LCD TV advice sought!

I'm thinking of kicking out my CRT and buying a wall-mountable LCD TV to stick onto my chimney breast above my hifi. Thing is there are a zillion different makes and models and I have little idea which one to go for.

Requirements:
wall-mountable
26-28"
Quality picture
Longevity (!?)

Budget: probably around £400ish.

My instinct is to go for Sony or Philips or maybe LG, but even if I choose a make they all have several models that all look very similar , to me anyhow. Also, they all seem to be HD ready, but there seems to be more than one format; 720P and 1080P (better). Is it really important?

 

Well at this budget you could get a panasonic or phillips. These guys are the ones doing quality panels.

I plumbed for an LG because of price and regret it really. Pany and Phillips are the best. As to which are this years model, well check contrast ratio it wants to be 5000 or above. And check image screen, faster than 8 is the norm.
Other than that things like 100hz would be nice. Built in freeview to save on the cables is also handy (unless you have sky of course)

Word of warning. If you have been used to CRT, even the very best LCD is going to look dire. DVDs and gaming will be astoundingly good. TV and Satalite broadcasts are going to be shite. Hence where HD comes in. 1080p is the best at the moment, if your budget allows might as well get it, even if you don't use it yet.

 

Are you after 26" due to size constraints or because of the budget? 32" generally isn't much more than 26" and looks quite a bit larger than the 6" difference may suggest (37" isn't much more again, though at £400 may be pushing it without going for no-name TVs)

Don't worry about getting 1080p, its pointless until you start getting in to much bigger sizes, like 50"+ (that is, unless you plan on using it as a computer screen also). You would struggle to find many 1080p sets in sizes less than 37", for this very reason.

Where contrast ratio is concerned, if you're using it to compare one screen to another make sure you're not looking at the "dynamic" contrast figure, as this number has turned in to a marketing headline in recent years and doesn't have much bearing on the true performance of the screen. The actual panel contrast would be a much lower figure - a screen with a quoted 5000:1 contrast ratio is likely to have an actual panel contrast of around 1000:1. (and real life measurements in normal lighting conditions are likely to be more like 50:1, but they're certainly not going to publish that figure )

Have a look at a few in some shops to get the best idea of image quality (though the colours will look over-saturated because they're in their shiny shop sell sell sell mode, make sure you turn this off when you actually take one home). Once you've found a few models you like that are in your price range, scope out all the reviews you can, if they're from the same generation and price range you're likely to find direct comparisons to help you out.

100hz refresh is a nice feature to have just because, but I can't tell any difference and I've even seen reports on some sets that turning it off results in better image quality. I wouldn't go out of my way to make sure that the set has it. 24hz on the other hand actually does make quite a difference if you intend on watching BluRay or HD-DVD. Given that they're all recorded in 24hz, you can sometimes see a slight amount of judder in slow pans in films when playing them at 50/100hz. (I'm exaggerating here, it is actually quite subtle, but its one of those things that once you notice it, it can really start to piss you off)

Longevity is a moot point really, a TV from a quality manufacturer is going to last far longer than you're likely to keep it. Who wants a TV that lasts longer than 5 years anyway, then there's one less excuse to get a new one when the time comes!

And to echo the above, the black levels on LCDs are nowhere near CRT, and you may find the image looks washed out until you get used to it. Tweaking the settings can help this quite a bit, as can professional calibration (though that's going to cost as much as the TV again). You may also notice artifacts when viewing SD content, though at 26/32" they shouldn't be too bad. And you'll probably be viewing quite a bit of SD content, as the quantity of HD broadcasts in the UK is woeful and vastly overpriced *sigh*

 

Thanks for the input chaps. Might be tempted towards Philips then as I have one of theirs at the mo', and we've had about 6 years good service from it with no probs.

Yep, size, might go bigger actually as I went into town just after my original post to look at some, and the 32" ones looked not much bigger than what I have now, even though mine is a 24" CRT - which actually measures 32" diagonally corner to corner cos of all the plastic around the screen. Like you say, there's not much difference price-wise between the 26 and 32" models.

Re the 720P vs 1080P, what I've since read on the web echoes your comments Mister_Tad, in that it's only an advantage to go 1080 if you have a bloody huge screen, which I won't, so I shan't bother chasing it.

It is a bummer how crap a lot of non-HD channels look on these sets, but I'm willing to put up with that until maybe in the future more HD channels or progs become more widespread and cheaper.

I'll try to get my head around the hz and contrast ratios and spend some more time in the shops looking at some tasty models .

 

Freesat should be stepping up "soon" (ie, it is currently officially slated for summer, but it has been delayed more than once already). With a dish and the appropriate box you can still get a few channels, but its currently not much different from whats on freeview (with the exception of BBC HD if I recall correctly)

We should start to see a few HD channels cropping up for freesat very soon indeed, which is nice. HD is currently slated for DVB-T (ie, freeview) for 2009 from what I understand. Sky HD is a bit of a joke at the moment - Obscene amounts of money for a handful of HD channels, and then most of them only have HD content half of the time, and half of the HD programming is tat anyway.

My dad lives in the states and was scoping out satellite providers and mentioned the other day that one of the networks is doing 94 HD channels for $80/month. Disgusting!

I'm not sure if you can get upscaling freeview boxes, but if you're computerly inclined then you may want to consider putting together a media centre PC. Starting from around £250 (excluding OS, there are a few good free linux ones, XP/Vista MCE will cost you ~£100) you can put something together that can do a pretty decent job of upscaling SD content and look just like another piece of AV gear on the rack. Or course you can spend a whole lot more than £250 too, but for non-HD duties you can get away with a lot less hardware. I can vouch for nVidia's PureVideo decoder doing a decent enough job to make SD watchable on a 50" screen. And of course its a PVR as well, which is handy.

 

There's an article here that explains 720/ 1080p and viewing distance: http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/

 

Is it Samsung that are still pushing forward techno wise with crt's ?

Should be able to fit a slimline crt in a chimney brest

 

A half decent CRT will slam a top lcd for picture quality unless all of your source is HD.

I picked up a 42" Samsung about a year ago and wished I'd hung onto my widescreen CRT (also Samsung).

At the time, the Samsung had the best picture quality (Samsung make screens for Sony and a few others) without spending stupid money.

My advice tho, wait for better HD coverage before going LCD or be prepared to put up with washed out blacks and some serious artifacts.

 

If you look online you should be able to find a Sony 32S300 for about £430. I have one and its very good - 720 HD and an integrated Freeview tuner. The picture is great, as you'd expect with the Bravia engine, and it has 3 HDMI inputs if you get a blu-ray player or anything.

 

HD lcd.... quick Q if you don't mind is the motion smooth on HD sources, like the grass on a football pitch when following the ball ?

(From what I have seen, and that is not much, lcd's and plasmas have lovely chrisp sharp edges to everything in the pic, and contrast is seems sharper. However, I come back in a watch a bit of my old crt tv, the chrisp edges have gone but its a much smoother pic easier on the eye and movement is smooth, as opposed to a bit staggered on the flat screens. DVD's are much chrisper on the tv at home, than a normal pic. )

Cheers