4K TV's or not

[ultrarunner]

Um...I think we have come a ways down the road since the 1980's Zenith sets... That is back in the era that I used to work on them..They were good sets for the time.. Maybe you have an H series chassis? I used to do telephone work in the plant where they were made in Springfield, Mo. That was after I quit being a TV tech and a Law Dawg in between. I have some tales to tell about that TV plant, some really interesting things went on there.

You know how growing up in a family with strong minded elders can translate to brand loyalty among the young and impressionable.

Way back in my Grandparents old neighborhood was a Zenith retailer with a stand alone corner store... the owner was a customer of my Grandfather.

Didn't matter if they lived in the next town or in town... all my relatives had Zenith Televisions and radios because the shop owner was a family friend. We could also "Tryout" a new set over a weekend which I thought was cool and Zenith had one thing most TV's didn't... Space Command.

Between my home, my parents home and my uncles home... we have 6 Zenith old fashioned picture tube sets today in 2015... all bought new and all never needed any service whatsoever... even the sets from the 1960's... did end up using all our digital convertor box certificates!

The owner died and that little TV shop which started out in the 30's as a radio shop has been gone for a number of years... not only did he sell, he also was a full service repair center.. Mom's VCR came from that shop too and is on top of her TV.

My family has always had strong connection to the local business community... back when they had a business breakfast club and things like that...

The only vacuums ever bought were Electrolux and the same salesman that sold my Grandparents in the 1930's was still selling to family members in the 1980's... at 90+ years old.

I do miss the personal business relationships of yesterday... having a person's home number and knowing it was ok to use it.

The TV shop owner said he was losing sales when Circuit City opened up... well, he lasted alot longer than Circuit City

Seemed my Grandmother had "People" for everything... ovens, refrigerators, floor covering, plumber, painter... all people my family has done business with for decades and that have bought cars from my Grandfather...

I do miss the old way of doing business and have learned chasing the latest and greatest not only costs a lot of money... it is also futile.

Hey... my rotary phone is ringing... wonder who that could be???

 

[k0ua]

I worked for a while in an RCA shop and later in a Zenith shop. Much like the one you mentioned This was in the 70's Of course these were in small towns. I have some fond memories of running service calls for the customers. And yes the Zeniths's were considered a cut above the RCA's. We also sold lower end brands like Admiral, Teledyn, and Magnavox (maggot box ) But the Zenith's were top of the line because of manufacturing techniques. Of course this is just my opinion.

 

[ultrarunner]

Didn't mean to get the thread off in a wrong direction.

If everyone did as I do retailers would go under and I realize much of what is bought is not out of need but desire...

Recently scored a beautiful Toshiba Cinema Series TV for hauling it away and they were thrilled to get rid of it... works great and I have it in my shop...

 

[kenmac]

Really like my 65''LG 4K tv.. I guess you could say ,It's really a 65'' computer

 

[TomSeller]

Didn't mean to get the thread off in a wrong direction.

If everyone did as I do retailers would go under and I realize much of what is bought is not out of need but desire...

Recently scored a beautiful Toshiba Cinema Series TV for hauling it away and they were thrilled to get rid of it... works great and I have it in my shop...

I would still be using my 20 some year old 32" JVC Tube TV if it hadn't died. Not a big TV fan, but my wife is. Mostly I like to watch sports when I am doing something else. And since the remote is glued to my wife's hand, when we moved I decided to get a couple of smaller ones for other rooms so I could watch the game. The new place had coax run to every room so it was easy. The flat screens are so light and easy to find a spot for.

 

[EddieWalker]

My 6 year old, highly rated, top of the line 55 inch Samsung LED tv has developed some lines just off to the right center of my screen. While searching online for some sort of information about it, I discovered that this is fairly common with different brands, including Samsung. The cause is cheap connections between the picture and the cables. Supposedly it's a well known issue that has been corrected, but since it's long out of warrantee, they wont do anything for those who have this issue. Some people claim to have fixed it by just removing the back cover of the TV and jiggling, removing and reattaching all the cables. It didn't work for me, so now we have been watching it with the lines for about a month now.

The TV has to be replaced, so I've been reading as much as I can, and going to Sam's and Best Buy to see what they have. From what I'm reading, I like Vizeo the best, but in person at the store, LG really jumps out at me. Samsung looks good too, but I'm done with them. My Samsung phone has been replaced 3 times and the latest one is still not all that great.

Since I'm going to buy a new TV, I want the biggest TV that I can find that will have a great picture. Just hope there are some sales on them now that Christmas is over!!!

 

[ultrarunner]

Eddie experience and others puts me in the run it till it quits camp.

I'm sure there come a time when I will need to upgrade.

For the mean time... as long as the appliances I have stay reliable... they will continue to have a home here.

Just about everyone I know has had problems with the new stuff.

Still remember a low income family at a building I was managing... they somehow were able to get a $2,000 Projection TV and all their friends were coming over to admire it...

A few years later when they moved... they left left the monster set behind for me to deal with...

I guess the latest and greatest comes with an expiration and then it's junk.

This being Christmas and all... I had to light a pilot light at an apartment late Christmas day... there were 4 or 5 kids under 10 and several were showing me their new Apple 6 something phones...

Is this a rich country or what?

 

[houstonscott]

Eddie experience and others puts me in the run it till it quits camp. I'm sure there come a time when I will need to upgrade. For the mean time... as long as the appliances I have stay reliable... they will continue to have a home here. Just about everyone I know has had problems with the new stuff. Still remember a low income family at a building I was managing... they somehow were able to get a $2,000 Projection TV and all their friends were coming over to admire it... A few years later when they moved... they left left the monster set behind for me to deal with... I guess the latest and greatest comes with an expiration and then it's junk. This being Christmas and all... I had to light a pilot light at an apartment late Christmas day... there were 4 or 5 kids under 10 and several were showing me their new Apple 6 something phones... Is this a rich country or what?

No it's broke, and you payed for them... HS.

 

[dmccarty]

Eddie experience and others puts me in the run it till it quits camp.

I'm sure there come a time when I will need to upgrade.

For the mean time... as long as the appliances I have stay reliable... they will continue to have a home here.
...

I still have a color TV I bought in the mid 80's that was also a danged good computer monitor. The TV was built as both a TV and computer monitor and it cost as much as a good monitor but it also had a TV tuner. It also has a button that turns the screen green so you can have a green screen which was preferred back in the day for "word processing". :laughing::laughing::laughing: Bought the TV at Sear and it still works. The kids were using it up to a year or so back.

We did have to throw away a Zenith TV 20ish years ago. :shocked: Everything electronic worked fine but the buttons to operated the TV were made of plastic and they would break from fatigue. Eventually we threw it away and bought a bigger flat screen CRT from Sony. Most excellent TV that still works but we don't use it any more since we got rid of cable.

This being Christmas and all... I had to light a pilot light at an apartment late Christmas day... there were 4 or 5 kids under 10 and several were showing me their new Apple 6 something phones...
...

Smart phones are expensive but it does not mean one has to pay retail to get them. :confused3::shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing:

Our cells phones were at least 3-4 years old but still worked just fine, well mine did, but the wifey had cracked the screen on her phone and it was a matter of time before it died. We changed to T Mobile because they had a cheaper plan with more data than ATT. The problem was T Mobile lied about coverage in our area so we moved to Verizon which has much better coverage. The price is a bit more than we were paying at ATT but we get more data so it works out. The wifey got a new phone for $75ish that retailed from $500ish. I got a new phone for $100 that retailed for $650 ish My phone was perfectly fine but I read books and magazines on the phone and a larger screen would be nice to have. For $100, it was worth the upgrade. These prices are cash prices and we are not locked into a contract. Verizon had sale, gave a discount if you changed to them from another company and they bought our REALLY old smart phones that were 8-10ish years old.

The new phones are not the latest and greatest but they have features we wanted over the latest phones. If we don't break the phones we will use them for many years until the break. The old phones were just fine technology wise and the new phones are even better. The larger size makes a difference and was worth the $100.

Just hope we don't break them. :shocked: One of the kids friends were visiting and doing some crafts in the dining room. I heard a noise and the kid crying/moaning. She had dropped her phone of the floor and the screen AND case cracked. :shocked: We keep our phones in cases but the case can only do so much. The visitor's phone was not in a case.

Back to TVs. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

We bought a LED TV for the bedroom and the quality of the video is amazing. Our living room TV is DLP and its image quality is better than our CRT tvs but it does not touch that LED. We are waiting for the prices of LED TVs to get under $1,000 for a 65-70 inch TV and then we might buy a new TV. Maybe.

Later,
Dan

 

[ultrarunner]

Do you think the new stuff will be as reliable go out 10 or 20 years?

I had the very last pager at the hospital... it worked everywhere... not like the Nokia Phone from T-Mobile they replaced it with which doesn't even work at my home in in the middle of a big city...

I guess time will tell and I could already have scored several flat screen TV's for the taking as friends upgraded...

Overheard the grandkids telling friends about all the cool things at Grandma's house... like rotary dial telephones and VCR tapes!