Thinking of changing our TV for a 40in LCD, maybe LED. Anyone got any good advice or recommendations. Tempted by a Sony KDL-40EX503.

What tv do you have now?

Mate has the Sony & it is a great picture. I was very tempted when we were looking, but in the end went for a Samsung LE40C580. We are chuffed to pieces with it. The SD picture looks great, & the HD picture is excellent. The only time it has disappointed was when I was watching some indoor tennis in SD & the ball was not clear at the far side of the net. HD sport has be great & I have not had any other issued with blurring etc.

1 word… plasma

Same story here – I was looking at a Sony but went for the Samsung LE40C580 instead, around £150 cheaper and very low ‘lag’ hence good for playing games on (if that’s your thing, and ironic considering who makes the PS3). Very happy with the TV and BluRay picture quality…

I was told that the Sony & Samsung use the same factory for their screens, electronics behind might be different mind.

Have you checked out what Richersounds have at the moment?

Rivett – go and have a look if you can. I just did – the plasma was great, but the Sony EX LED range blew me away.

Got one of those KDL-40EX503, great picture and loads of functions…. note: it is wireless enabled but you need to buy a dongle to actually connect £70 if you buy a Sony one!

Only other point would be sound, if your coming from an old school ‘tube’ TV then you’ll find the sound tinny….. as TV’s get thinner manufactures are removing seperate bass speakers as they take up much of the space/weight later being a consideration if plan to mount on a wall! If you watch mostly films or play games i’d consider a sound system in ur budget….

1 word… plasma

Aren’t LED TV’s better than Plasma?

Aren’t LED TV’s better than Plasma?

An AMOLED tv, yes, however don’t confuse them with an LCD tv that uses LED’s for backlighting. Yes they have merits, but it isn’t the super technology it’s being marketed as. The concensus is that the best use of LED backlighting is when used on a tv that utilises ‘localised dimming’ to bring out blacks.

AMOLED’s are totally different, expensive and quite rare at the moment (apparently, although I’ve not researched the technology behind them yet). Some phones are just starting to use AMOLED screens.

It will be replacing an old Sony CRT. Is the lag that noticeable on a Sony when gaming? We already have a surround sound system so not worried about the TVs speakers. Sony are doing the VAT off up to Xmas. What are Richersounds like?

Tesco have a good deal on the 403 (I think!) at the moment – after VAT claimed back its £499

AMOLED in 40″ would cost tens of thousands right now, LED screens are good if you want a thin TV to put on the wall, plasma is still the best budget choice ATM though*

Waits to get shot down, but can’t be bothered by it.

Last year when I was looking at replacing my 10 year old CRT I looked into the LEDs and I was blown away by just how thin they were!

That is what I was going to go for at first, but having read up on avforums about the pros and cons of each type I plumped for the plasma.

Have read the other thread about TVs. A bit put off by lag with the Sony.

Are any of them any good for watching in a bright room? Our living room often has bright sun streaming in an I wouldn’t want to be pulling the curtains just to watch a bit of telly. Currently on a JVC CRT which had a fancy coating when new but it’s about time we updated, and years of cleaning has removed some of the coating now anyway.

I keep getting tempted because I@ve a giant bracket on the living room wall that looks ugly and as yet hasn’t been removed or filled. But every time I look at TVs >28 inch in the shops showing sources that are non-HD the images are bloody horrible, even 1500 quid TVs. Small text is almost unreadable. Sure when a source is HD they’re mindblowingly good, but for normal TV, even at 20ft away the image quality isn’t a patch on smaller/CRTs. The compression is so unpleasantly obvious I can’t watch live sports.

Giant let down for me.

Had the LE40C650 since it came out earlier this year. Picture quality is as good as any plasma I’ve seen at this size plus SD upscaling is exceptional. The 100hz sorts out the motion for sports. I don’t have a PS3/X Box so also wanted the DNLA and HD iPlayer playback. 1080mkv playback is pretty damn close to Blueray. Running media off a server is much easier than burning discs or transfering to USB stick.

The server is tucked away in another room so no annoying fan noise to spoil quieter sections of film plus my parents live next door and have a similar TV and AV amp linked to the same network so there is always an eclectic choice of music when we go round for an evening.

Review here with some decent suggested settings in the comments section.

coffeeking – Member
I keep getting tempted because I@ve a giant bracket on the living room wall that looks ugly and as yet hasn’t been removed or filled. But every time I look at TVs >28 inch in the shops showing sources that are non-HD the images are bloody horrible, even 1500 quid TVs. Small text is almost unreadable. Sure when a source is HD they’re mindblowingly good, but for normal TV, even at 20ft away the image quality isn’t a patch on smaller/CRTs. The compression is so unpleasantly obvious I can’t watch live sports.

Giant let down for me.

That’s because the shop sets are set up by monkeys and are fed a poor/boosted/shared signal. I challenge you to fault an SD picture on my 40″ LCD sat 10ft away – there are exceptions though – sport on ITV is notoriously crap, but that is the same for CRT’s too.

I’ll post some screen shots later (after the engineer has been out and fixed my set following a failed firmware update 😳 )

rivett whats wrong with the current telly?

Always had Sony for years, trinitron then vega then Bravia. Broke the last Bravia and looked around and ended up buying an LG, it’s as good as anything Sony do but a fair bit cheaper.

Just as a quick example – got my set back up and running. Bear in mind this is a poor res phone camera uploaded pic (the vertical lines are camera generated). Also slight pixellation has occured from pausing Sky. This is BBC 1 SD

Out of the box……

5 minutes altering settings, although there’s some way to go before I’m happy……

I’ve never left a TV on the default setting. Have taken Tuesday as a day off to await delivery, install and play…

We just fancy going down the HD route. There is nothing actually wrong with the TV we have got now. Sony widescreen CRT.

That’s because the shop sets are set up by monkeys and are fed a poor/boosted/shared signal. I challenge you to fault an SD picture on my 40″ LCD sat 10ft away – there are exceptions though – sport on ITV is notoriously crap, but that is the same for CRT’s too.

No, it’s nothing to do with the picture settings. Well, it’s a little to do with it but I’ve had richer sounds set one up as their super-duper demo model in a viewing room and it was still pants, far worse than my old Sony CRT. Any non-HD source looks pants because none of them upscale nicely – the pixellation and obvious aliased edges look chaff and where they try to anti-alias it looks blurred and horrible. It just seems that any of the upscaling hardware can’t handle making an SD image look nice on a large screen. Technologically it should be perfectly possible, but I’ve never seen one that’s acceptable – even in TVophile houses.

Usually the menus and generated graphics from the machine itself are of stunning quality, but any broadcast image is shocking. That’s fine if your eyes are failing you but I can spot a stuck pixel at 50 feet and spend a long time pouring over photoshop with 15 megapixel images, TV quality is horrible.

I must admit that now that I have Sky HD and a decent TV I rarely watch SD, this limits the number of programmes I can watch, but I don’t watch that much anyway nowadays.

One worrying thing is that this thread and the other one has rekindled my geeky interest in the technical side of things and prompted me to visit http://www.avforums.com again earlier today.

There is lots of good information on there, but it does re-kindle the upgrade bug in me.

Why don’t you watch SD programmes Ho hum? Do they look that bad on your tv?

Got my Samsung back up and running properly now and on a 40″ screen 10ft away it’s hard to pick a fault even with SD pics.

TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR – Member
Why don’t you watch SD programmes Ho hum? Do they look that bad on your tv?

Got my Samsung back up and running properly now and on a 40″ screen 10ft away it’s hard to pick a fault even with SD pics.

I think that I have become a bit of a HD “snob” (joking).

SD pictures look okay on my television, but I enjoy marvelling at the detail of a decent HD transmission. A similar thing happened when I upgraded my hi-fi over time and I ended up only istening to stuff that was produced well.

It’s just one of my quirks I guess.

Lol – just sat doing some work and watching Monsters V Aliens in HD – just because I can.

^^^^^

I think that you may suffer from the same quirk as me then…

Whilst I have no problem watching stuff in SD normally, I hate getting DVD’s if Blu-ray isn’t available and woe betide the mrs if she Sky+’s something in SD when it’s available in HD. I sometimes won’t watch it because I know.

TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR – Member
….and woe betide the mrs if she Sky+’s something in SD when it’s available in HD. I sometimes won’t watch it because I know.

That is a crime of the highest order without a doubt!

A few weeks ago, before BBC One HD was available, The Apprentice was on BBC HD, but much later. I recorded it and made the wife watch it the next day rather than the SD broadcast…

Ho hum – Member

I think that I have become a bit of a HD “snob” (joking).

SD pictures look okay on my television, but I enjoy marvelling at the detail of a decent HD transmission. A similar thing happened when I upgraded my hi-fi over time and I ended up only istening to stuff that was produced well.

It’s just one of my quirks I guess.

If you watch everything through SKY then SD will look crap, do you really think they don’t dumb down the picture so they can charge more for HD?
I mean look at old programs shown in HD, why would say ‘dads army’ look any better in HD? but on SKY it does.
I have a Virgin HD bow & they upscale everything, I can hardly tell the difference when switching from say BBC1 to BBC HD.

HTH.

A Sky HD box upscales also, although the general concensus is that the Virgin is better.

Don’t you get a choice of sod all channels on Virgin though?

SD looks great on my Sky box though, both on my LCD in the lounge and 32″ CRT on a standard Sky+ box in the bedroom.

Not sod all, you just have to pay silly money for the SKY content, but sometimes it just feels better to tell SKY to F off & go with Virgin, constant support & decent call out times without charge, I once called them at 8AM & the technician was on my doorstep within an hour 🙂

got the Sony from the OP – recommended.I hop to be able to poach the wifi from the PS I’m getting for Christmas.
I like the fact that the TV controls the bluray controls of the PS3