TV Minefield

[admin_exported]

Can anyone please help me out?

After several years of raising children and not keeping up with new advancements (still on CRT), we are in the market for a shiney new telly.

My prerequisites are:

Plasma

Full HD

On board HD freeview tuner(s)- preferably twin

Wi-Fi ready

USB DivX, FLV, AVI playback

PVR ready

Timeshift ready

I'm not bothered about 3D and would I'd consider LED lit LCD.

The reason I have these requirements is that I work away from home (at sea for several weeks at a time), and I have a missus who has a phobia of multiple RCs. And, as HDMI cables are lacking the switching facility that scart offers, I'm trying to keep life simple. If I can introduce a new bit of kit into the house that she can just turn on and access prerecorded TV/ USB movies/ live TV (with pause) without having to mess about selecting sources with several RCs.Then, she probably won't mind so much when I drag my Arcam AV amp and Monitor Audio speakers out of storage and hook them up to the new goggle box.
Does such a set exist outside of the Samsung 9 series or the dozens of little known, Chinese, small screen manufacturers?

 

[Anonymous]

i think the lg50pk790/950meet all those requirements, although they only have one freeview hd tuner. how far away from the tv do you sit? whats your budget?

 

[Dave_]

Why not just by a smart/universal remote like the Logitech Harmony etc, rather than limit your choice of TV

 

[Anonymous]

Well the room is 10m x 6m, so should take a 50incher.Budget is max £1500.

Thanks for the steerage toward LG, I shall check them out. I'd spent so long wading through the Samsung bog-land with ship's slow internet speed that, that info is much appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

I tried that in the past and she couldn't get her head 'round selecting the different souces/channels on the amp etc.

 

[Anonymous]

do you need the tv to be able to playback high res mkv files?

 

[Anonymous]

maxflinn:do you need the tv to be able to playback high res mkv files?

Would be a bonus but not a necessity.

 

[Anonymous]

welcome back,Max,hows the LG50pk350 performing?

 

[Anonymous]

Hentoes:welcome back,Max,hows the LG50pk350 performing?

perfectly hentoes, its a great tv for the money, the bargain of the year imo

 

[Anonymous]

rawhyte:
maxflinn:do you need the tv to be able to playback high res mkv files?

Would be a bonus but not a necessity.

well imo you wont beat the picture quality of the panasonic 50v20 for £1500, but some people (myself included) cannot live with the motion issues found when watching some 50hz material, ie, dvd's, sd and hdtv..

if i were you id try and find a seller willing to give you a weeks home trial, because said motion issues are quite subtle, a friend of mine wasn't at all bothered by them, in fact even when i pointed them out he still had trouble seeing them, maybe you wont be bothered by them? the only way to know is to try one, picture quality is sublime..

 

[Anonymous]

Im going to get one,is it hard to set it up?

 

[Anonymous]

Hentoes:Im going to get one,is it hard to set it up?the pk350? no its very straightforward, like any tv really. i doubt you would be unhappy with one, i think you need to be sitting at least 2.5 metres from it though, for sd. and id be wary of putting one opposite a window if you dont have blinds or curtains as its quite reflective, apart from that, you'll be laughing

 

[Anonymous]

I can't find any specs that confirm the LG plasma models have the PVR and timeshift function. Doesn't look like the Panasonic does either.

The only telly I can find with everything I require is the Samsung UE55C9000, but that's way over budget.

 

[Anonymous]

im pretty sure you can record both sd and hd to an external usb hard drive on the lg and pana sets, is that what you need a tv to do?

edit. hmmm, maybe not, wouldnt getting an external pvr be the answer?

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, but I need it to also be able to pause live TV. This is one bit of technology that we have on the BT vision box that really made the wife happy. Once we sit down of an evening, you can bet that a child will disturb us at some point. So the pausing of programmes was a real advancement in gadgetry, for her.

Now I don't want to use the BT box with a new HD TV, ( it can stay in a different room scart-ed to the CRT), as the HDMI won't switch the TV source. It just seems a backward step as far as ease of use goes. And I don't want any boxes or wires under the wall mounted TV. I'm even going to be moving plug sockets and aerial up the wall behind the telly and the amp will be secreted away also.

 

[Anonymous]

can you elaborate a little on what you mean by " HDMI cables are lacking the switching facility that scart offers" and " the HDMI won't switch the TV source" ?? i have to be honest i dont understand that.. ta..

 

[Andrew Everard]

As in switching on a second HDMI source doesn't make the TV switch over to the latest input, as happens when products are connected by Scart.

 

[Anonymous]

With a fully wired scart, a trigger signal is sent to the TV when the source is switched on. This tells the TV to switch the input to that source. An HDMI cable doesn't have the wiring for this trigger so the TV has to be manually switched over to the correct input. This could mean scrolling through several input options often with a delay while the TV hunts for a signal.

 

[Anonymous]

ah, i wasnt aware of that..

 

[Anonymous]

Ill be sitting 3 metres away + i have ps3,sky hd.sony 360 brp,the window is to the side of the tv.Is it good for football + gaming{about 2 hours at a time}Do you set the contrast high ?

 

[Anonymous]

Plasma and 1.5K - there are some very good deals around for the Panasonic flagship. Z1.

 

[micks_address]

You can pause live tv with panasonic tvs using the external hard disk.. but its a pretty limited solution.. you dont get any series link and you cant change channel while recording.. for intance it would be nice if you could flick over to the freeview tuner while recording from the freesat tuner but it aint so.. we use it in conjunction with sky hd though as its handy to be have 3 tuners available at one time.. the odd occasion there's two things recording on sky while we want to watch a live program on bbc on freesat etc.. we run a tv in the bedroom off the sky hd box using a tv link so its quite a flexible solution..

rawhyte:

Yes, but I need it to also be able to pause live TV. This is one bit of technology that we have on the BT vision box that really made the wife happy. Once we sit down of an evening, you can bet that a child will disturb us at some point. So the pausing of programmes was a real advancement in gadgetry, for her.

Now I don't want to use the BT box with a new HD TV, ( it can stay in a different room scart-ed to the CRT), as the HDMI won't switch the TV source. It just seems a backward step as far as ease of use goes. And I don't want any boxes or wires under the wall mounted TV. I'm even going to be moving plug sockets and aerial up the wall behind the telly and the amp will be secreted away also.

 

[micks_address]

well the harmony would select all the correct sources on everything for you based on the activity you want to watch.. e.g. watch sky activity on my remote sets my tv to HDMI 1, the receiver to Co axial 1 in.. and the sky box to on.... they really are about as fool proof as you can get.. sometimes things go out of sync if you dont point the remote long enough at the equipment.. but a simple press of the 'help' button or repress of the activity you want to access usually sorts the situation.. it takes a little while to set everything up, but once done.. its very simple

rawhyte:

I tried that in the past and she couldn't get her head 'round selecting the different souces/channels on the amp etc.