go for. I've seen them in the stores and they look great. I also understand that it is one of the few LCD TV's that the backlight can be replaced by the owner, althought backlights should last a long time.
 
> From my understanding the myth about HDTV LCD TV's and regular cable quality is just untrue for the most part?

Mostly the problem is that when you get a bigger and sharper TV, you notice how blocky a regular low-resolution TV signal is. Like pn your PC if you use an image viewer on a 320x240 picture and expand the size up to 640x480 or 1024x768.


> I can't say though that I know the difference between plasma and lcd tv. The most important aspect for me is it must have the depth of an lcd. I don't have any room in my room for a big ol crt.

Plasma is very thin. LCD RearProjectionTV and DLP sets are thicker, but only 15-18" deep not several feet deep like a tube TV.


> I definately could push the budget around the 1,500 price range. Also what about DLP technology?

Tiny spinny thing and a lamp. My brother has a $4,000 Samsung 1080p 61" model and loves it. He also had the cable company move him to a HD cable box with built in digital recorder for an extra $15/month and loves that too.

> And is it just the best idea to go to best buy look at the ones they have there and just see which picture quality I like better? don't they feed in HD though to their tv's to make the picture look better though?

Yes look and see. If it's a good store, or you go to Magnolia AV instead, the sales person should be willing to show you different content, at least DVD in addtion to HD.
 
I went over to Best Buy and looked at 32" LCD TV's. I also could go 37" but the price seems to go way up if I went with the Sharp Aquos. When there were two main LCD TV's I noticed right away from picture quality, first was the sharp aquos, it looked extremely well in color reproduction and picture quality (probably HD though 🙁 ) The other which was a surprise was the Insignia 32", which appeared to be same in picture quality, these two put the rest down mostly from their amazing color reproduction.

Best Buy has the Aquos for 32" for around $1,500, It can be had online for around $1349 with shipping from a no name retailer. I just kind of wonder though as another poster pointed out that for this price you can get something else bigger and maybe better. But I have absolutely no room for anything that is deeper then these LCD TV's.

Maybe I'm missing a deal somewhere that includes a coupon, but I have no idea where else to look.

What do people think?
 
i have a 32in lcd and viewing regular cable, i suffer somewhat

if i am watching an older show or from a channel that isn't as clear and sharp as others, i notice the blocks

switch over to hd channels though and it's perfect.

my main complaint is that i have to shrink my widescreen tv to view regular tv because it is not broadcast in widescreen. so if i'm watching something on food network, i get black bars on the left and right or everything is stretched across.
 
Originally posted by: Albis
i have a 32in lcd and viewing regular cable, i suffer somewhat

if i am watching an older show or from a channel that isn't as clear and sharp as others, i notice the blocks

switch over to hd channels though and it's perfect.

my main complaint is that i have to shrink my widescreen tv to view regular tv because it is not broadcast in widescreen. so if i'm watching something on food network, i get black bars on the left and right or everything is stretched across.
Click to expand...

Is this how you would characterize all LCD TVs? 🙁 Doesn't sound too good on regular cable at all.
 
my few friends that have lcd tvs all suffer a little from poor analog cable pictures

digital cable looks better and when you go hd, it looks awesome

all widescreen tvs will have black bars on the left and right though unless you stretch the picture to fit the whole tv (this is for watching sd tv)
 
Well I do have digital cable, but now the widescreen problem you are talking about concerns me. I would have thought it would have worked just fine with digital cable and not having the black bars. BTW what 32" do you have?
 
i have a samsun 32in lcd

to reason there are black bars is b/c it is a widescreen tv. the regular tv shows are 4:3 and your display is 16:9 so the picture doesn't natively fill the entire screen. you can either set your tv to stretch the image and it'll fill up the entire screen but the picture looks a little off when you stretch it (ppl look a little short and fat). i just keep it in it's native form because 4:3 should be viewd in 4:3 and 16:9 should be viewed in 16:9

this is just my opinion though and don't let this change your opinions on getting an lcd tv. all widescreen tvs will have black bars watching 4:3 unless you stretch and people are okay with that because hd signals are in WS 🙂
 
i have comcast and i think it's 5 bucks more a month

5 bucks is awesome because you get tnt, espn, locals, inhd 1 and 2

i also get hbo normally so i get hbo hd as well which is pretty cool because i like watching movies in hd 🙂
 
For your usage I'd look at the 42" Panasonic Plasma EDTV. Can't go wrong there. I have a 37" LCD (Westinghouse), but I use it for everything somputer related. It's like this, 1080i or 1080p is dependent of viewing distances (and source quality). I run 1080p with upscaling of DVDs through ffdshow, but I watch fairly close (5') so the extra pixels are an advantage. If I was a bit further back then my eyes couldn't discern the distances between forms. Also note, DLPs are great if you have the right lighting. If you have a well lit room I'd go with LCD or plasma, and if you don't then DLP can represent a nice compomise with quality at lower prices. Unfortunately, I didn't want to deal with the lighting issues so I wouldn't know what to suggest in terms of a DLP.

The key decider of what to get is decided by function more than price or even quality (to some extent). LCDs are an overkill (btw, I'd give the advantage to Sony right now over Sharp though that's a very recent change in rankings) for any reasonable viewing distance with pure video intentions. DLP needs low level lighting but at the 2k mark is definitely one of the main contenders. Plasma is generally considered the best quality for video, but it is pricier than the other technologies.
 
The 42" Plasma looks really nice from Panasonic. While there are two different models with EDTV, it seems the highest of the two is priced around $1800, which is very reasonable because that would be the cost for a 32" LCD TV. But why would a 42" Plasma = 37" LCD? I thought it would be the other way around with Plasma being more expensive.

The resolution however is 852x480, what does this mean for me? Does it really mean anything? And second its still 16:9, will I still recieve the black bars on the right and left like the previous authors have noted? And what about digital cable quality?

 
If all you want to do is watch analog TV and dvd's, don;t even worry about the res, just grab a nice 42 inch plasma for 1500 because analog TV looks worse on a super-high res HDTV imo. I use the 37inch westinghouse (1920x1080) and it's great for computer use and games but the tv from my pci tuner card is pretty ugly (if I fullscreen it).
 
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