Buying a Flat Panel Display (LCD/Plasma/LED etc)

[liberal]

Have finalised Sony 40V400A in Mumbai & should get delivery today. I am sharing my experience after jointly me & my wife checked muliple panels - multiple times before making a decision.

Initial criteria -Full HD LCD 40inch. Even though the veiwing distance was 6 feet we opted for 40" as did not want regret buying a smaller screen size - upgraded from 29"LG CRT T.V.

Comparison largely based on Tata sky reception as we always asked the salesman to switch to cable as on Demo DVD most panels looked great.

40" Samsung (available at all the shops visited): Non HD 3series was good, 4 series was crap (lot of blurring),
HD 5 series was decent (VFM HD LCD): Felt did not show gradients of colour properly, Noise correction was OK. Overall a great product for around 60K in Mumbai & HD 6 series was v.good, beautiful exterior but the glossy screen reflected a lot, best cable T.V pq in entire LCD lineup of Samsung (premium pricing).

40" Lg: 53 series was not inspiring and though designing was good the pq was OK and picture noise correction was below average, nothing much to be impressed about.
60 series (scarlet) The designing was a big turn off , with the frame is too thick at the bottom, red colour on the rear added no value as it is for only walls to see, felt the picture noise correction was overdone. The picture looked dull but not bad. (worth considering if one can live with the design)

37" Toshiba Regza:- Don't remember the model but this was one set with came close to the Pq of Sony, we did not consider it seriously as we had preference for the Sony.

40"Sony: Colours on a Sony T.V were very different in the picture compared to other sets, in S series the colours were extra deeper whereas in V & W it was lighter.
S Series : Although specifications of V & S are almost identical we were not too impressed by S series due to the extra deep colours. The designing of S series is all black which did not also appeal to us when compared to Vseries.
V Series is a smart looking T.V with designing borrowed from W series. The cable PQ is the best. the way the cable T.V picture shows less stretch as both Sony & Toshiba panels have a very unique way of stretching the 4:3 cable picture to widescreen (see it to believe it). The colour gradients of Sony were better compared to Samsung and of all the LCD panels had the least eye fatigue.
W & X series not considered due to premium pricing

Bottomline: 5 Series Samsung is VFM bang for the buck HD LCD panel but for beautiful exterior and picture quality (pq) Sony V HD LCD is worth considering . Had actually finalised Samsung 40A550P1 but cancelled soon and changed to Sony 40V400A. LG is unimpressive in 40" LCDs and Sharp/Toshiba/Panasonic LCD panels were rarely found at shops to have a good comparison. Onida, Vu, Videocon etc - Never considered.

Plasma 's are distinctly out of favour in Mumbai, rarely found on display although available for sale on demand at good discounts. The ones I saw had good pq of Tatasky cable but the reflection on the screen glass & extra weight/power consumption compared to LCD allowed me to avoid them.

I recommend that screen size required should be freezed upon before hand, not to believe blindly the specifications and see the T.V with SD/cable t.v content to decide.

[liberal]

Originally Posted by anuragn

"Sony Mony" is giving a discount of upto Rs.20,000 on exchange of old working colour TV with remote.
"King's Electronics" (present in Nerul & Panvel) is giving Rs.15,000 discount on exchange on PV8 on MRP of Rs.69.9K.
"Kohinoor" (Vashi) generally betters any of the offers running in the market.
"Vijay Sales" also gives huge discounts. Croma & Reliance Digital are not that aggressive, although their prices may be lower on an average.
If you go to the market, you may discover even more offers.

SonyMony's offer is a eyewash, its on MRP and deals are not good when calculated (Upto Rs.20000 off on exchange is on mrp and only on selected brands like Samsung & LG, pricing is more than competitors even after discount).

Agree, Kohinoor is the best as far is pricing is concerned they have "sabse sasta 5 din" offer going on.

[anuragn]

@liberal,
20K discount on MRP of 50K is certainly not a bad deal. Anyway, never been to Sony Mony, so not much to argue.
But do not forget to check out at kohinoor before freezing any deal.

[liberal]

Originally Posted by anuragn

@liberal,
20K discount on MRP of 50K is certainly not a bad deal. Anyway, never been to Sony Mony, so not much to argue.
But do not forget to check out at kohinoor before freezing any deal.

Have been to Sonymony, exchange discount is UPTO 20K and not flat 20K. 20K (exchange of 29"flat CRT TV) is only available on Samsung 6 series 40" LCD on mrp of 110K which is already available for 89K - 7K (normally offered buyback)= 82K.

Thanks, have considered Kohinoor before finalising and it has helped a lot.

[csentil]

Almost never believe in exchange offers especially if it is discount on MRP.

Supposing the TV is worth 30K MRP, it is generally sold at 24 - 25K depending on shop/brand/bargaining etc. However if there is an exchange offer he'll take your old TV for 5000/- and then discount that 5K from MRP. So basically one is giving away his old TV free of cost.

Almost all free gift offers work the same way. Cost of normal washing machine 17K in Pai's. Cost of same washing machine with free gift (Rice cooker) 19.5K in Girias. Ask without gift and the cost will be 17.5K !!!

[silverbyte]

hi guys,
which would be the cheapest 32 (or 26 inch) LCD tv with 100/120 hz scanning?

I'm a little color blind w.r.t contrasts and colors, but I get a headache if I get blurred images, so I guess that is most important to me.

thanks

[ST7677]

Liberal, a lot on flat panel TVs depend on their tuning. They are not as simple as Brightness and contrast tuning as in CRT.

Here you have 1000 setting options like color maps, gamma, noise correction settings, various TV features settings (motion flow, 24p, WCG, etc etc), drive modes, interlacing options. And then there is signal quality in the store.
It is practically impossible to do a fair evaluation of these TVs on store floor.

Moreover these settings vary from source to source, so one setting which works on one source may not work for other sources.

It is so complicated that over abroad there are ISF (Imaging science foundation) engineers, who tune the TV to what it should really look like in that viewing environment for a particular source, and then only 2 TVs can be compared. And these calibrations are not cheap they cost around $300-400.

I have first hand witnessed how much difference these tunings can make to a customers opinion, out of tune even an awesome TV will look like crap.
Unfortunately most factory settings are equally bad.

[Fillmore]

Liberal,

I Agree with ST7677.

Comparisons made by just viewing these TV's in a showroom is highly debatable. Cause most of the time these TV's would not have been calibrated properly and would be running on poor quality video feeds.
At least Sony is smart enough to ensure that their Display units are always connected to 1080p video clips, exclusively created for demo purposes.

Due to the complexity in the settings, there are experts who do this.
You can also buy Calibration DVD's which have step by step instructions on how to Calibrate your HDTV. These come with sample video clips to test out each setting.

Just to give you an example. A test for the right black setting would have a video clip of say a person wearing a black shirt and a black trouser. Only under the optimum setting will you be able to distinguish that the shirt has a tad lighter shade of black than the trouser.
Before the calibration both the shirt and trouser would have looked black with no difference in color shade.

[silverbyte]

Originally Posted by silverbyte

hi guys,
which would be the cheapest 32 (or 26 inch) LCD tv with 100/120 hz scanning?

I'm a little color blind w.r.t contrasts and colors, but I get a headache if I get blurred images, so I guess that is most important to me.

thanks

hi guys,
any idea on this please?

thanks

[sukiwa]

@ Fillmore:

You can also buy Calibration DVD's which have step by step instructions on how to Calibrate your HDTV.

Where from Can I procure these calibration DVDs? Any pointers?

[reignofchaos]

Spend 100$ and by a Colorific Spyder. Way better than spending money on test DVDs.

[Fillmore]

Originally Posted by sukiwa

@ Fillmore:

Where from Can I procure these calibration DVDs? Any pointers?

You can google for
Calibration dvd Or LCD calibration dvd etc..
Will get lots of pointers. cheers:

[liberal]

@Fillmore Choosing between calibrated panels is an ideal scenario. Most consumers like me have to decide by comparing panels alongside running same feed (like Tatasky T.V/DVD/HD media) & checking the same in mutiple preset picture modes. Additionally technical specs and reviews are considered.

@ST7677, I agree that inconsistant factory settings across brands make decision complicated. My earlier observation of some unique wide mode in Sony was in error as the same mode (widezoom) is available in Samsung but not selected in default settings.

Presently enjoying the big screen experience, have connected my 1080p upscaling dvd player via hdmi and the experience with hometheatre setup is AWESOME.

[liberal]

Originally Posted by sukiwa

@ Fillmore:

Where from Can I procure these calibration DVDs? Any pointers?

you can consider THX calibration software in THX certified DVD's. I have it on Movie DVD 'Incredible' US region1 release.

[anuragn]

Hi,
Got 42" PV8 delivered yesterday. Had been using LG 32" LCD for the past 5 months. The panny is far better compared to the LG. Much deeper blacks, almost no judder in tickers, overall colours are also good. And so is the sound. Using it with Tata Sky. The picture "Hold" function is cool, was'nt there in the LG.