It is Big Screen HD TV buying time of the year.

[dmccarty]

We have a 35 inch CRT TV we bought for about $1,000 in 2005. The room needs a bigger TV. It needed a bigger TV in 2005 since we had a 20 inch TV that was unviewable in the new house. The CRT was the best bang for the buck at the time. But bigger would have been better....

Last year I was researching large TVs, screens 50+ inches, and decided that the best bang for the buck was a Mitsubishi DLP TV. Over the weekend I started looking at prices on TV's in that size range and the prices have dropped from last year. No surprise there. But the prices were getting to around $1,000 which was a bit of a surprise.

Last night in the Wall Street Journal there was a story about the glut of TVs in the market. The manufactures expected more sales than they got in this economy so the boxes have been stacking up in warehouses. The expectation was that people would buy more expensive TVs which has not happened. So the companies are having to drop prices on the expensive TVs which also forces down the prices of cheaper units.

The expectation is that TV prices are really going to drop this holiday season if the dealers want to sell. There is a push to sell last years TV sets now so that they can move this years inventory between Turkey Day and XMAS.

I think I have seen this in the prices of the TV's for which we are interested.

So if you are thinking of buying a new start looking now and figure out what you want. Watch the prices and be ready to pounce.

Later,
Dan

 

[jinman]

Not to hijack your thread too much, but isn't it interesting the way digital TV and HD OTA broadcasting has encouraged a whole new round of TV purchasing? I think digital HD TV has done for TV sales what the Internet did for computer sales.:thumbsup:

 

[brin]

I saw a 55 inch Plasma HD TV in Sams Club the other day for $900.00 and change...What a deal...6 yrs. ago we paid $3,500 for a Pansonic 42 Plasma TV ..HD enabled....I knew they'd come down but we were building our new house and wanted it to mount on the wall..We love it and we would not want to have waited 6 yrs...LOL

 

[dmccarty]

Not to hijack your thread too much, but isn't it interesting the way digital TV and HD OTA broadcasting has encouraged a whole new round of TV purchasing? I think digital HD TV has done for TV sales what the Internet did for computer sales.:thumbsup:

Hijacked threads are usually the most fun! :laughing::laughing:

So I will hijack your hijack.

We are still using a color TV I bought around 1985. It was a real good bang for the buck because the TV was a TV. :thumbsup: And a CGA monitor on the PC 1 I bought. It has a button that turns the screen into a green screen. I THINK I paid $350 for that TV which was pricey but about what I would have paid for a color monitor. That TV/monitor is hooked up to Directv and a DVD player. Works good.

So back to your hijack. I think you are right that the digital TV has driven sales. As had the larger screen size. We started down the TV path this year with the idea of streaming video from our desktop system which is recording TV shows as well as possibly streaming movies from the various providers.

After looking at the Roku type devices I saw that some Blu-Ray players had this functionality. But our TV is so old, 6years , that it does not really have the connections for new players. Which led to a new TV. But the new TV does not have the connection that the receiver uses which leads to a new receiver. Can you say SnowBall? I know I can. :laughing::laughing::laughing: Oh yeah, if we move the CRT TV to the bedroom we will need a new TV stand to hold the huge heavy thing. Snowball anyone?

So I can safely say that HD TV AND the Internet is driving our TV purchase. If we buy. I am just looking at models and watching prices.....

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

I saw a 55 inch Plasma HD TV in Sams Club the other day for $900.00 and change...What a deal...6 yrs. ago we paid $3,500 for a Pansonic 42 Plasma TV ..HD enabled....I knew they'd come down but we were building our new house and wanted it to mount on the wall..We love it and we would not want to have waited 6 yrs...LOL

With technology like this one knows price and performance improves over time. The question is will the price steadily drop or will it bottom out while performance improves. The PC's we have bought over the last decade or two have been around $1,000. The price has not moved but the bang for the buck sure has improved! :thumbsup:

The DLP TV is only made by Mitsubishi these days. The TV will burn out a bulb so at some point the TV will NOT work. Replacements are available and have dropped in price but this is a negative.

The positive on the DLP TV is that a 65 inch TV with 3D is
just a tad over $1,000. A 60 inch Sony LCD is a twice that for a smaller screen. A 63-65 inch plasma is three times the price of the DLP TV.

Mitsubishi had some real quality issues on their first generations DLP TVs. It APPEARS they have solved these problems but one never knows....

But if we bought the DLP TV for $1,000 we save $1,000 to $2,000 compared to a LCD or plasma TV. If the DLP blows up in two, three or four years, most likely the same size TV in LCD will be $1,000. Worse comes to worse we end up spending $2,000 on two TVs. Most likely the TV will keep working for 6-10 years at which point the TV very well might be functionally obsolete and we have to buy another one.

Functionally obsolete kills me. Did I mention my TV that 25 years old that we still use? :laughing::laughing:

Is this a thread hijack?

Later,
Dan

 

[mjarrels]

Have a 60" Sony in the dirty basement for 10 years, still works great. So large and heavy that when it finally breaks, probably need a tractor and FEL to remove it. I don't care for mitsubishi products, they made airplanes during WWII and they were not out friends.

mark

 

[smstonypoint]

I don't care for mitsubishi products, they made airplanes during WWII and they were not out friends.

mark

No offense, but that is like holding the sins of the father against his sons in my opinion.

I don't have any of their products, but I don't think I would make my buying decisions based on events of nearly 70 years ago. I own a Kubota RTV, even though Kubota was around in WWII and apparently contributed to the Japanese war effort. I don't know the extent to which either company had any choice as they were both operating in a command economy.

Kubota Corporation -- Company History

Steve

 

[dmccarty]

I have to agree with both Steve and Mark. Does that mean I am ready to be a politician? :laughing::laughing::laughing:

The thought of buying a Mitsubishi product does cause me to twitch. I have family members killed by their products. But one has to get over it eventually. BMW and Benz made some great airplane engines for the German air force which killed lots of Americans but I see their products all over the roads in the US today.

Later,
Dan

 

[alchemysa]

Having recently gone through the excercise of buying a new 42" plasma I am convinced there are significant quality differences. So don't assume that (for example) an $800 telly that's out on special is as good as the latest model that may be $1500.

 

[dmccarty]

Having recently gone through the excercise of buying a new 42" plasma I am convinced there are significant quality differences. So don't assume that (for example) an $800 telly that's out on special is as good as the latest model that may be $1500.

And vice versa.

Alot of the models from the same company have vastly different prices but the picture quality is almost always the same. The price difference is due to internet connectivity, maybe 3D, number of connections etc. Some do have better picture calibration options though which would/could effect picture quality.

One really does have to do their research.

Later,
Dan