Looking for options for new tv in living room

Originally Posted by u4ea 

Hi guys,

We just recently moved into a new house. We have a big media/family room where we have a 65" Mitsubishi. It's great down there. But we also now have a living room with a built in above the fireplace. It looks completely naked at the moment. As we have an opening for a tv that is 40.5" wide x 30" tall... So we are looking for the best tv that can fill that space while staying in our budget.

There are two windows flanking each side of the fireplace and are recessed back ~16" There is also a big sliding door to the right of the room which gets morning to noon sun. We intend on hanging blackout curtains in there. Also, the room connects sort of to the breakfast nook which has yet another slider. Anyway, we can actually get the room decently dark during the day. At night. It's pitch black if we turn the lights off -- we live in the country. I have a small budget of $800-900 for the tv. Pretty much we will only be watching Dish HD, Google Tv/Blu-ray and maybe Netflix/Amazon Prime running up there. A smart tv would probably work well for us here as we are limited as to space for components. We are a Mac only house. So if it needs to be able to stream it must work well with Mac. We have wifi that can easily reach the tv.

Looking for recommendations for getting the best bang for the buck. Looking for a very clear and clean screen. We won't be using it for gaming. Also, as we have limited space for equip back there a set with decent sound would be sort of important. But if needed we can pop a sound bar or a small speaker system in there as well.

I've tried to be as detailed as I could. If you have questions. Please let me know.

Thanks in advance

Originally Posted by u4ea 

Thanks so much. This is helpful.

This morning. I looked again, and there was a small frame/surround/trim piece I was able to remove from the built in. This looks like it allowed me a tiny bit more of a boost in space. Not sure if this will make a difference at all, but i now have 41.25" with a hair on each side. Will this net us any up in sizes, while maintaining quality and budget? If so I would love to explore. If not, I will head to Fry's & Best Buy this weekend and check out the options you noted above.

Thanks again for the reply.

Originally Posted by hoozthatat 

It'll open up a few LG options but honestly, I feel like LG fell kind of flat this year on a lot of there FPs. The 42LM6200 [...]

Originally Posted by hoozthatat 

Do you need a Smart TV? Or is that just a bonus? For that price range you've got a plethora of options. If your using a BD Player and/or Google TV there's your streaming options. Any preference for manufacturer?

The Samsung EH6000 is a backlit LED/LCD and is a pretty solid performer. I'd encourage you too look at that FP first and check out the owner's thread on here. I've been pleasantly surprised with the performance on that one and it meets your "good bang for the buck" quality. The 40" is only $550. The biggest downside to this Samsung is the fact that it only has 2 HDMI inputs, which you may run out of connections. That being said you can find an HDMI selector for pretty cheap on Amazon or Monoprice. Something I do like about this FP is the fact that it's a backlit rather than an edge lit which typically gives you better uniformity, contrast ratios and black levels. In actually prefer this FP over it's bigger brother FP the ES6100 which is an edge lit but comes with Smart TV functionality.

That being said the Samsung ES6100 is another option for you. The 40" is $748, comes with 3 HDMI inputs and is alright. Again I'd prefer other options such as the EH6000.

The 40EX645 from Sony is deserving of a shot as well. Another edge lit LED/LCD, with 3 HDMI inputs, it's priced at $717. Performance wise I'll put it in the same boat as the aforementioned ES6100 from Samsung. Black levels aren't terrible and has pretty decent black levels. The nice thing I do like about from what I've seen from the 2012 Sony's that they seem to have pretty good video processing algorithms which in turn give you acceptable performance for sports if that's a concern for you.

The Panasonic E50 is only $549.99, comes in a 42" size and that'll fit well in your space. The nice thing about the Panasonic is the fact that it uses an IPS panel which helps improve LCD's poor off angle viewing. The downside of this FP, at least from what I've seen, is the poor black level performance and shadow detail coupled with mediocre uniformity. It's an edge lit LED/LCD. Panasonic is know for their PDPs, not LCD's so generally speaking I think you can find a more viable option, however Panasonic is a world class brand and they're trying to build on their LCD business so hopefully that'll come to fruition.

The only thing limiting you here is that you can "only" do a max of 40.5" wide.

All of the mentioned FP's above are 1080p, 120Hz.

Best of luck and cheers.

Originally Posted by u4ea 

Thanks so much again for the reply... I can't believe I missed a 46" by - " " - that much. Oh well, I was contemplating getting a cabinet guy to tweak it a bit, but I expect that to be rather costly. So, on to the good news. Instead of waiting for the weekend, I decided to head down to Best Buy tonight. I checked out a number of models and ended up liking the Samsung. So I had them price match Amazon (Saved $100, thanks for that tip!) and I now have the Samsung EH6000 sitting in the living room. Im going to video tape the unboxing and pop it on my youtube channel. God knows Im a sucker for that type of stuff.

We decided to leave the Google TV in our bedroom. In lieu of the GTV we are going to purchase a Samsung BD Player. Looking at the BD-E6500 at the moment. I know its a 3D player, but It looks to be a nice model and not too expensive. I will pop in on the BD forum and see what people say. We have Dish coming tomorrow to install a new Joey so we should be up and running tomorrow afternoon.

Many thanks for the help and I will let you know how everything fares. =)

Originally Posted by tgm1024 

By the way, this is exactly the kind of post that is so very helpful for folks looking for options. Great job!

Originally Posted by Bond 007 

I completely disagree. It is totally LCD bias and makes no mention of any plasma. The Panasonic plasmas is a terrible omission in that post. They are a great value and get a better picture than any of the tvs that he mentioned. Particularly when it is going to be in a built in above the fireplace where off angle viewing will be important a Panasonic plasma would be a much better option. They are also Smart so he would not have had to buy a blu ray player. And to top it off they are 3d. A much better tv than the eh6000.

Originally Posted by hoozthatat 

The only reason I omitted PDP was because of the size he was looking at and for his size constraints no PDPs fit the bill. If you would've actually read the post you would've seen that the MAX size he could handle was 41.25." If you've seen any of my previous posts you'll know that I vastly prefer PDPs over LCD. No question, hands down. But again for this situation those opinions need not apply. I made what I felt as though were the best recommendations for his needs/wants for the price point and size range/limit he was considering. So before you bash me for my post, read the post.

Originally Posted by Bond 007 

I did read the postand size limitations but that was only stated in the beginning. What size eh6000 did he get that fits 41"?

Originally Posted by hoozthatat 

The 40" which is only roughly 36.5" wide. He missed the 46" by about a 1/4."

Originally Posted by Bond 007 

Wow. Thats a bummer. I think I would have figured something out. See my edited post above. My bad.

Originally Posted by hoozthatat 

The 40" which is only roughly 36.5" wide. He missed the 46" by about a 1/4." Now I don't want to quabble but nothing about your above post even remotely pertains to why you made the first post. If you read the post and you saw that he had a size limitation then why knock my post in the first place? Regardless, I think he made a solid choice for his situation.