What's the go to brand in TVs these days?

Moving house in a coupe of weeks and the old (12 years old non HD, non hdmi) bolt to the wall Panasonic Plasma isn’t going to cut it in the new living room. Seems like a good time to start again and buy new. So with a budget of circa £800 (happy yot pay less, reluctant to pay more) what’s the brand/ technology combo to go for? Size is a concern – the room is mahoosive (I was around there at the current incumbents leaving bash and 15 of us were sat down eating off laps and another 12 standing up with no issues) which would say massive telly needed but it will have to sit to the side of a fancy fire place so could really unbalance the room if too big.

Always Sony or Panasonic for us.

Sony have been good. Samsung have been ok.

Maybe look at 4k if your looking to own the TV for a while – might give some level of future proofing ..

Panasonic for build and picture quality.

Panasonic. Just a shame they don’t make plasmas anymore. My 2013 Panasonic plasma’s picture in the cave is stunning compared to my 2015 led in the lounge.

Had Panasonics previously and always been impressed. Went for a Samsung 4K this time and its fantastic. Also it has a gaming mode which dramatically speeds up the response without significantly compromising picture quality, if gaming is your thing. Makes a big difference with online shooters such as Call of Duty

Look for HDR sets as well

LG OLED. The 55 inch 1080p sets are below £1000 if you shop around.

Panasonic, Toshiba imho

Watchout for the quality of the source you are going to feed it – whereas your plasma will make the best of poor quality material an LED won’t and will possibly make a real hash of it, depending on how much it has to upscale to its native resolution.

I would give the OLED sets a miss, especially the cheap ones.

I went into John Lewis the other day to see what the tennis looked like, and even accounting for the mess that the shop standard mode setting cause, the LG OLED made the most incredible hash of the tennis. Motion wasn’t just blurring, it has significant stuttering – I couldn’t watch it. Never seen a TV screw up that much.

Thanks so far.

Has anyone got a HDR telly? Was it worth it?

This looks OK as a starting point:-

http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv—all/samsung/ue49ku6500/sams-ue49ku6500

Off to search for current Panasonic offerings

I need to find one with an interface that is idiot wife proof or my life won’t be worth living. That might mean persuading her to got to an actual tv shop which could be excruciating for all concerned.

There is probably a world of wifi/NAS/file compatibility style questions I don’t know that I don’t know about where one records stuff on modern systems that I have been shelter from with my ancient equipment.

I would go for a Panasonic (or Sony) and not a Samsung.

I personally thing Samsungs picture processing sucks plus I also think Samsung reliability is suspect.

I also would not go to Richer Sounds myself.

If you have a local Sevenoaks HiFi then they often set up their demo sets with reasonable or good settings so you can actually see if they are good or not. I’ve never seen that in a Richer Sounds.

Has anyone got a HDR telly? Was it worth it?

Is anyone broadcasting HDR now? For 4K you will need Amazon or Netflix atm.

Our latest TV is a Panasonic plasma and we only bought that because pioneer don’t make tv’s any more my last one was was a PDP436XDE. Not that I need one at the moment but I’m gutted that no one makes reference grade plasmas anymore. LCD’s just don’t cut it compared to a good plasma. Interesting to see how OLED compares.