Buying a TV on the basis of an in store demonstration.

[Anonymous]

Harrowman, I appreciate your last post may not be aimed entirely at me but I thought I'd explain where I'm coming from with this question.

I understand the difficulties inherent in choosing a TV on the basis of an in store demo. This is where I am at the moment and so as AliEnRIK actually owns two of the sets I'm interested in - along with the Philips, I thought I'd ask his opinion on how the two compare.

 

[aliEnRIK]

Wovian:
AliEnRIK

If you had a choice of the panny plasma G15 and the Sony W5500 (Both 46 inch) what would you recommend if they were the same price?

Apologies if this is moving away from the thread slightly but given we've had a 5 year old maths lesson and pictures of a dollshouse maybe I shouldn't feel too bad!

Thanks

Id go with the Sony (or the freesat model as its exactly the same but with freesat (obviously))

The internal scaler is VERY good, very high contrast, 1:1 pixel mapping, very deep blacks (For an LCD), very cheap to run (for a 46" tv), good 'motion' and (crucially for me) the ability to calibrate greyscale

The pan obviously has a better viewing angle but it has an awful 'deinterlacer' which means SD viewing is bad (Unless you have a player that will do it for you)

Theres probably not much in it to be fair but I would certainly recommend the Sony over the Pan

Cheap sonys here ~

WITH FREESAT

STANDARD W5500

(Its where I bought mine from and having done research theyre very good to use so long as the item you want is in stock)

 

[Anonymous]

Apologies to any forum member for my implied insult. But it is frustrating to read replies that seem to have nothing to do with the original post. But, as I said I have never posted before and maybe this is how it works.

 

[aliEnRIK]

Harrowman:

There were one or two sensible comments. aliEnRIK mentioned the SD upscaling of the Philips. As I explained in my first post, I do not use the built in Freeview tuner of the Philips, although it is very good but not the best available. I use the Humax Freeview recorder (PVR9300T) as my main SD source which has built in upscaling to 720i. This degree of upscaling is enough to improve the quality of the picture by an order of magnitude. Its not HD but you can tell when the BBC or ITV is transmitting material filmed in HD. The recent Attenborough "Life" series isa prime example. The episode on plants appeared to be "almost" HD. Even better is the fact that the Humax recorded version is just as good as off air.



What you originally put down has changed then. The Philips scaler isnt THAT good. My Sonys is actually so good its better than my Pioneer dvd player (Which was a bit of a shock to me)

Im suprised that you find it better through the humax at 720i (Do you not mean 720P as ive never known ANYTHING scale to 720 interlaced before?) as that means that the content is scaled 'twice'

 

[Anonymous]

Great stuff - cheers mate

 

[aliEnRIK]

Harrowman:Apologies to any forum member for my implied insult. But it is frustrating to read replies that seem to have nothing to do with the original post. But, as I said I have never posted before and maybe this is how it works.

With regards to your initial post, I couldnt agree more (generally speaking). I would 'never' choose a tv from a shop demonstration as theyre never calibrated or setup correctly. They have VERY poor mains feeds and generally have contrast WAY up making them look awful.

 

[Anonymous]

This is where we come back to the thorny question of who do you believe. There seems to be a certain variability between different magazine reviewers on any particular model. We might ask, under what conditions are these TV's are reviewed. Does the reviewer take care to supply clean mains? Does he use high quality inter-connects? One would hope that these conditions are met in the reviewers lab.

My original plama TV, bought 6 years ago at enormous expense, was an Hitachi 42PD300E plazma. I took a lot of trouble with mains conditioners etc and the picture I obtained was always better than other models I saw in store demo's. Reviews of this model were never terribly complimentary. This is when I began to suspect that perhaps reviewers did not always test under optimum conditions. It would be useful if WHF could publish an article one day about how they go about making comparative reviews.

These forums can provide a useful service by members giving their own reviews and personal experience of different models. The problem here is what may satisfy one person may not necessarily satisfy another person who may have higher (or different)standards. I sometimes visit friends who proudly show me their latest TV purchase. "What a fantastic picture" they say. All I can see is a shop demo picture which looks (in my opinion) really awful. Sometimes I am allowed to "fiddle" with the settings and tone down the colour, contrast, brightness etc. "Don't you think that's better?" I say. "But its lost vibrancy and I prefer bright colours" they reply and I have to put it back to the original manufacturers settings. I suppose as the poet said "there's no accounting for taste".

 

[Anonymous]

AliEnRIK. Oops, you are absolutely correct, it upscales to 720p. My criteria for a decent SD picture is "to be able to read the small print (not just the headlines) when the news channels review the newspapers". With the Philips (via the Humax) I can do this.

 

[laserman16]

Harrowman:Apologies to any forum member for my implied insult. But it is frustrating to read replies that seem to have nothing to do with the original post. But, as I said I have never posted before and maybe this is how it works.

Actually this thread has not done to bad staying somewhat near to the op compared to some that drift totally off course.

 

[Anonymous]

i only buy from in store demos but then thats usually only once a decade and im not too fussed about the quality anyway since theres no point

the problem for me is that the quality of the programmes doesnt match that of the picture so while effects dramas look good their plots are still predicable if not poor while strongly plotted stuff like life on mars suffers because theres not the money to put into better production values

in other words all this hd stuff is no more than the emporers clothes

 

[aliEnRIK]

Harrowman:
This is where we come back to the thorny question of who do you believe. There seems to be a certain variability between different magazine reviewers on any particular model. We might ask, under what conditions are these TV's are reviewed. Does the reviewer take care to supply clean mains? Does he use high quality inter-connects? One would hope that these conditions are met in the reviewers lab.

My original plama TV, bought 6 years ago at enormous expense, was an Hitachi 42PD300E plazma. I took a lot of trouble with mains conditioners etc and the picture I obtained was always better than other models I saw in store demo's. Reviews of this model were never terribly complimentary. This is when I began to suspect that perhaps reviewers did not always test under optimum conditions. It would be useful if WHF could publish an article one day about how they go about making comparative reviews.

These forums can provide a useful service by members giving their own reviews and personal experience of different models. The problem here is what may satisfy one person may not necessarily satisfy another person who may have higher (or different)standards. I sometimes visit friends who proudly show me their latest TV purchase. "What a fantastic picture" they say. All I can see is a shop demo picture which looks (in my opinion) really awful. Sometimes I am allowed to "fiddle" with the settings and tone down the colour, contrast, brightness etc. "Don't you think that's better?" I say. "But its lost vibrancy and I prefer bright colours" they reply and I have to put it back to the original manufacturers settings. I suppose as the poet said "there's no accounting for taste".

Id show them a setup jpg for black levels and for contrast levels to show them exactly what happens when they deviate from calibration

After proplery calibrating I will then allow their eyes to 'get used' to the new settings for a couple of weeks

If they still feel they need to kill the image quality after that I let them

 

[aliEnRIK]

Harrowman:AliEnRIK. Oops, you are absolutely correct, it upscales to 720p. My criteria for a decent SD picture is "to be able to read the small print (not just the headlines) when the news channels review the newspapers". With the Philips (via the Humax) I can do this.

That suggests to me then that the philips deinterlacer is very poor

 

[idc]

Hi Harrowman. Many a thread wonders off the original topic, thats standard for this and many other forums. It works both ways though and threads can end up on a topic that really interests you.

My (cynical) impression of instore TV demonstrations is that it is too easy to tune certain TVs to have a better picture than others. So if they need to get rid of the Sonys because of space or to meet sales targets or because a new model is due, you set its picture quality to the best. Further more, the lighting etc in the store is nothing like at home. I therefore make my choice purely from what What Hifi say is the best at the time.

 

[aliEnRIK]

idc:
Hi Harrowman. Many a thread wonders off the original topic, thats standard for this and many other forums. It works both ways though and threads can end up on a topic that really interests you.

My (cynical) impression of instore TV demonstrations is that it is too easy to tune certain TVs to have a better picture than others. So if they need to get rid of the Sonys because of space or to meet sales targets or because a new model is due, you set its picture quality to the best. Further more, the lighting etc in the store is nothing like at home. I therefore make my choice purely from what What Hifi say is the best at the time.

You never question anything at all? Lag times for games? Whether 'other' testers/users have found problems? etc etc

 

[Deleted member 2457]

aliEnRIK:idc:

Hi Harrowman. Many a thread wonders off the original topic, thats standard for this and many other forums. It works both ways though and threads can end up on a topic that really interests you.

My (cynical) impression of instore TV demonstrations is that it is too easy to tune certain TVs to have a better picture than others. So if they need to get rid of the Sonys because of space or to meet sales targets or because a new model is due, you set its picture quality to the best. Further more, the lighting etc in the store is nothing like at home. I therefore make my choice purely from what What Hifi say is the best at the time.

You never question anything at all? Lag times for games? Whether 'other' testers/users have found problems? etc etc

I once brought a Toshiba HD XE1 HD DVD player based on what hi fi review 5 stars it did not what probaly at all, Sometimes the drawer would open, sometimes not, kept freezing constantly.

So I sent it back cost me £30.00 though and taught me a valuable lesson about testing first. that is why I waited so long to get my first blu ray player.

 

[Anonymous]

Harrowman has made (to my mind) some very good points. Welcome to the forums!

I personally always think through what the system is (or will be) that I'm slotting the TV into. In my case I use a 46" Samsung just as a monitor, fed off a Mains spur through a Kimber Mains cable.

My Sony RDR970 acts as its tuner (and recorder) with the TV signal passing through an Onkyo 875 (upscaled HDMI) all fed by a 500va mains conditioning unit.

The improvement to both picture and sound quality on both SB and HD/Blue ray is amazing. Effectivly dealing with mains pollution allows all components to work at best.

I am very much guided by quality reviews initially in drawing up my short list, then the wife and I must like the appearence of the item and how it will look in the lounge.

It seems more and more people nowadays are realising the improvements that a decent mains supply brings.

 

[bigboss]

Harrowman:

Does the reviewer take care to supply clean mains? Does he use high quality inter-connects? One would hope that these conditions are met in the reviewers lab.

The problem with testing in ideal conditions is, that majority of users don't have those ideal conditions at home, & will be disappointed with the review if they can't see similar results at home. I'm sure that the reviewers atleast ensure clean mains supply.

 

[Anonymous]

Good point bigboss. Perhaps magazines like WHF should put some kind of disclaimer into their reviews something like this.

"Notice to the reader: This review has been conducted under ideal conditions. In his own home any potential buyer of this model may not achieve the same results as the reviewer"

This opens up a whole new can of worms. I have often wondered why manufacturers don't build a mains conditioner into their equipment. I suppose it would cost too much. Anyway, a whole industry has grown up which supplies mains conditioners and other accessories to the discerning public. To make these accessories unnecessary would put a lot of companies out of business and deprive a lot of people the pleasure of experimenting with their equipment.

 

[Anonymous]

Harrowman: Good point bigboss. Perhaps magazines like WHF should put some kind of disclaimer into their reviews something like this.

"Notice to the reader: This review has been conducted under ideal conditions. In his own home any potential buyer of this model may not achieve the same results as the reviewer"

You would have to include a definition of "ideal conditions" as it is not particularly descriptive since it gives no indication of what equipment was used. It is also subjective.

A significant number of television buyers will be women, so it might be best to use a gender neutral term rather than "his" or, better yet, simply say "At home".

Once the product is in one's home, generally that person ceases to be a potential buyer, and is now a buyer, unless the equipment has been provided by the shop for home demo purposes, in which case the use of potential buyer will still be appropriate.

Further, it is questionable as to whether or not it is desirable for the buyer to achieve the same results as the reviewer. Sets are, no doubt, often calibrated to produce a picture that the reviewer considers best. This may not produce a satisfactory picture for a buyer who views in altogether different conditions.

It will then need to be determined whether it is the calibrated picture which is the culprit or the use, or lack thereof, of the "ideal conditions" to which you made reference.

 

[matthewpiano]

Shop demonstrations CAN work and CAN provide important information to the customer, but for me the following points are very important, and things that we always try to ensure:

* TVs on display are NOT set to VIVID or similar settings
* A wide range of input sources is available to each TV including HD from Blu-Ray disc and Sky, SD from Freeview, and both from Freesat where applicable.
* Availability of a games console
* Availability of the remote control so that any customer who is interested can spend some time trying different settings
* Ability to dim shop lighting where required

On a more basic level, each TV has to have a HDMI feed from Sky HD - not, as I have seen in some stores, a Sky HD feed sent to all the TV sets through their analogue tuners.