Need LCD TV recommendation for use with Tivo

[Richard Loxley]

My 10 year old 28" Philips CRT died last night with a pop and a mild burning smell, so I'm looking to replace it.

I am looking for an LCD around the 32" size.

I only use it with Tivo and an original Xbox, so want something that will work well with Standard Definition video (I can always do the mode 0 upgrade on the Tivo if necessary as I have 320GB in it).

Ideally I want a TV that can have its volume controlled by the Tivo remote.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a cheapish LCD (around the £500 mark) for use with a Tivo?

I saw that Richer Sound have the Sony KDL32P3020 for £500 - anyone have any experience of that?

[terryeden]

I got a 32 AOC from Intekx. £380ish.
http://www.intekx.com/product_info.php?products_id=141

Excellent value for money, Freeview, 2 scarts, component, hdmi etc. Don't know if TiVo can control it because I tend to use my amp rather than the TV's speakers.

T

[afrokiwi]

I have the Samsung 40" FULL HD LCD (can't remember the model number but it is the new one) .... works a treat ... i did have to do the mode 0 mod ... and the Tivo remote controls the volume.

[Richard Loxley]

I have the Samsung 40" FULL HD LCD (can't remember the model number but it is the new one) .... works a treat ... i did have to do the mode 0 mod ... and the Tivo remote controls the volume.

I guess that would be the LE40F86BDX? http://www.johnlewis.com/Technology/Televisions/Televisions/LCD+TV/1284/230453383/Product.aspx

Does it upscale the standard definition signal well?

[afrokiwi]

nope ... it is the one before that http://www.samsung.com/uk/products/television/tftlcd/le40n86bdxxec.asp

[only got it a month ago and now there is a new model .... damn]

upscales SD fine ... HD is amazing ...

Oh i just realised that i have the new Tivo remote that is learning .... not sure if the standard remote works with Samsung


I guess that would be the LE40F86BDX? http://www.johnlewis.com/Technology/Televisions/Televisions/LCD+TV/1284/230453383/Product.aspx

Does it upscale the standard definition signal well?

[iankb]

After several months of looking at 40" LCD's, I've decided that Samsungs look the best value, with a very good dynamic contrast ratio of up to 15,000:1.

The only problem is which model to buy since they seem to have several ranges; although I'm probably going to go for a 1080p model.

[TCM2007]

Take that contrast figure with a pinch of salt; after being re-calibrated so faces aren't orange etc, it plummets!

At 40-odd inches I'd go plasma myself.

[terryeden]

32inches - LCD. Anything over - get a projector!

[johnnye]

About 12months back, I decided the Sony bravia 32in was the best for my uses - it can be tweaked to match each specific input, including digital smoothing, mpeg artefacts and noise reduction. It works very well with my Tivo in mode 0. However, there may be better on the market now. The important things to remember are:

1) What you see in the shop will bear no relation to what you will want in your home, in terms of picture brightness, colour and sharpness. All TVs come with defaults that are designed to look good in the brightly lit showroom with an HD source. Once you get it home you'll want to tone it down a bit and get the colour balance to be more realistic.

2) If, after you've got it home, you decide you don't like it then you need to be able to take it back and get a full refund. I decided to buy online ( therefore 14 day distance selling agreement) from Comet because they let you take it back to a local shop for refunds. I could have got it cheaper elsewhere on the web, but this was a decent compromise given that I had no experience of LCD TVs and didn't know what I was doing :D

After a normal CRT it takes a while to get used to an LCD - the picture quality is great with a good quality source but it shows up a lot of the digital artefacts that make up the cruddy broadcasts we get from sky and freeview so the picture processing and scaling capabilities of the TV are critical to getting a decent picture.

HTH :)

[Richard Loxley]

Thanks johnnye, it's definitely a 32" LCD I'm after, and I was leaning towards a Sony.

Like you I was thinking about buying online rather than a store because of being able to send it back if I didn't like it. Unless I can find a store with a similar money-back guarantee.

Do you know if your Sony can have its volume controlled by the standard Tivo remote?

Another thing I've been wondering about is that many TV's put a big bar over the picture whenever you change the volume, which I find distracting. Does the Sony do that?

Cheers for your help :-)

[b166er]

I've been very happy with my Sharp Aquos. Mine's a 26" but they have 32" ones too. What I like most about it is the number of inputs, including input direct from my PC. I download shows and watch them on my TV direct from my PC via a 5 metre cable.

[Pete77]

Firstly I was interested to hear of the expiration of your 10 year old Philips as this 9.8 year old 29" 100hz 4:3 Philips may be about to go the same way any time soon. Although a rather thorough repair was done on it 5 years old (various dry joints were fixed as well as the one that caused the standby failure) so I have a feeling it may stubbornly cling to life for a while longer yet.

There have been several other threads previously that discussed the issue of whether LCD or Plasma tvs are better for watching SD television and therefore also Tivo output. It was generally agreed that for HD television there is little to choose between LCD and Plasma other than that Plasmas seems to be capable of producing blacker blacks. However various learned forum members (TCM2007 excepted) seemed to be of the view that for SD viewing a Plasma gives better results in not showing up the low resolution of the SD picture as badly as an LCD. The only issue here though is that Plasmas now only start at the 37" size rather than 32" but as there is a trivial price difference why limit yourself with an arbitrary screen size number.

From extensive touring of widescreen tv displays in stores over the last few months (for me wandering in to electrical and PC stores is therapeutic in the same way that touring fashions stores is therapeutic for many females) I have noticed that small in widescreen tv terms does not mean good value for money and that the optimal value for money point for HDTVs is now in the 37 to 42" size bracket. With 32" you get a lot less screen but pay not much less money. Also I would say that most decent sized living rooms can take a 37" set and a 42" but 50" is starting to get rather too large and anything beyond 50" becomes almost monstrous and overpowering for all but the die hard tv fanatics (of which this forum has more than a few) as well as currently still costing an arm and a leg.

If you take a look at http://shopping.kelkoo.co.uk/ctl/do/search?catId=127101&siteSearchQuery=Plasma+42&sortBy=totalprice you will see prices start at £568 for a semi HD (720) LG 42"model but if you want a fully HD model something around the £700 mark ought to fit the bill.

If you are set on 32" for some reason then you will have to settle for an LCD model but with the exception of possibly the Sony Bravias (which are such high quality displays that they get over many of the usual LCD woes) you will find picture quality a lot less good with a Tivo and you are going to find a decent 37" or 42" Plasma set sets you back very little more money that a 32" Sony Bravia ( the only LCD that seems to give acceptable results with a Tivo).

Even though you won't use this tv for HD viewing now you have to bear in mind its likely 10 year life and the fact that within 18 months the BBC are going to have a lot of very interesting Freesat PVRs with hard drives and Tivo like recording features available and that to get the best out of these you need a fully HD 1080p model as well as one using a decent Plasma technology that gives the sharpest and blackest technology.

Once HD takes off a big way and dare I say it if and when Tivo finally withdraw their UK service you may rue a decision to go for a tv that is only just adequate now for Tivo viewing but has no forward looking decent HD upgradeability path. However the choice as they say is yours......

Finally an obvious point is that you are bound to get a much better deal in the January sales that now seem to start on about Dec 20th than if you buy at the moment in the big pre-xmas sales buildup. Perhaps you have an old 14" portable somewhere that could tide you over the next few weeks?

[johnnye]

I can't help about the remote, I'm afraid, because I don't use the Tivo one anymore but instead use a harmony 525. As far as the volume bar, yes there is one but it isn't that big - maybe 1/5th of the screen width and not very high. You can see it for yourself if you go into a shop and ask them.

[Pete77]

A search for "full hd" and plasma at www.kelkoo.co.uk brings up some interesting results.

http://shopping.kelkoo.co.uk/ctl/do/search?sortBy=totalprice&newused=all&numPerPage=60&siteSearchQuery=+full+hd++plasma&fromform=true

Full HD Panasonic Plasmas start at £919. If you can content yourself with 720p (all that HD programs will be broadcast in for some years as far as anyone knows) then you can pay little over £500 for a good Samsung or Panasonic 42" Plasma model. If you are going to watch a lot of Blue Ray or HD DVD disk movies then you would need a 1080p model.

As to the remote issue www.tivoheaven.co.uk can sell you a Tivo remote for a US Series 3 Tivo that also works with our Tivos and can learn the volume and standby commands etc of any current tv model on sale.

[Richard Loxley]

Thanks Pete.

I've read about the plasma vs LCD issues, but I was put off plasmas because of the power consumption - I'm trying to reduce my carbon footprint as much as possible, and using less energy in my household is one of the steps I'm taking. And I might just be able to squeeze a 37" in my living room, but I think a 32" would be more comfortable.

I was tempted by a Sony because I've had good experience of their products in the past - what you say about the Bravia LCDs makes me think this may be a good move if I'm sticking with LCD.

As for future HD content, if I had the budget I might get a full HD set. But realistically I'm won't have the budget to upgrade to a HD PVR and HD service for another 5 years, by which time I can replace the main TV and put the old one up in my bedroom.

I'm currently using a 14" video monitor in the living room, but I normally use it in my job for video editing, so I have to keep moving it between the lounge and the office. I'm not sure I can stand that until the new year!

[Pete77]

www.amazon.co.uk seem to have the best prices on Sony Bravias from about £490 for a 32" model and from £590 for a 37" model. But then you can get a semi true HD 42" LG Plasma for about the high £500s too and that was really my point in my earlier post. LGs are not bad sets whereas the likes of Matsui etc are obviously rubbish.

Of course there are so many models with so many different specs from one manufacturer now that you have to be very careful about what you are buying........

[AMc]

I'm currently using a 14" video monitor in the living room, but I normally use it in my job for video editing, so I have to keep moving it between the lounge and the office. I'm not sure I can stand that until the new year!
If you join your local Freecycle group and post a 'wanted' ad for a working TV with SCART you'll probably find someone offloading a portable or something larger.
http://www.freecycle.org/groups/unitedkingdom/

When you've bought your TV in the sales you can put it back on Freecycle and someone else will turn up and take it away. Cost you nothing but time and may be a bit of local travel.

[Pete77]

If you join your local Freecycle group and post a 'wanted' ad for a working TV with SCART you'll probably find someone offloading a portable or something larger.
http://www.freecycle.org/groups/unitedkingdom/

Its certainly tempting to see if any large high quality (eg Sony, Panasonic etc) CRT widescreens are currently being made available by that route.

Or are the latests LCD and Plasma sets now offering better picture quality than a high quality LCD for viewing SD television?

[AMc]

Its certainly tempting to see if any large high quality (eg Sony, Panasonic etc) CRT widescreens are currently being made available by that route.Sometimes big TVs go through my local group more often its older and smaller sets. Someone offered a working black and white this week which must be 20 years old. Given the choice between someone showing up and taking away a 70KG 32" monster or having to hoik it to the tip yourself when it's still functional then I would choose to help someone and save myself some hassle.

Any TV tends to get snapped up immediately so a wanted ad is more likely to get a result than waiting for an offer.

The point about Freecycle is to keep things that work out of landfill so you're harming no one by joining and taking away their unwanted stuff.

[Richard Loxley]

After trawling round all the local electrical stores yesterday to look at screens, I decided to go for a Sony KDL-32S3000.

My silver peanut remote was able to control the volume on all the Sony sets in the stores :)

I had a demo of the inbuilt freeview tuner on a 37" set in the Sony Centre, and the picture was better than I would have expected from a SD source on a large screen. Whether I'll need to go for mode 0 on the Tivo on the 32" version remains to be seen.

I've ordered it off Amazon for £510 including a free 3 year warranty, a saving of £195 off the Sony list price. Guaranteed delivery on Tuesday morning was £9.

I'll report back how it looks with the Tivo next week!

[Richard Loxley]

Well having had it for a few days, I'm reasonably happy with the Sony.

It took a bit of tweaking to get a reasonable picture, but that seems quite typical.

Best quality on the Tivo was acceptable on the screen, although every now and then you can see artifacts. I've just enabled mode 0, which wasn't an overally dramatic difference, but noticable. The picture now looks very nice, and I think the artifacts from freeview are much more noticeable than anything Tivo introduces.

The deinterlacing in the set produces a bit of smearing on motion, but I think I'll get used to it. I probably only notice it because I work in digital video and know what to look for.

Sound quality through the tiny speakers was disappointing at first. I've now turned down the bass and turned up the trebble, and TV programmes are much clearer, but at the expenses of the bassy 'theatre' kind of sound (which is presumably why they set it up that way by default). When I can afford it I'll probably get a proper theatre surround sound system.

So, overall not bad. If I were to do it again (and with more money) I'd probably look at the 100Hz 'smooth motion' sets to see if their deinterlacing on motion was any better, but they were out of my price range.

For the price I think it's a good set and good value for money.

[TCM2007]

Sound is one of the things they don't tell you about flat screen TVs - without a big box, there's no way to get a decent sound out of one of those TVs built in speakers. I run an AV amp and surround, so it doesn't effect me, but the native sound quality of these LCDs is truly rubbish.

[Pete77]

Sound is one of the things they don't tell you about flat screen TVs - without a big box, there's no way to get a decent sound out of one of those TVs built in speakers. I run an AV amp and surround, so it doesn't effect me, but the native sound quality of these LCDs is truly rubbish.

Whereas the sound from my Dolby Pro Logic Philips 29" 100hz tv with huge great subwoofer thingie built in to the back of it sitting on a massive matching wooden cabinet below is truly impressive. The set also came with two small rear Philips speakers but being wired I could never find anywhere in the living room that was the right place for them in sound terms that wasn't a major trip hazard.

Are there any surround setups where the speakers are sent their sound wirelessly? I suppose the battery power and wifi interference issues would however then always raise their ugly heads?

[TCM2007]

There are ones which don't require a wired connection to the main box, but they do still need power.

Infra-red ones are available.

Some of the single unit "bounce the sound off walls" devices are very impressive when properly calibrated. Yamaha do a good one.

[martink0646]

I have a 7.1 (actually 7.2 as I run 2 subs) setup run from a Denon amp. When I moved a couple of years back it was easy to fit the 2 fronts & the center as I ran the cabling behind the plasterboard on the false wall we created to house the screen. The left & right effects channel were also quite easy to run using flat cable which is then painted over to hide it which is a must for WAF. I did have a problem with the 2 rear effects channel as they are on a 30' wall with nowhere to hide the cables. I bought a cheap (£30) set of battery powered wireless speakers (like these ebay items - No. 150190256399) that are fed from a small sender. The sender has a 3.5mm jack that is supposed to fit into a headphone socket of any audio item. I cut off the jack & stripped back the cable & connected them to the rear effects speaker terminals & voila, reasonably flat speakers that can be attached to a wall (using a couple of screws & utilizing the keyway fitting on the back of the speakers) with no wires whatsoever. The sound is great when using material properly mixed for effects channels, such as any DD or DTS material. Where it isn't as good is when using a signal processed by the amp where it splits the sound evenly across all speakers such as Dolby Pro Logic or DTS Neo 6 & it is not good with 7CH stereo. I haven't tried it with the new generation of post processing support such as Dolby Pro Logic 2 as my amp is quite old & doesn't support it. But for a cheap & easy solution to wireless surround for Home Cinema it is perfect & I don't really miss the rear 2 channels for TV viewing with the L & R effects channels taking the strain of filling a big room.

As far as using the sound bar systems go they are really good in a smallish room especially if you haven't had a good multi speaker setup before. I trialed the Yamaha, (at the time I was working for the company that manufactured the shell of the pre-production units) & whilst amazingly good considering the source it is still not a patch on individual speakers.

Martin

[Andy Leitch]

Thanks Pete.

I've read about the plasma vs LCD issues, but I was put off plasmas because of the power consumption

Over the lifetime usage of the set, LCD's actually use more power than plasma's...due to the backlight always being on, whereas a plasma can put pixels into a low charge state or even turn them off completely...thus saving energy.

The LCD wattage figure is what the panel is consuming *all* the time, a plasma wattage figure is the maximum the panel will use whilst dispalying a white screen, (the most power hungry state for a plasma), in normal everyday use the wattage figure is much, much lower. And even lower again when using the energy-saving feature.

However, most people don't do their research properly and just look at the wattage consumption figures and don't look at the bigger picture...(no pun intended).

EDIT: And if you have a Philips Ambilight LCD, they're even *more* power hungry.

[Pete77]

Over the lifetime usage of the set, LCD's actually use more power than plasma's...due to the backlight always being on, whereas a plasma can put pixels into a low charge state or even turn them off completely...thus saving energy.

Are you saying the backlight on an LCD set is on even if people use the off button on the front of the LCD set or only if they leave it in Standby using the remote (which admittedly many people often do).

Surely if they turn the LCD off at the mains plug the power consumption is then zero. Is it a case for the use of a Standby Saver device as first seen on Dragons Den and one of the few major successes to have appeared on that show.

I have found my Maplins LCD Power meter very interesting in revealing the actual useage of electrical devices in my home. As you say the indicated maximum power is often not the actual consumption and with my fridge and freezer although they do draw the indicated maximum current when they are running and cooling or freezing for two thirds of the time in each hour they have dropped back in to standby and are consuming zero power and so their total current draw in any 24 hour period is only one third of the maximum indicated amounts. That is they only actually draw 30W and 40W per hour respectively on average and not the maximum 90W and 120W that they only consume when their compressors and motors are actually running.

[Richard Loxley]

Andy - do you know where I could get some figures for the average power consumption of plasma screens? I'm into green issues and would quite like to investigate further.

Not that's it's directly relevent for me as my living room wouldn't accommodate a set bigger than 32", which pretty much meant I had to go for an LCD.

[Pete77]

Not that's it's directly relevent for me as my living room wouldn't accommodate a set bigger than 32", which pretty much meant I had to go for an LCD.

37" doesn't seem that much of a jump up from 32" and is where the Plasmas now start.

I agree that 42" sets start to look very big and 50" and beyond are in the monstrous category where they will dominate the whole room.

[Richard Loxley]

Yes, I was undecided about 37", so I got the exact sizes of the sets in question, and "mocked-up" the screens in my living room with bits of paper to see exactly how big they would be. Once I'd done that I realised 37" was just too big unless I rearranged my room considerably. Pity, but then I did save money by going for a 32".