Big TV Help

[billtheburger]

73 of 75 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Does not work., 29 Nov. 2014
By
Mr. W. G. Harland
Verified Purchase(What is this?)
This review is from: Hisense 40-inch Widescreen 1080p Full HD LED TV with Freeview HD (Electronics)
Received it today after purchasing from the lightning black Friday deal, does not work at all and refuses to power on or even appear to receive power. I believe another person has reported a similar problem, will avoid this product in future.

EDIT: upon further inspection this TV also works as a stupid detector as I have found an AC power switch that turns the TV on. 10/10 product, would recommend for anybody suspecting that they may be a retard.

Anyway, I want a big TV (50 inch) with high contrast (1000000/1) fast refresh rate (200hz +) & PVR to record the films on film4 at 2 in the morning.
All for £400-£500.

Any techies know anything about this?

[Ignatius_S]

You don't want a techie, you want a personal shopper.

Firstly, be very wary about specifications. Manufacturers will often bodge figures to make their product sound good but which provide no real insight. With TVs, manufacturers often use their own method of working out their refresh rate, which obviously means you can't compare like for like.

If you're looking to get a TV that size and a PVR, then realistically, you're looking the topmost of your budge and your options are going to be rather limited.

A PVR is around £150 (you can get them a bit cheaper but usually, they're a bit more) – when I was looking into this recently, the Humax HDR1000S looked good; personally, I would be inclined to the 1TB model but that's something like a couple of hundred quid and having a smaller capacity (500GB, which is standard) may remove to keep stuff you're not likely to ever actually watching.

This leaves you with around £350 (but probably a bit less) for the TV – for a 50 incher, that's going to limit your options somewhat. It's doable, but you certainly won't be swimming in choice. Of course, you could possible spend all the budget on the TV and then save up for the PVR, in order to widen your options.

Personally, I would be inclined to go to your local Richer Sounds (if there's one) or keep an eye on a bargain finder site like Hotukdeals. One advantage of using a physical store is you can obviously get hands-on with the product – not saying this is necessarily a path you want to go down, but a friend of mine took a USB stick with films/shows on it to try out; how helpful this is, I can't say but it made him happy. As I say, specs can often be misleading – and after you've found one you like, have a look for reviews. http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/ is pretty good.

Are you sure that you want a TV that size? A slightly smaller one would be very likely give you more bang for your buck.

[syntaxerror]

Personally, I would be inclined to go to your local Richer Sounds

Richer Sounds is a good shop and the staff are knowledgable but won't try and bully you into a sale. I've always found them to be very helpful and generally they don't sell crap. They won't sell the latests models but they're fairly competitive on price.

[Ignatius_S]

Thinking about the size, something that might be worth considering is the size of the frame around the screen.

The reason I mention this is that couple of friends bought two different sets – one was thought by quite a few friends as being' too large' and the other, a 'perfect' size. However, they were about the same screen size. A big difference was that one had a much larger frame (say 4" of grey plastic), whilst the other was a lot thinner and it looked even thinner because some was some was transparent. People felt one set dominated the room too much but not the other – and this was regardless of the room size.

Richer Sounds is a good shop and the staff are knowledgable but won't try and bully you into a sale. I've always found them to be very helpful and generally they don't sell crap. They won't sell the latests models but they're fairly competitive on price.

That's a good point about the latest models – personally, I think there's a lot to be said about not being too concerned about them. More often than not with technology products, there's a premium to be paid when buying the 'latest and greatest' and older models can offer greater value for money.

[billtheburger]

I was suspicious of all the spec claims made by manufacturers. Some state 100000/1 contrast whilst others just say High Contrast.

I figured I'd go for an older model as all the new ones are all GCHQ spies smart TVs and I already have a dedicated home theatre PC to do that job.

My smaller bedroom TV has a USB slot that means a thumb drive can be used as a PVR, but you have to leave the TV on. No good in my sleeping quarters. - I would use a service like TvCatchup and my HTPC to record, if film4 was on it.

[great_badir]

All above advice is good.

Being more specific with the TV, I would ONLY go for Panasonic (best picture), Samsung (best features) or Sony (good midway point of picture and features), but still being sure to research and read reviews of each as even Panasonic still release the odd turkey.  LG seem to be incredibly good value for money, but I've never owned an LG.

As for the PVR, who provides your phone and internet?  You can get a free one out of most major providers if you haggle - we're with Talk Talk and we got a free 250gb YouView box AND two of their premium internet powerline adapters (Real Rip-off Prices at the time - £199 and £50 each, respectively) for gratis when I casually happened to ask them if they had any offers on mobile phones that might suit me.

[Pinckle Wicker]

Hey, please help me too!

I wanna decent telly for my PS4 but also a fair size, if poss!

Anyways been checking out the recommendations from this thread and seen a few on Amazon that tickle my fancy!!

Cabbers can you help me?

[Puce Moment]

This isn't very helpful but I am VERY happy with my 40" Samsung Smart TV. Lots of useful apps built-in (iplayer, netflix, etc) with lots of USB ports, wireless dongle.

[Pinckle Wicker]

Cheers Puce, it's all good bud!! Do you play games on it dude? I guess I want something about 40-50 inches. Is 3d baws then? What about a this hertz carry on as well?? Soz am shit with all this stuff as get blinded by all the science guff!

[Pinckle Wicker]

Well went for a Panasonic Viera TX-50AS500B 50 incher!!!

Seems to tick all the boxes for my requirements and a nice size too!!

[billtheburger]

I finally bought one a couple of weeks back, I went with 50" Samsung Smart TV from Currys. It was on special offer for Easter at £498. It's now gone down a further £20 to £478.98.[nb]I wonder if I can scab that back.[/nb]

Problems:
I plugged my stereo in via the headphone port and thus, I can only get audio if the stereo is turned on. You cannot opt to have it through the TV speakers while the jack is in, and because that is in the back, up on the wall, I'm not going to be plugging and unplugging it all the time. There are alternative left/right sockets, where I'd assume I wouldn't encounter this problem, but I'd need to get a splitter.
It also came with an offer of free MUBI for the year, but Samsung wouldn't uphold this. I complained to Currys and they paid me £65 back to apologise.

Positives:
It has stunning picture whether it is the TV channels, on-demand services, PS3, or PC. I haven't used any of the games or other apps yet.
& because I have plugged in a 30GB pen drive, I can use it as a digital recorder and can do that flashy pause TV thing. I have already recorded Showgirls in colourful HD, Peeping Tom, Monstro, Basic Instinct, Enemy of the State to try it out.

In conclusion, I'm very happy with my purchase as it does and is everything I wanted.

[great_badir]

Problems:
I plugged my stereo in via the headphone port and thus, I can only get audio if the stereo is turned on. You cannot opt to have it through the TV speakers while the jack is in

AFAIK this is the case with most modern flat-panels.  I think even Sony, who used to have the option through the menu, have done away with it now.  They certainly have on the low-to-medium end models.

The MUBI thing has been mentioned in other forums.  Apparently Samsung never signed up to it, so it's Currys being a prick.  Fair play to them for the refund - I don't think they normally do that.

But, good score.  In day-to-day use you will not be disappointed, and the Samsung smart element is much better than Panasonic's.  You may find that the not-very black blacks grate when you're watching it in low light, but only if you are a geek like I am.

[billtheburger]

Cheers, Great Badir.
I had actually gone out and bought it two days before you had originally replied and left the thread alone while I judged my new TV before updating the thread with my findings.

& Currys are still advertising the free MUBI on the model.

[EFB]

Ah nice, we have a 40h5000 and its rather nice.

But for a stupidly big telly, the 75h6400 is incredible. Backlit instead of edge lit so no light bleed and fantastic uniformity, great blacks, and is stupidly big.

It is also stupidly big.