[innocentfreak]

My parents are looking to replace an old tv. They are looking to spend around 2500 and are looking to go with a large preferrably flat screen non projection. Does any one have any recommendations?

 

[rogo]

What do they watch? If it's OTA or regular cable, I'd seriously consider the Sony XBR700 40" set. It is big, it does a great job on HD and it handles DVD well.


If they watch digital cable or DirecTV or Dish Network, I would not buy the Sony. Instead, I'd look at the newest 36" flat screen from RCA, the Toshiba 36HFX71 or the Panasonic 36HX41.


Mark

 

[innocentfreak]

Being that it is for my parents, they will probably be watching some dvd's, but mostly digital cable. Any idea where a good site online would be to check reviews and other info regarding these tv's?

 

[WOLVERNOLE]

I have been consistently impressed with the Toshiba 34" 16:9 (34HF81). Very nice. Unit looks good "turned off"...two components...great color...great "stretch mode"...and it sells for around $2200.

 

[rogo]

I would say your parents DO NOT WANT a widescreen set to watch primarily 4:3 sources. They are much better off with a regular old 4:3 set.


You can read all the reviews you want, but you need to try to look at some sets yourself. The problem with digital cable and digital TVs is that the deinterlacers and the SVM often cause the MPEG "blocks" to become unacceptable mishmashes of ugliness.


The Sony DRC simply CANNOT handle overcompressed digital signals without making them look like pure junk. I know nothing about your digital cable and how good it is, but most of them are bad.


I suspect you can see the Panasonic at Best Buy near you. The Toshiba is somewhat harder to find at retail, but look around.


Mark

 

[Toe]

If geometry issues bother you, which all flat screens have to some degree or another, check out the Hitachi 36" HDTV 4:3. Very nice picture, and can be had for 1600.00 at CC. Only one component though, which is only thing making me hesitate on this beauty.

 

[maxdb]

I went through 3 Toshiba 36HF71 sets before giving up... set #1 arrived with the center 3/4 of the screen very very dark, color casts on the left and right sides of the screen (different on each side), the screen would never go black but hit a medium gray and show magenta raster re-trace lines, periodically the screen would flash white and over the next 15 to 30 seconds settle back down to normal (still all screwed up of course). Set #2 not focused well and a moire pattern on the left 30% of the screen and the right 30% of the screen. Stars or thin vertical lines in the areas where the moire pattern existed would shimmer and change color if they were in motion (camera pan or whatever). Toshiba claimed it was a defective shadow mask. Set #3 - focused well, but still had the moire pattern in the same areas (not obvious all the time, Onkyo's dark blue menu background made it highly obvious though, looked like wood grain. Image always grainy looking in moire areas - again, stars and thin vertical lines shimmer and change color if in motion... and even stationary convergence test patterns showed some shimmering in the moire areas.


I ended up buying a Sony 36XBR450 which I'm completely happy with. Digital cable usually has the first 100 channels analog to maintain compatiblilty in the system so if your analog cable looks bad, going to digital cable will get you the same problems. The Sony is fan-freakin-tastic on local stations received over the air by antenna. The same local stations are on the analog portion of "digital cable" and are OK, but not great. The digital channels on digital cable (100 and up) look better than the analog channels but it is easy to see digital compression artifacts around text that is on top of images. If you have digital cable, your provider may offer High Definition channels (HBO and Showtime at least) - I get the HD digital cable channels and they are remarkable, mostly, when they send 1080i which is only about half the time right now. There are NO visible artifacts of any kind unless there is a 'blip" that causes the picture to make obvious pixel blocks for a split second.


Why bad video looks bad on the Sony HD sets... their DRC doubles the horizontal and vertical resolution. Most HD sets double only the vertical resolution to eliminate visible scan lines in the image. So any defects in the image are magnified more on the Sony than on other HD sets using line doubling only. The result is that on high quality "old" channels, the Sony looks excellent... but the worse the image you ask it to reproduce, the more you will see the problems in the image.

 

[JShort]

My pick would be a 24" 16:9 Sony (HP sells it too) PC monitor with a RCA DTC-100 tuner to drive it. Total cost is about $2300.


I realize that it's a rather small picture for $2500, however HDTV is sooooo sweet on this rig. Your viewing distance should be considered, and if you're over 10' I think I would opt. either the 34" Tosh. or 34" Panasonic 16:9.


Good luck,


Jim

 

[Sizam]

Granted, sometimes the picture looks a little artifacty on my 36xbr450, I still really like it, and if the xbr800 wasn't comming out I'd keep it (since I bought it less then a month ago). And I don't think your parents will notice any PQ problems, I think you only notice it if you really get into PQ. My girlfriend doesn't know what I'm talking about for the most part (with DirecTiVo). And the 36xbr450 can be had for $2000 (what I paid 15 days ago) from Circuit City, just go in and hard nose it.

 

[rogo]

FYI, the above-maligned Toshiba 36HF71 is $1400 at the Mountain View Costco right now.


Mark

 

[tvguys]

JShort,

Sony makes a 24" 16:9 monitor? Can you get me a model # so I can check it out. Sound like a great small 'wide screen' solution.

 

[JShort]

Sony GDM-FW900 is the newest -- it's a silver color monitor and is very flat. Street price is about $1750 now. It was proceeded by a more traditional trinitron face (not completely flat) and it was the GDM-W900. It was phased out at least a year ago, but may be available for less $ if you could still find one. Compaq used to sell a clone of the older model, I think that it was the P1610.


These are truly awesome PC monitors and truly awesome HDTV display devices. I've seen the older Sony in service at a major TV station here in Houston, TX. And the local PBS station has one of the newer flatter models.


Jim

 

[hob]

What is the big deal about a flat screen, if they are only going to be watching TV, or a movie from a DVD player. I could see using a flat screen for computer use, but I have owned a F-38310 Wide Screen for 11 months now, I am using it right now to type out this post from 5 feet away!



I own and watch 711 DVD discs, some seen dozzens of times besides watch digital cable www.sectv.com HBO & Cinemax pay channels included. Instead of having a HTPC I have a HT Web Browser fully line doubled, from inside DTC-100 line doubler, it also has a receiver built in for Direct TV satellite.



*Inside* screen glass dementions 19 inches of vertical height and 33.75 inches of width, plus the cabinet with 2 speakers on the sides.


Toe I hope you have read this also.