Hey Fellas!

Found out last week that I’m getting about 3x more on my tax refund than what I expected! That means I get to buy a new TV for my man room a.k.a. the bedroom lol!

Here’s the major problem; I’ve spent hours reading posts in here about various sets, LCD, and Plasma. There is just way too many options out there for me to research all of them. I’m currently laid up with pneumonia, so I can’t really get out there to start physically looking at the moment either (yes, it royally sucks!)

So right now, I’m looking for some recommendations. This is the ballpark of what I’m looking for, and what it’s going to be used for.

Uses: Primarily PS3/Xbox 360 gaming, the occasional blu ray in the mix. Those of you with little little ones know it’s damned near impossible to get a couple hours in for some movie time of your own!

Size: I’d like to go between 40" to 46". Would possibly go down to a 37" if it was just a great set.

Budget: I don’t really have one this time around and it’s wife approved! I don’t want to spend a huge amount, but if the set has got it, it’s got it, and I’ll buy it! Ya follow me on that?

Sound Quality: For some, this is a huge put off, but not for me. The current deals on some of the Energy take speakers was too good to turn down, and I’ll be pumping juice to them from a newer Onkyo Receiver, just haven’t picked one out yet! So all sound will be through the receiver!

Brands: That doesn’t matter much either. If they got the good stuff, they got the good stuff. I don’t care name is molded into the bezel. Even if it’s an Insignia from BB. Which frito is going to tell me to take a dump on it, roll it down a hill, then blow it up! LOL, sorry frito, you just really don’t like them tvs.

That’s really about it. I’m looking for a dam solid LCD for HD gaming between 40" 2 46".

Some brands and model #’s to research while I’m still relearning how to breathe again would be great! .

Oh yeah, I’ll be sure and post pictures once I get it all together so everyone can see it!

Brent

Well sense there are no real reviews of this TV on here i decided i will post one from my experience with mine that I’ve owned for almost a week now.

overall good picture quality, great picture when used with a PC over HDMI

Good input lag compared to most other brands even in 120hz modes, i’d estimate around 60ms with 120hz and motion enhancement active and very good input lag (32-16 ms) when in game mode and also great picture and text clarity with a PC in the game mode making it very good for PC use

120hz along with a TV that is able to deliver good gaming lag even though it is a 120hz TV which is very rare

Contrast is good but not as good as some LCD TV’s and no where near plasma esp at off angles

lots of picture mode adjustment even in game mode you can adjust all critical picture and color adjustments, only NR, resolution+ and clearframe (120hz) are disabled in this mode and input lag is very good for an HDTV (27ms average lag at 1080p)

Bad off angle black levels (outside of 30 degrees the blacks turn purple, very common for CCFL LCD’s but some do perform better)

Motion enhancer is good but not as good as sony and samusng TV’s set to the right mode, setting the motion enhancer at max (smooth) rarely produces soap opera effect but it fails to remove judder sometimes and can introduce artifacting depending on the source material, overall it is pretty good and definitely improves motion over 60hz sets without compromising the picture quality too much or making things look unreal etc.

using test patterns it is pretty easy to get it very close to calibration without the use of external equipment outside of test DVD/websites to guide you with test patterns and instructions but using 32 bit color gradients the TV clearly has banding with colors that even my 6bit 22" TN pc monitor does not have so color accuracy is defiantly not as good as higher end TV’s

The color banding issue really IMHO is not a huge issue to me or the average user, it does not obviously effect picture quality and is no doubt a side effect of the cheap samsung panel used in the TV that contributes to the TV’s low price point

coming from using a sony 32" XBR6 (S-LCD made S-PVA panel like many samsung and sony TV’s use) to this TV I will say easily that the picture is on par with them and contrast is the only thing that suffers slightly all be it at off angles of more than 30 degrees it suffers much worse than my old sony but they both exhibited color tinged black levels at those angles in dark rooms and its a fact of life with any LCD that does not have local dimming.

bottom line is its a good gaming TV at a great price and will also perform admirably well with movies to boot, I honestly think that one of the only TV’s that will beat it in this use may be the Sharp E77U models, they have lower input lag slightly and are 120hz. aside from that i cannot comment on their picture due to not having or owing one to test in real world conditions outside of a store.

Panasonic 1080P 32"/37" LCD will outperform it in input lag and color reproduction but will lack the contrast ratio (deep blacks) and motion enhancement this set offers but they will do better in off angle viewing overall than the Toshiba or other VA TV’s

Update on the color banding issues

game and PC picture modes produce lots of banding on color gradients but if you switch to movie/standard/sports picture modes it disappears completely except for 1 band in the dark end of the contrast spectrum so this issue is definitely largely linked to game and PC picture modes on the TV.

also motion enhancement works much better with blu rays played via 1080p/24 vs playing back a 24fps video file on a PC at any resolution mode, to be expected from my experience with 120hz sets. my friends samsung 46B630 behaves the same way performing better with a BD player outputting 24p vs a PC or player outputting 60hz with motion enhancement. the major difference i see between my Toshiba and his samsung is when playing back a BD at 24p you can create soap opera effect if you turn AMP up over 3-4 on judder reduction but my toshiba is pretty much the same as his samsung set at anti blur 10 judder 3 and the Toshiba at clearframe on and film stabilization set to smooth (highest possible setting on the Toshiba)

other less important neat thing other TV’s are likely to have

Supports HDMI CEC (Regza link) this function works just as good with my Sony blu ray BDP-S360 as my sony 32xbr6 did, all commonly used functions work via the Toshiba remote without having to program it including the arrow buttons and enter key as well as other common functions.

HDMI lip sync support works very well, something my Sony 32xbr6 did not have and this TV tells my BD player how much input lag it has for its picture mode i use and the player adjusts audio output accordingly including the optical output that i currently use that is going directly from my BD player to my Receiver, if i go into my BD players audio delay adjustment rather than defaulting at 0ms out of 120ms as it did with my sony TV it now defaults to 60ms when connected to the Toshiba

Hey everyone, I’m new to these forums and after being recommended by several people I’m eager to get started and hopefully someone here will be able to help me with my little problem!

I was going to post in the owners thread for this TV but I though as I’ve written so much it might be a better option to keep it in its own thread but if I’ve chosen the wrong place, please feel free to correct me

So I have just bought myself the Sony Bravia KDL-52Z5100 52" and I must say that I LOVE it to death! I’m on the waiting list to get it calibrated and then I will truly be on my way with my fist HD experience!

What I was really excited for was the USB port on the side. My plan was to put all my HD Anime fansubs on a USB stick and play them straight on the TV in true HD!

The only problem is that I am now faced with overscan again!!!

When I want to burn episodes to DVD and play them on the TV I’ve always used a video converter to put a black box around them in order to prevent the overscan issue. This has always worked just fine thanks to Winavi and Nero and I’ve burnt tones of fansubs and watched them just fine!

So why is this happening again on my new TV? I thought it would be different playing them from the USB port!

I still need to update the firmware but would this even help?

If I use Winavi to convert the episodes with the black box around I’ll lose the HD quality won’t I as the only output options I have are .vob, .avi and .wma and I have a feeling these won’t even play back on the TV!

I was advised to play with the screen settings to find a ‘full pixel’ option but this doesn’t appear to be available!

This is what I get under the ’screen’ option…

Wide Mode - Full
Auto Wide - On
- 4:3 Default off
Auto Display Area off
-Display area -1
Screen Position
Vertical Size 0

Sorry this is so long and I hope it makes sense but I’m really bugged as I thought all would be easy but I guess nothing comes this simple.

Thanks alot

So here is how it goes<
so I bought a lcd TV back in 05 from best buy and an extended warranty so it broke around the holidays seasons this year and I got a rma and they couldn’t match the picture and picture mode so I got my full cash back anyways I saw the ln32b460 and sprung for it after doing some searching and comparing it to the sony bravia 5000,

now I know this TV is 6ms and 60 Hz so it was to be expected on super fast gaming or sports there would be blur but im getting 1 so much blur/smearing from the set like when people talk their mouth floats around and to me that isnt right, it’s not moving fast enough to warranty there be any blur but is that amount of blur/ smearing normal because the same content on my off brand lcd hdtv that had way worse specs didn’t have any of this blur/smearing on watching the same content

2 my TV will start flickering until it say stops and basicly the screen just say no imput? tryed many different cables to rule out the cables it happens all all sources just it will happen randomly if i shut the tv off and turn it back on its fine but why would this happen anyway I posted the video to show sorry taken really quickly with a cam but you will get the point it does this every day after a few hours or sometimes a few min’s after starting up the TV, also the bright line cant be made out when it flashes but it looks like when you have it set to the cable tuner and their is no singnal that kind of wavy screen?

now I am going to take back the TV and get it exchanged for a new one

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I got a Phillips 42PFL3704D/F7 from Target recently…I cant find any "real" info at all about this TV.

I’m pretty far from a videophile, so I’m sure videophile’s might hate it, but I love the picture quality etc from the set.

This set seems mostly sold from Target, it is one of their often advertised and low price sets. After some discounts for example I got mine for $560. Target still seems to sell a lot of them.

I guess my main concern is input lag because I’m a big 360 gamer…I wish I could find any info about lag and this set. I am considering returning it to get a "known" low lag set, the problem seems to be there’s little or no consensus on what sets have low lag in the first place, so I dont even know what I’d get, or if it might even end up worse than this one, or even if this one is "bad".

I’d really like to know the panel type too, might it be one of the low lag IPS panels? Is there a way to find out?

But one thing I really dont like about this set is there’s incredibly simple menus. No way to turn any processing off (and on this simple set, there’s not really much mention of what processing it does anyway). There is picture presets including a "game" one, but I suspect they’re sharpness/contrasts presets and nothing more, as nowhere is turning off processing mentioned, and if you manually adjust any bright/contrast/sharp setting while in "game" mode (the game mode brightness setting is too dark for my taste), it automatically changes the setting to "personal" which doesnt make sense to me.

Another thing I dont like is there’s no VGA input, which are often (but not always) said to be a low lag connection.

I dont have the equipment to do lag testing myself. Unless I was thinking of buying Rock Band 2 which has an auto lag test in the guitar, but that would probably cost $100 and some say that test is inaccurate anyway?

Any way to find out detailed info like lag or panel type on this set at all?

Hopefully this ends up in the right subforum - the sheer amount of them are staggering. :3

I have a Sharp LC-42SB55E LCD TV, which I purchased some time before Christmas. It’s generally been working fine except for a few oddities and quirks that I came across, and one of them is really making my satisfaction with the device drop.

It has some form of "brightness balancing" that you can’t disable anywhere. Except it’s not "balancing" as much as "exaggeration".

Whenever scenes get dark, the TV gradually lowers brightness further, so that often stuff gets too dark to see. And likewise, when scenes get bright it raises brightness. In audio terms, loud sounds would become louder and quiet sounds illegible. Raising the brightness setting just moves it to the upper end of the gradient, making bright stuff gets really bright and dark stuff grey (and equally hard to see as earlier). This has lead to much frustration in PS3 and 360 games, where dark-against-dark scenes are common.

At first I thought this was a pure bug. I mean, perhaps the developers thought to make a "brightness normalization" feature and they just botched a logic check someplace, making it work in reverse. But from what I can tell by reading the manual and doing some Google roadwork, it doesn’t seem to support any easy way of upgrading its software. There is a ‘Current software info’ tab in the settings, but Googling the terms there turn up mostly blank, with the occasional Russian site match. :confused:

Is this a known "feature" LCD TVs can have? Should I take it to my retailer and ask for a firmware upgrade, and hope that isn’t such a cheapo TV that it has such functionality removed?

I live in Sweden, and at least on the Swedish/European Sharp site all support pages eventually say to contact whoever you bought it from "and they’ll be happy to help you." So there’s no way to ask Sharp support, and I *truly* doubt that I’ll find that level of expertise at the local store.

I appreciate any insight I can get - this TV lets me down more every day.

I am looking for a 40-42" bedroom HDTV. My requirements are that it be silent when muted (unlike the Panny TC-P42S1 plasma I picked up last night - the thing buzzes and the fans hum — pretty ridiculous).

I’ve had very good experiences with Toshiba and recognize that they offer some of the best bang-for-your-buck HDTVs out there.

Here a breakdown of the differences as i see them:

40XV645U (~$650-700 after BCB)
- 1080p, 120Hz, 50,000:1 dyn contrast, reasonable sound for bedroom
- thin bezel with "lagoon" effect only on bottom
- Uses Samsung/Sony LCD panels*
40XV648U (~$850-900)
- Same as XV645U, also has CrystalCoat screen (allegedly increases contrast by 30% in bright rooms, and also introduces a Glossy Screen), Dolby Volume
- Uses Samsung/Song LCD panels*

42ZV650U (~$700-750 after BCB)
- 1080p, 100,000:1 dyn contrast, 120hz with simulated 240hz, Crystal Coat (this unit is confirmed to have a glossy screen), divx support
- wider bezel with "lagoon" effect all the way around
- ive read the viewing angle of the ZV650U isnt as good as the XV645U (glossy v non-glossy?)
- Uses LG LCD Panels*

Here are some of my concerns:
1) decent vertical viewing angle as the bed is lower than the TV (sits on a dresser)
2) decent sound. I dont need great sound, but i want usable sound so i dont have to get a soundbar.
3) dont care about Dolby Volume. I dont have live tv just roku, bluray, htpc
4) i will probably do most bedroom tv watching at night (aka dark), so i dont think a glossy screen will be a real issue. i have 2 tables with lamps that may be turned on though..
5) i think the "lagoon effect" bezel on the ZV650U is rather ugly, though i do like the look of the simpler/thinner bezel of the XV645U and XV648Us.

Thoughts? Is the ZV650U worth the extra ~$50, glossy screen, ugly bezel, (possibly worse viewing angle).

I assume there is no reason the get the XV648U over the ZV65U except for the aesthetics of the bezel, right?

Here are some pics of the XV648 and ZV650.

* AVS Forum Thread discussing the use of LCD panels

I’ve picked this up to replace the Vizio Razor 23" LCD VM230XVT which started to show back-light edging on the left and right side of the screen. To me it looked washed out like gray on the make logo screen. Along with the sound issues, and the funky lower panel light show that keeps on coming on to the screen menu. Plus I don’t want to watch myself on the TV while I watch it that glass is to shinny with the chrome around it. Vizio goes a bit overboard with their logo all around the set and even the logo on the front lights up when you turn it on. That shines onto the glossy stand.

The VM230XVT utilize edge-lit LED backlighting, as opposed to local-dimming technology. Most of the image quality advantages often associated with LED backlighting–like deep blacks–are only available on local-dimming displays, so we don’t expect radically better performance than standard (CCFL-backlit) LCD displays

Well that’s was enough to take it back to Costco for a full refund. I ended up buying the Dynex DX-L24-10A. Now this is suppose to have Ethernet and 1080P. But I think that’s the 2010 model. I have 2009 model but if you go to dynex product site it shows the model I have. Anyway the panel is deep black with semi-mirror looks making the high brightness, contrast and deep black look sharp the the screen. I was looking at Sears, Kmart, Costco and Best Buy line up of sets from 19", 22", 23", 24" and 26". I need one to fit on a metal book rack that’s about 25" in my SOHO/HO (home office)

DX-L24-10A fits as it’s 25" with 24 to 24 VIS no 23.6 it’s 24. I wonder who makes this for Dynex. CEE reads Best Buy but has to be one of the big companies out there? Anway image was set to Vivid out of the box it was really sharp looking no back-light bleeding as I was getting from a Viewsonic VT2430 which was so bad the back-light had bleed all along the 4 edges. That had to RMA and re-packaged in two boxes and sent back to the vendor UPS. Real pain in the neck to do. I decided to hit the stores and pay the tax and go on with it. This way if the set is crappy I can simply return it!

DX-L24-10A is a keeper so far as it just fits right on my stand. I also got a brand new DCX3200 using HDMI to the DX-L24-10A forget out it the image and sound wow!

I’m trying to get to the bottom of whether any LCDs can actually change their refresh rates, and therefore whether European LCDs can actually display a 24fps signal in a true manner (i.e. with a even pulldown ratio of n:n at 24Hz, 48Hz, 72Hz, 96Hz, 120Hz etc). Please, please help! I’ve searched and searched and found no definitive answer on this – I can’t believe no one seems to know when it’s such a major point!

Are the TVs that are sold in Europe as 50Hz/100Hz (and in the US as 60Hz/120Hz) actually the same? i.e. Can a UK TV sold as a 100Hz alter its refresh rate to 120Hz when input with a 60Hz or 24Hz signal (at 5:5 pulldown) or does it do some kind of uneven pulldown to get it to 100Hz?

I’ve seen arguments both ways – those who say LCDs can’t change their diplay refresh rate insist all LCDs simply always run at their max refresh rate – in which case even 50Hz Euro TVs that claim to be able to display true 24p refresh rates are actually using some kind of 3:2 pulldown. Those who claim this also say that the only TVs available that can truly display a 24p output correctly are 120Hz or 240Hz TVs that display 24p on a 5:5 or 10:10 pulldown. If this is the case – how does the fact that US 120Hz TVs are clocked at 100Hz in Europe affect this? If the advocates of “LCDs only have one refresh rate” are correct, then surely the European 100Hz TVs will not be able to perform 5:5 pulldown (neither will UK 200Hz TVs be able to perform a pure 24p pulldown) and therefore no one in Europe can really see 24p output!

Then there are those who claim that certain LCDs can change their refresh rate. In which case you have 50Hz TVs that can run at 48Hz to show ‘true’ 24p, and 100Hz TVs that can run at 96Hz to do the same).

I currently own a Samsung LE40N87BDX which I was always under the impression could take a 24p input and display it correctly (at 48Hz I believe). Reasons I take this to be the case include the facts that:
1) The TV display indicates 24Hz when the TV is being force fed a 24p signal (though this could of course merely refer to the input signal)
2) I’m fairly sure I can detect a difference in the picture/judder when playing Blu-Ray via a PS3 on the forced 24p mode and the 50Hz mode. 24p is smoother – 50Hz has 3:2 pulldown judder..
3) The presence of the infamous Samsung “hum bars” during 24Hz mode – they are only present during this mode, indicating something certainly is different with the TVs display.
But I may be wrong of course!

Some background on this argument (with no definitive answers!) can be found here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1161285

Can anyone who really knows their stuff (or thinks they might!) help settle this once and for all?

Help! Help! Help! Please!

Picked this up yesterday for the bedroom yesterday. Very very impressed, this is a very sharp TV

so far very little tweaking, I went in and turned off all advace, DCR, Adaptive luma, enhanced Color etc.
Color temp and Picture on Standard/Normal everything at 50 and to my eyes is spot on. excellent flesh tones colors pop.

off angle side to side is excellent, up and down ehhh not the worst but not the best either.

I was disappoointe with the speakers though. I was pretty excited that they would be SRS Lab speakers and with this being a 26 inch, this was going to be a plus. But though they were decent they were not what I was hoping for. They were much better than my Vizio VO32, those speakers are a joke. but I was hoping for a little more richness . But for a 26 inch, they arent bad, I was just hoping for better. Hooked up a pair Bose Comanion II multimedia/computer speakers via the headphone jack and all is good.

The price was great at BJ’s
Highly reccomend for anyone looking for a bedroom/den or just an extra small tv.
Hooked Comcast Sci Atlanta HDDVR 8300 via HDMI

Here are the specs

Tech Specs
SPECIFICATIONS
Size: 26"*
Viewable: 26.02" diagonal
Tuner: ATSC/Clear QAM tuner
Native Panel Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Signal Compatibility: Supports 480i (SDTV), 480P (EDTV), 720P (HDTV), 1080i (HDTV), 1080p Video Signals
Colors: 1.06B
Computer Support: 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1360 x 760, 1920 x 1080 via VGA and HDMI
Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 50,000:1 (with DCR)
Brightness: 400 cd/m2 (typical)
Response Time: 8ms
Viewable Angle: 178° (horizontal and vertical)
Pixel/Dot Pitch: 0.3mm x .3mm
SRS TruSurround HD™: Yes
SRS TruVolume™: No
SRS TruSurround XT™: No

INPUTS (REAR)
HDMI with HDCP 2
RF Connector for Internal Tuner 1
Component YPbPr plus Stereo Audio: 1
S-Video: 1
Computer RGB: 1
Composite Video: 1
USB Ports:
Service Ports:

OUTPUTS (REAR)
SPDIF Digital Optical: 1
Stereo Audio:
Headphones: 1

ADDITIONAL FEATURES
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Smooth Motion: No
LED: No
Picture-in-Picture (PIP): No
Picture-outside-Picture (POP): No
Zero Bright Pixel Defect Guarantee: Yes
V-Chip: Yes
3D Comb Filter: Yes
3:2 or 2:2 Reverse Pull-down: Yes
ATSC with 8VSB & QAM demodulation: Yes
ATSC with MPEG-2 decoding: Yes
NTSC Video decoding via Video: Yes
Progressive Scan Video: Yes, thru Component YPbPr, VGA or HDMI
Color Temperature: 6500K, 9300K, 11000K
Color Fine Tuning: Independent Red, Green and Blue
Speakers: 5W x 2 Speakers
Panel Lamp Life (typical): 50,000 hours to half the original brightness
Voltage Range: 100~120Vac at 50/60 Hz
Power Consumption: 72W (Average), <1W at 120 Standby
Universal Remote: VIZIO Remote Control - VR2

WEIGHT
Gross: 22.18 lbs
Net With Stand: 18.19 lbs
Without Stand: 17.2 lbs

DIMENSIONS
With Stand: 26.134" W x 18.736" H x 7.232" D
Without Stand: 26.134" W x 17.157" H x 3.5" D
Packaging Dimensions:

CERTIFICATIONS CSA, CSA-US, FCC Class B

COMPLIANCES Energy Star 3.0, ATSC Spec A/65, EIA/CEA-766-A

WALL MOUNT SPECIFICATIONS
Hole Pattern: 100mm x 100mm
Screw Size: M4
Screw Length: 8mm
Screw Pitch: 0.7mm