Fed up with LED - Page 2

I don't see why you are making a Federal case out of this. You returned the tv and now have a plasma. That should have been the end of the matter. Many people are very happy with their lcd televisions, apparently you weren't.

People (Defenders) No reason to attack the guy... He just gave his observation, and it can be very helpful to unknowing buyers.

I agree. This thread is not about LED-LCD vs. Plasma but rather about the kind of thing that passes for quality control with many edge-lit LED-LCD TVs today (but not all equally, so YMMV).

For the record, I'm not a plasma fan despite my screen name (it was created quite a while ago based on a Panasonic Plasma that was my first HDTV). Most of my TVs at home are CCFL-LCDs, which don't have uniformity issues like those found on many edge-lit LED-LCDs.

that's the true nature of marketing in the consumer electronics industry

You should have got a sony hx850, and you would not have had those problems. That tv you got is for 3-d and looking pretty, when off.

46" is not. The picture on that edge led is amazing.

As you said if you want a big screen with a great picture get a panasonic plasma. The picture will be very good on something like a gt50, but you have to deal with buzzing and burn in possibly.

I got the HX820 55" for less than 1800 and it has a mind blowingly good picture. The thinness is an added bonus. I dont see any screen defets. Watching a blu ray is an amazing experience. Jet black - blacks and nice bright whites.

I cant understand how anyone could say the picture on this LED tv is crappy.

PLAZMA OU or whatever your name is, you obviously spend a lot of time here based on all your posts and probably have learned a thing or two.... but you say 'people buy LED tvs for the wrong reasons' ...please.

ccfl lcds didn't have these uniformity issues. Marketing hype has eliminated that choice in all but smaller screen sizes.

The average "civilian" buyer walks into the showroom and buys the brightest, thinnest, most "feature" laden set they can afford and actually never notices the clouding and flashlighting.

I've talked to the service tech who works for the store where I work and asked him if he'd seen lots of flashlighting and clouding--he said yes, definitely. I then asked if anyone had ever complained about it and he said not a single customer.

Until this becomes an issue with the average buyer whose main concern is having the thinnest bezel, not pq, we're kinda stuck.

Guilty as charge!

But then I *only* paid $900 and it came with freebie accessories.

Strictly speaking they did, at least at one time. Here is a mega-sized thread from over 6 years ago where people discussed/complained of their Sony LCD panels with CCFL backlights (LED backlights did not exist back then) having these issues...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=748779
I had these issues first hand with my 2005 Sony LCD panel (paid $1500 for a 32-inch!) and even suggested ways to alleviate them (loosening screws, screen rubbing) in that thread. When I was recently in the market for a new LCD TV, I was surprised to see that this is still an issue with todays LCDs.

Nonetheless, my personal "belief" is that ALL LCD panels out there have some degree of cloudiness/flashlighting. Some panels are worse than others. It must (still) be a technological/manufacturing limitation to produce an LCD panel with 100% uniform backlighting. And if they do really tighten their quality control and throw out the ones that are "worse", then that would really drive up the prices in a very competive market.

And the thing with LCD cloudiness/flashlighting (or "mura" as it is called in the industry) is that it certainly doesn't make a panel totally unwatchable. You can only notice the mura when watching dark scenes in a dark room. It is just an annoyance to those who notice and are bothered by it, myself included.

I agree that edge lit LED/LCD is a severely flawed technology. But as others have stated, the pencil pushers at the companies have determnined that the vast majority of the buying public are more interested in gimmicks like thinness and 3D than they are in PQ. They certainly have the technological ability to make a much higher PQ television but the market has not demanded it.

Most of us here interested in high PQ will just have to wait for AMO-LED to become the norm. It shouldn't be that much longer.

I went though the same back in 2008 when shopping for LCD.

The disappointing aspect is that manufacturers aren't so intere$ted in improving the current (whatever-it-is) technology, because sales would be limited to the people who have not already bought a flat panel.

So, most people won't shell out a large sum of money to replace their working LCD sets just because the new one has slightly better PQ. They might, however, if it's got new features or tech. So, IMO, quality is in fact negatively affected by the *need* of constantly bringing something new/different to the table (to drive up sales).

What were you playing? Bluray TV?

I don't understand whats happening or I have been incredibly lucky. I just bought (3 wks ago) an edge lit Samsung 55 inch 6100 series, and it has the best PQ of any HD TV. I have owned. Currently I have a 37 inch Sharp, 32 inch Vizio and 52 inch Samsung CCFL TV's and there is no comparison in PQ with my new TV.

Cheers

Nerlman, I think Steve's post addresses the points you make quite well. Not all edge-lit LED-LCDs are equally bad but this problem is far more commonplace than some would wish to admit or even realize in the first place. It's the main reason I have steered away from the edge-lit LED-LCDs when making recent TV purchases within the last 3-4 years or so.

At the moment if I was to buy a LED-LCD, it would have to be full-array with uniformity on par with the best CCFL-LCDs of recent years. I currently have a LG 42LK450 as my bedroom TV and while I only paid $450 for it and it's an entry level 1080p 60Hz CCFL-LCD, it has great uniformity for an LCD and far better than many edge-lit LED-LCDs costing 4-5 times as much. It's PQ might be inferior in other respects like contrast ratio and black levels, but not uniformity (which is near perfect).

When I said "people buy LED tvs for the wrong reasons" this is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to. TVs shouldn't look better when their off than when their on.

Here a good example of a pricey edge-lit LED-LCD that suffers from serious uniformity issues: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1409806

This thread serves as an excellent reminder that this forum is largely filled with TV owners and not videophiles.

I've owned a dozen LCD TVs as well as some LED LCD TVs and as long as I'm not running the set in torch mode (which you shouldn't be), I've had no real problem with clouding or flash-lighting. The only time any of my sets have ever looked bad is when the brightness or back light was cranked, which is just the way LCDs typically are.

That said, some plasma models have become ridiculously thin in the last couple years, so slim factor shouldn't be a reason to sway people anymore. I think it's mostly the brighter, more vibrant picture, that automatically attracts people.

My experience exactly. Couldn't be happier.