New telly time...

[RantyDave]

Opinions sought. Generally there's no lack of them...

Basically I want to replace our whole TV, Playstation, home theatre crap. Most of it is now about eight years old and is starting to actually physically fall to bits. I'm not going to go all audiophile or picturephile, I'm basically wanting to replace the falling to bits shit in the living room with stuff that's fun again. Requirements are:

* Most of my concern is around running PS3 games well, to be honest. I definitely would not consider anything other than 1080p. I've lost track of whether LCD or Plasma is the technology du jour.

* We don't leave the TV on all day so power consumption is not a big deal and neither are thickness or heat.

* We do run quite a lot of ripped movies (esp kids amusement stuff) off our mac. The output is currently analog but can be DVI. Quality is not such a big deal for these. Audio is also currently analog off a little USB wotsit but we could run optical s/pdif out the back of the mac too. The telly is on the other side of the room from the mac but this does not have to be the case forever. We can get a network share (both wired and wireless) and/or a big fuck off USB disk for it if that would be easier. Most of our stuff is ripped to h.264 at around 1-2Mbit and downmixed to stereo, unfortunately.

* I guess we'd start getting blu-rays off fatso.

* Would love to get freeview HD but suspect we won't get it (very bad terrestrial reception here). There's a guy lives just down the road does TV aerials so perhaps I should ask him. We have a satellite dish on the side of the house but our receiver just shit itself. A telly with built in satellite receiver would be awesome.

* We do have kids and one is still quite young (nearly three) so being reasonably solid is a big plus. Being delicate is a big minus.

* Would probably like to or need to hook one or other mac in from time to time and would like to get reasonably good performance. It may be used for VJ stuff at some point in the future.

* Size is not a big deal. 32" would probably be fine. 40" would be huge. It's not a very big room and we don't do that thing where we put the telly on one side and the sofa on the other. The TV is not the focus of the room nor our lives. If we do park up for a movie or a game we tend to watch it sitting on a bean bag approx 2m away and with our heads in the centre of the 5.1 space.

* A built in 5.1 decoder with somewhere to plug speakers in would be cool but not a big deal. It would need to be able to pull 5.1 off the PS3 or it'd be useless. I guess plan B would be to score an external DTS compatible decoder/amp/speakers set - maybe even just a logitech/klipsch computer centric thing.

I'm not precious about getting it new but it does seem to me that this whole industry is moving forwards pretty quickly now - what with 100hz and smarter image processors and all that jazz. I might be keen on getting the speakers/amp bit off trademe. We'd be looking to score a PS3 too and remember that at one point Sony were doing a promotion with getting one of their TV's and a PS3 at the same time. I guess we're a bit close to Christmas to have that be likely.

Any pointers, advice or otherwise?

Dave

[mashman]

PS3 games are not 1080p anyway...

As a rule of thumb i'd say a TV with a 1920x1080 resolution (i.e. Full HD and 1080p without scaling). Both plasma, LCD and OLED (the new thin screen expensive stuff) offer Full HD... plasmas are usually quite a bit cheaper...

If you're gonna get a surround sound, get a system that has an amp, then you can plug in ANYTHING you like, even a mac!!!

and that's about all anyone needs to know really other than price...

[onearmedbandit]

I'll attempt to answer some of your questions for you Dave.

While the difference in picture quality is not great in the smaller screens, especially 32" and smaller, I'd still recommend you go with 1080p as you've said you will. Not solely for picture quality but the 1080p sets are spec'ed better than their 720p counterparts.

Regarding Plasma/LCD I'm not going to get into the differences here, simply because you've already said a 40" will be huge and there are no decent residential Plasmas smaller than 42", so you'll be going with LCD or LED LCD.

Your choices in size are pretty much as follows, 32", 37", and 40". The current leaders in LCD screens in NZ in terms of sales are Samsung, followed closely by Sony (although this may have changed). Panasonic feature as well but their main market is in plasma. With Samsung you have either the 5 or 6 series. Both are 1080p with terrestial (no TV I know of comes out with built in satellite receiver) HD digital receivers, the 5 series being a 50hz and the 6 100hz. The 6 series is also internet capable, network capable (DLNA), has a built-in content library with 1Gb Flash memory, both sets support USB2.0 (allowing music/jpeg/video playback). The one drawback with the 6 series is its finish. The screen is very reflective, unlike the more matte finish of the 5 series, which means it will suffer from a lot of glare and light reflection. Take this into consideration.

Sony offers the V and W series. Once again, both full high def with built in freeview. Both are DLNA ready and both support USB2.0. The V is the 50hz set and obviously therefore the W is 100hz. Both have a matte finish so glare is not really an issue.

In 37" you can go for the 5 series from Samsung, or the S or G series from Panasonic. Sony doesn't offer a 37" TV (except last years S series) in NZ. The 5 series Samsung is the same as the 32" 5 series. Panasonics S series is once again full HD with built in freeview in 50hz, the G series is 100hz.

In 40" you pretty much have the same offerings in 32", ie Samsungs 5 and 6 series and Sony's V & W series.

There are some other options, namely Samsungs 7 series and Sony's Z, X, WE, ZX, and EX series. None of these TV's fit your bill as far as I can make out as they are for the most part more expensive specialised sets.

The one other option you may consider is Samsungs LED LCD sets. These (especially in 32") are coming down in price significantly now and I know of 32" sets going for $1750. These offer a far superior Dynamic Contrast Ratio (although this of course can be tweaked in tests), are more efficient, incredibly thin and light, and have a superb picture. The only drawback is yet again the gloss finish to the screen.

None of the sets have 5.1 output (ie you can't just hook up a 5.1 speaker set to them) but combined with an amp/home theatre setup will sound superb. As far as strength goes, LCD's don't like to have their screens hit hard. All the new TV's carry their weight quite low so it takes a decent knock to topple them over.

[onearmedbandit]

PS3 games are not 1080p anyway...

As a rule of thumb i'd say a TV with a 1920x1080 resolution (i.e. Full HD and 1080p without scaling). Both plasma, LCD and OLED (the new thin screen expensive stuff) offer Full HD... plasmas are usually quite a bit cheaper...

If you're gonna get a surround sound, get a system that has an amp, then you can plug in ANYTHING you like, even a mac!!!

and that's about all anyone needs to know really other than price...

Some PS3 games are 1080p, such as GT5 Prologue. And OLED? Not in any current mass production TV available in NZ. Conventional LED lit LCD screens yes, Samsungs using purely white LED's and Sony's X series (in 46 and 55") use red, green, and blue LED's.

[James Deuce]

Minimum of two HDMI inputs.

[george formby]

If you can wait awhile for a telly I would do so. I had a bloke in the shop recently who's son works for Phillips in the UK. They are close to releasing a whole new concept in TV which will put the current stuff to shame. The price of LED tellys with built in freeview, modem etc will plummet.

[Jizah]

Some of the Samsung LCDs have usb, wireless and RJ45 network plugs. They will also run your movies straight from a usb hdd or directly over the network.


edit: aaaaand this has already been said, so never mind.

[mashman]

Some PS3 games are 1080p, such as GT5 Prologue. And OLED? Not in any current mass production TV available in NZ. Conventional LED lit LCD screens yes, Samsungs using purely white LED's and Sony's X series (in 46 and 55") use red, green, and blue LED's.

Very true, i sit corrected... I thought we'd just skipped SED and gone on to OLED as there were supposed to be geometry issues with conventional LED's in such a narrow screen... I take it they sorted it then!!!

sorry for the old/misinformation Ranty.

[onearmedbandit]

If you can wait awhile for a telly I would do so. I had a bloke in the shop recently who's son works for Phillips in the UK. They are close to releasing a whole new concept in TV which will put the current stuff to shame. The price of LED tellys with built in freeview, modem etc will plummet.

Sounds interesting. I know Panasonic are working on a true 3d tv but it's not projected to see the light of day for another 10yrs. Unfortunately Philips have pulled out of the NZ and Oz markets. But if they release something revolutionary the others won't be far behind.