TV Recommendations?

[robbyr]

My son has a 32" vizio in his room, daughter has hewlett packard hd, panasonic in living room and sony in bedroom. My wifes favorite is the sony, mine is the panasonic which every once in a while has a slow response time but sure has a nice picture but all four are nice.

 

[dmccarty]

...
You know, moving the newer one in and rotating the others around. I think we own 10 now. I even have one in the garage.

At the risk of taking the thread off topic.

It amazes me how many TVs we have in the house. Growing up we had one or two TVs. I had a small B&W TV in my bedroom. The big console TV we had for years was seldom used and I watched most of the TV in the house in my room. We never had more than two TVs.

Now we have six TVs in the house! Hey, but only five are in use. The other one we are giving away! :laughing:

Most of the TV's we have bought over the last six years. Moving into the new house, we needed a bigger TV since the living room was much bigger than our old house. We bought a 32-35 inch CRT TV for $900ish. It really was not large enough but it we could not afford a larger TV. Last year we bought the 65 inch TV for $800. The CRT TV we are giving to family.

The kids have each gotten new TVs over time. Mainly because the connections for DVD and cable have changed so we needed new TVs to run the new equipment.

I till have a color TV/computer monitor that I bought in 1985ish. I think it was $400 which was a great price back then. I had bought a PC 1 and needed a monitor. The color TV has a CGA connection and would work at a monitor or TV. A color monitor back then was as much as this TV/monitor. The TV/monitor has a button on it that changes turns the text into green color so you can have a green screen if you want one. :laughing: Green screens like that were popular back in the day for text processing.

That TV still works and we used it until recently when it just could not handle the new fangeled connections that exist on DVDs, cable boxes, etc. I bought the TV/monitor from Sears of all places.

Our latest TV requires a bulb which will burn out in 3-5 years depending on use. Figure at some point we will have to replace the TV for whatever is the latest and greatest in 5-10 years...

Later,
Dan

 

[dhyayi]

I am in the market for a TV for my farmhouse.

I would like to have at least a 32" screen and I would like to keep the purchase price under $400. We have DirecTV at the farm if that matters.

Any recommendations for particular brands/models that I should choose or avoid?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Steve

I own this TV

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Sony NSX-32GT1 32-Inch 1080p 60 Hz LED HDTV Featuring Google TV, Black

This TV works great. It was simple to setup the wireless. The picture quality is perfect. Watching Netflix or YouTube videos or any other videos on the internet is a breeze. The keypad works great including the thumb driven mouse, and QWERTY keyboard. The menus are intuitive and easy to use. I am completely satisfied.

 

[grsthegreat]

I own this TV

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Sony NSX-32GT1 32-Inch 1080p 60 Hz LED HDTV Featuring Google TV, Black

This TV works great. It was simple to setup the wireless. The picture quality is perfect. Watching Netflix or YouTube videos or any other videos on the internet is a breeze. The keypad works great including the thumb driven mouse, and QWERTY keyboard. The menus are intuitive and easy to use. I am completely satisfied.

Cool, your the perfect person to ask this.

I am only now looking into getting netflix onto my TV's.

What do i have to buy?? just an internet ready tv? or do i need some kind on interface with the keyboard, etc?

im all confused. I recently got rid of my directv after their 4th price increase in 2 years. never been happier. But the wife wants me to look into this netflix thingy.

thanks

 

[massey990]

I am in the market for a TV for my farmhouse.

I would like to have at least a 32" screen and I would like to keep the purchase price under $400. We have DirecTV at the farm if that matters.

Any recommendations for particular brands/models that I should choose or avoid?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Steve

Just a reminder that if you just use a (cable) splitter you will only get the channel that the reciever is tuned to, otherwise you will need a second reciever (an extra $5 or so a month + the cost of the receiever)

If you have/want true HD be sure the set you buy is capable of 1080 res.

for several years I had good luck with Vizio but just recently a smaller set 26" (I also have a 32" and a 40") developed a problem where it would not turn on without pushing the on/off button literally 100 times or more, something to do with the component that stays warm.

I replaced the 26" with an Emerson 32" for $250 at wally-world and am very satisfied with it even though it is only 420 and 780 res. via standard Direct TV signal.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Cool, your the perfect person to ask this.

I am only now looking into getting netflix onto my TV's.

What do i have to buy?? just an internet ready tv? or do i need some kind on interface with the keyboard, etc?

im all confused. I recently got rid of my directv after their 4th price increase in 2 years. never been happier. But the wife wants me to look into this netflix thingy.

thanks

Netflix is simple, you add the movies to your instant que through your computer then when you launch the Netflix app on the TV or BluRay player it brings up your que (I know I am spelling it wrong but you know what I mean). As long as you have the internet to your TV/Blu-Ray you are set. A lot have WiFi now but I just plugged mine into a Cat6 line straight to the router.

If I am searching for something on YouTube and need to type it has a system similar to how you would text on the old style of phones with just the number pads. Its all done through the remote. There are keyboard options that you can get but I don't surf the web through my TV. I played with it just because I could but its easier with my laptop. Netflix is great though, so is Hulu but I don't think you need both, one or the other is fine. I like Hulu because you get all the new shows that are on TV almost immediately after they air. netflix makes you wait till they come out on DVD. Amazon is also suppose to have a good service but I have never tried it.

As for the OP, I bought my father a 40" Sony last Christmas. I replaced his entire system actually except for the surround sound system (which I bought around 5 years ago). The new TV has been great and he has Digital cable from Time Warner. I also gave him a Sony Blu-Ray player and new entertainment center since the TV has to sit between two doors. So I was challenged to find something that worked well for his situation and while he originally was mad at me (he don't like replacing things unless they die) he did appreciate it. His eyesight has been getting worse and the new TV is so much easier for him to see then the old style he use to have. I didn't buy Monster brand cables which are suppose to be really good but I kept everything Sony with 2 Sony HDMI cables to connect the BluRay and digital cable. This Christmas I am thinking of replacing the surround sound system with a new Sony as the current one is a hassle. Sony makes all their products so they plug in to each other and its easy to set up and use. The current surround sound system is too big and bulky and takes way too long to start up.

I have always been a fan of Sony and my ex's family has a lot of Sony tvs that are a couple years old now and they have been working flawlessly as well as the ones they had before. Sony has always been reliable for me and I will continue buying them unless that changes. My house still has an old 27" TV with built in entertainment center. Its a Magnavox but I bought it for $50 from a friend when I was 17 and it still works. I did hook up a Sony DVD to it and it has worked every time I asked it to these last 16 years. I have no idea how old it is but I would imagine 20 years so it doesn't owe me anything. When I finish my house it will be moved to a spare room for now and I may hook up the old Nintendo 8bit system for a nice relaxing memory room. Put on Metallica and put Final Fantasy in the Nintendo and I will feel like I was in high school again :laughing:

I have noticed though, you do get what you pay for with TV's. There are so many numbers with TV's you really need to keep track and make sure you compare everything equally. Even to the point of making a chart and taking notes.

 

[grsthegreat]

thanks for the reply.

Im a big sony fan also. Have a Bravia flat screen, sony sound system and sony blue ray player downstairs.

Im working on the 2 TV upstairs to get them into the 21st century

 

[KennyG]

If you are interested in Netflix, most of the "more than basic" blu-ray disc players have built in internet connectivity and are Netflix capable. It's really plug and play with these and if you have wireless, you can move the player/Netflix connection to different TVs so you can still use your older TVs with Netflix.

 

[grsthegreat]

If you are interested in Netflix, most of the "more than basic" blu-ray disc players have built in internet connectivity and are Netflix capable. It's really plug and play with these and if you have wireless, you can move the player/Netflix connection to different TVs so you can still use your older TVs with Netflix.

ya, but of course i have an earlier Sont blu ray plyer ....the BDP-s1 that doesnt. who knew

 

[charlz]

The newer game consoles also support apps such as Netflix. We used to watch Netflix via the Wii before I got the newer TV with internet built-in. The TV is HD of course and you can watch HD movies via Netflix ... but don't expect to get anything else done on the internet as HD movies take a ton of bandwidth. The Wii doesn't support HD but I think the other game consoles do.

Also my new TV came with a keyboard in the remote, not as fast as typing on a real keyboard but much faster than the onscreen keyboards.