just searched and can’t find any help..My old big Sony TV is getting past it’s prime and thought I ought to get with it with some HD flat screen. Always liked Sony gear…can anyone recommend anything about the 40 inch size that’s got a good picture and will be reliable. Bloke in Curry’s says Samsung?

There are thousands. Look for the one from a decent brand with the features you want and has the biggest discount.

Previous models being sold off are your best bet.

Blokes in Currys generally know nothing at all.

Did he say “Samsung?” as a question? Like he’d never heard of them? I wouldn’t be surprised?

(Panasonic Plasma?)

Try AV Forum.http://www.avforums.com/forums/tvs/
It depends on budget and what you want tv to do. John lewis have 5 year guarantee on their tv’s and Panasonic now have 5year guarantee on selected models.
Led of plasma?
What do you watch?
Plasma would be better for sport or online gaming due to lag time Led Movies.

Samsung are good, smart tv is worth it for built in iplayer, netflix and youtube.

Oh and watch out for the phrase HD ready. I would try to avoid these.

They’re ok. Be prepared to accept a lower quality viewing experience for standard definition TV than you have had from your aging CRT telly. The “big hitters” of the LCD tv world tend to be Sony, Samsung and Panasonic. I seem to recall that they are also the only people that actually make the LCD panels that are used. Cheaper electricals but the samsung screens then go for LG. For fast action stuff Plasmas are supposed to be better but they also typically start at bigger screen sizes. A good starting place for prices is Richer Sounds but they will not necessarily be the cheapest for any given model.

I have a Panasonic Plasma on normal Sky, it outperforms an LG (lcd i think) running sky HD in the next room.

The outlaws alwas buy Samsung, & to be honest they always seem to have a nice picture.

watch out for the phrase HD ready. I would try to avoid these.

Are they like Tubeless Ready tyres?

Oh and watch out for the phrase HD ready. I would try to avoid these

Why?

It means it’s HD, doesn’t it?

^^ Yep! (I wondered if it was a joke)

Doesn’t HD ready mean it’s not “full” HD – ie 1080p

HD ready are often only 720, rather than 1080

My Samsung SD pq is as good as a CRT, but that’s because its set up properly. Out of the box settings look gash

Forget the semantics, just make sure its 1080p, not 1080i, 720p or anything else.

They say HD ready rather than HD because people might start wondering why their DVDs don’t look any different on this HD telly. The ‘ready’ bit is intended to stress that it is capable of displaying any HD source you care to connect to it.

Speaking as someone who just went through much the same process – if you don’t know the answer to this question already (like I didn’t), you’re an ordinary punter who is probably not going to be that bothered by the videophiles’ preferences between Panasonic and Sony. You might as well just go for the biggest telly made by a decent company that you can get for your budget imvho.

I wouldn’t say biggest. There’s an optimium size for your viewing distance. Too big will look rubbish if you are too close and, well… be to big!

I’d say get the most features for your budget. And I mean real features like iPlayer etc, not fancy pants 100Hz etc

HD Ready means 720 lines. HD is 1080 lines. I’d go for something with some sort of HD receiving built in unless you have sky – i.e. Freeview HD received built in rather than regular Freeview. At a big screen size it looks much better and all the big shows are on the main terrestrial HD channels. Enjoyed watching Man C get beaten last night in wonderful 1080 lines of HD. Worth every penny. Of course if you use Sky ignore it and get any nice 1080 panel.

As advised above, avforums is good and also look for reviews on http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/

Good luck

Enjoyed watching Man C get beaten last night in wonderful 1080 lines of HD

Not sure you did, tbh – I don’t think anyone broadcasts TV in 1080, not even Sky.

Go to John Lewis.
Prices are pretty standard across different shops, but their staff seem to know what they’re talking about, and try to help figure out what you want or need rather than what they want to sell you.
And they include a 5 year no fuss warranty when you buy it.

Edit:
We bought one in January. Samsung HD Smart TV.
Normally I’d always go for the previous years model that’s got the discount to clear it quickly, but not so with this. If you’re going to use it for internet telly, like iPlayer, you want a “SMART tv”.
The different players – iplayer, 4OD, ITVplayer, etc – all run on sepperate “apps” and are not all available or fully developed yet. The more recent model of telly you get, the more apps it has. And it may not be possible to add them later.
So, when they say it’s internet ready/enabled, check that you will be able to use the app you want on it straight out of the box. If it’s too old, it won’t ever work with iPlayer.

So, when they say it’s internet ready/enabled, check that you will be able to use the app you want on it straight out of the box. If it’s too old, it won’t ever work with iPlayer.

This. It’s a minefield learning what apps each internet TV supports and in my experience the shop staff had little clue.

Another tip. My TV is a couple of years old and has no in-built internet apps. However it came free with a Blu Ray player which does. I get iPlayer through that instead. You are not buying “just” a TV these days so do think carefully about what internet content you want on it too. My wife and I watch more TV via streaming services like iPlayer and Netflix than broadcast TV, but it still all comes through the big telly.

Correct Molgrips….1080 is a waste of time unless you are watching blu ray.

Only then will you see what your 1080 tv is capable of. And that is only if you watch a blu ray dvd on it…..not a you tube video through iplayer.

And you have to be close enough to see all the detail. Blu ray looks good on our telly but if you get up and walk across the room it looks amazing. Our 40″ isn’t big enough for our room imo, but the Mrs would let me go bigger 🙂

Older TVs won’t work with iPlayer built in but it’s not true to say they won’t work with it at all. If you have a computer or PS3 or something to receive iPlayer, the TV will display it.

I did this just last week….

Read the reviews and came up with a shortlist.

Went to John Lewis to have a gander and the best advice they gave me was obvious ‘have a proper look at the picture and choose the one you like best’

I came out with a 42″ Panny and some sound stuff. I was going to buy a Sony (again).

Since then, I’ve learned:

Check the apps on your smart TV. Even the newest don’t have all of iPlayer, ITVPlayer, 4OD and Demand5

It could be a good idea to get a telly that allows hdd connectivity for pause and record live tv in hd. Make sure it supports this if it’s important to you. I have a pvr for this task but only in sd and my telly doesn’t support the hdd option (even though everyone seems to think it does).

Sound can be a bit crap as standard – small speakers in tiny enclosures.

mg, true.
If you,ve got an hdmi cable you can get pretty much anything onto the screen by hooking it up to another device.
However, it is easier to just press “smart” on the remote and let the inbuilt iplayer app and wireless connection do the work. So it’s worth being aware before you buy the telly whether it will do what you want/expect it to.
The point is that lots of tellies are now being marketed as “internet tv”, but the variety in their capabilities is massive (and improving significantly every year) but rarely apparent until you ask a few pertinent questions in the shop.

However, it is easier to just press “smart” on the remote and let the inbuilt iplayer app and wireless connection do the work

It is, but those tellies are more expensive than the ‘dumb’ variety.

If you’re looking at a Panasonic I recommend you visit a Panasonic shop. They are currently doing a free 5 year warranty (Like John Lewis) but are also price matching to the cheaper places (Like Richer Sounds etc)

get a dumb tv with a good picture and let your external box, like a PVR, have the smarts.

No-one broadcasts at 1080P I think so all you end up with is what the TV can upscale to – which is why people say don’t sit too close, you can see all the upscaling nasties.

SD pictures have to be upscaled as well which is why they don’t look great.

So go for a 720P set unless you will be playing blurays all the time, the picture will generally be better as the TV doesn’t have to do so much work upscaling.

And get a panasonic – plasma if you can. Samsung will need lots of fiddling with as their picture processing is poor.

Plasma cost more to run, apparently.

However, it is easier to just press “smart” on the remote and let the inbuilt iplayer app and wireless connection do the work
It is, but those tellies are more expensive than the ‘dumb’ variety.

But only by a little bit now.
So overall, cheaper than a “dumb telly” and an external laptop/computer.

Was interested in this thread. Have read it twice.

Am none the wiser.

Going to wait until any of them can beat my CRT set with any combination of DVD, Sky or YouView.

I went online, found a Sony (cos that was the most recent ad I’d seen on telly) that was the size I wanted and bought it. No idea what it is, or if it’s any good, but you can watch the telly on it.

We’ve just bought some Samsung ‘smart’ TV’s at work. The one at home – if you want to switch it on, you switch it on. The ‘smart’ one you have to shout HI TV!!! several times, then wave your hands at it, then it does something you didn’t want it to do. Progress.

I’ll repeat what other above have said.

Go to john Lewis and buy a Samsung smart TV – we did and it’s great. The ITV player app is great and much better quality than when streaming from the computer connected to it (which is connected by HDMI).

The staff will answer all your questions honestly, (unlike the commission based sales people at the electrical sheds on retail park) and you’ll get a 5 year guarantee.

I have a 40″ Sony Bravia that’s several years old now, but as far as I’m concerned the picture via my Sky box is superb. I can’t comment about BlueRay because I’m just not interested in investing in another format when I hardly watch the DVD’s I own.
My understanding is that Sony aren’t as good as they ere when I bought mine, I don’t think they make their own panels any more, but check for yourself, Panasonic and Samsung are reckoned to be very good indeed.
Whatever you get, check on the interwebz for setting up instructions, as there are lots of subtle things in the menus that can make a big difference. I spent ages tweaking mine using settings from the web, using those as a basis, then adjusting slightly from there. Haven’t touched it since, it looks terrific to me.

Make sure the motion rate is decent, pref 200hz +

No-one broadcasts at 1080P I think so all you end up with is what the TV can upscale to – which is why people say don’t sit too close,

Your right about no one broadcasting in 1080p at the moment but does Sky not broadcast in 1080?
So if this is the case then a HD ready 720 is a waste of time.
The OP needs to tell his budget. His requirements because buying an led tv with a 50/100hz refresh rate would severely restrict his viewing enjoyment if he watches fast moving sport and plays COD online because he should be aiming towards a Plasma if this is the case.

My understanding is that Sony aren’t as good as they ere when I bought mine

I believe that Sony and Samsung were sharing a panel production line. However there is more to the end picture than just the panel as there is a lot of computing power having to upscale the picture to 720P or 1080P, i.e. try to estimate missing information.

Last time I looked in the Sony shop on TCR I was fairly impressed by all the Sonys, whereas I am nearly always disappointed at Samsungs – their out of the box settings are rubbish.

but does Sky not broadcast in 1080?
So if this is the case then a HD ready 720 is a waste of time.

Sky will be using 1080I and 1080I is worse for sport than 720P, and most things – see this video:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-JXfyvlPh0[/video]

that doesn’t mean that your TV might not make a better picture out of it, but that would be luck based on how it processes the picture.

Don’t most 720p tellies do 1080i anyway? Ours did.

Re apps on smart TVs and upgrades

A safer bet may be to get yourself a PS3

Then you have a Blu ray/ upscaling DVD player/ games console/ media centre. Plus it gets regular updates with all the latest apps – iPlayer/ 4od / lovefilm/ Netflix.

Don’t most 720p tellies do 1080i anyway? Ours did.

yes, but people shouldn’t make the mistake that 1080I is much better than 720P, it can be considered worse in a lot of respects.