Flat screen

I was at Walmart watching the avengers on their wall of teevees and the level of detail was better than the theater. We don't really have a tv but this almost convinced me.

It's a lights years type improvement (to my eyes) if you do decide to go for a decent LED or plasma.

Get a nice LED set, sign up for Netflix streaming, done.

OLED set? You have the 20k to spend?

The magic words are backlit LED. This is an LCD screen with an array of LEDs behind the display. The LEDs are used in conjunction with the display to allow for much more complete control over dimming. That means that blacks are really, really black, and you can completely tell the difference in a night scene.

The cheaper LEDs are edge-lit. Same idea, but a lot fewer LEDs along the edge. This does weird things to the image, screws with viewing from the side, and creates weird triangular patterns on the screen in solid color fields. Most people might not notice them, and the edge-LEDs are not only cheaper, but the TV itself is oh so thin and pretty looking.

Also. Buy 2010 or 2011 models if you can find them. There haven't been any major advancements since them, but TV manufacturers dutifully trot out new features. 3D apparently completely relegated all of those previous tvs to oblivion, so you can get them cheaper. I'm using an old 2008-era LG that still has the best output I've personally seen on a TV screen.

Hmm... looking around I guess I don't see a lot of LED sets claiming to be OLED. I'll change my post to just say LED.

Thanks for this advice. I just inherited $500, and if I don't spend it my wife will find something to spend it on. I may settle for an edge-lit LED just because of my budget, although perhaps finding a 2011 model would help with that.

Any recommendations on *where* I should buy it? Does it matter if it comes from Walmart or Best Buy?

I bought my 58" plasma from Amazon. A couple guys showed up 2 days later and carried it down to my basement for me. Talk about the Easy Button!

Walmart, Amazon or Newegg. Best Buy and Frys are usually pretty expensive on everything. I have actually found some good deals at Brandsmart as well, but you have to do a bit of research as they are likely to pick up weird one-off models. (I ended up with a nice DLP once that was designed for sale only in Canada.)

This is _super_ timely. I've got the following two flat screen tv/dvd combos in my amazon cart. Which do y'all think is better?


www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0077E48A0/ref...8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00856XDWI/ref...8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

higher resolution vs larger screen? Size Matters. haven't bought either brand in years so don't know.

oh yeah, tv/dvd combos are bad. I've got one in my bedroom, the dvd player doesn't work anymore. we sent it in once and it was waaaay to much trouble. it also is a 32-inch 720P...at that size you really don't notice the difference between 1080 and 720.

I found some information online that many of the flat screen tvs use parts from Amtran in Taiwan, especially Vizio and JVC. At Costco today I saw a 47" tv for $450 (bought the floor model) and bought it while ignoring all the advice everyone gave me. It's our first and we are like cavemen before the monolith. We just have an analog antenna hooked up and don't get cable, and will mostly use it for streaming Netflix and Hulu once I attach a Roku or find a Thunderbolt cable for the Macbook. My wife started calling me a consumer-puppet and then nicknamed me "Kermit" and has been making frog noises all day.

craniac wrote: I found some information online that many of the flat screen tvs use parts from Amtran in Taiwan, especially Vizio and JVC. At Costco today I saw a 47" tv for $450 (bought the floor model) and bought it while ignoring all the advice everyone gave me. It's our first and we are like cavemen before the monolith. We just have an analog antenna hooked up and don't get cable, and will mostly use it for streaming Netflix and Hulu once I attach a Roku or find a Thunderbolt cable for the Macbook. My wife started calling me a consumer-puppet and then nicknamed me "Kermit" and has been making frog noises all day.

I have an older model Roku. Let me know if you want it. They kick ass. Pick up an HDMI cable from monoprice and you'll be set.

You can stream to Roku from a decent Mac with Plex. S'mazin.

craniac wrote: I found some information online that many of the flat screen tvs use parts from Amtran in Taiwan, especially Vizio and JVC. At Costco today I saw a 47" tv for $450 (bought the floor model) and bought it while ignoring all the advice everyone gave me. It's our first and we are like cavemen before the monolith. We just have an analog antenna hooked up and don't get cable, and will mostly use it for streaming Netflix and Hulu once I attach a Roku or find a Thunderbolt cable for the Macbook. My wife started calling me a consumer-puppet and then nicknamed me "Kermit" and has been making frog noises all day.

I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere, but in my major city we get ABC/NBC/FOX/CBS and some local channels in HD using an antenna. We bought the Terk HDTVa for about $40 through Amazon and it works pretty well. We have the antenna, blu-ray player, and roku; no cable.

We are getting 45 channels from our roof antenna. Which Roku are you selling?