Is there a "basic" model HDTV?

We are looking for another TV for the house, this will go into the family room to replace an old 25" CRT TV. I'd like to upgrade to a HDTV but I'm not looking for the best of the best. In fact, I'm looking for a basic model HDTV that will give me 720P resolution. This is the room my daughter plays in, and that I sometimes go to seek refuge, but there is no fancy surround sound or anything else down there so a basic HDTV would be perfect, if there is such a thing?

I'd like something in 48" to 52" diagonal screen size because I built an entertainment/wall system out of cherry cabinets and left a 48" wide open area. So I'm looking to fill up the space, but obviously the maximum width of the of the case of the TV should not exceed 47".

I am NOT looking for a plasma set.

I'd like to keep the price under $1500. Is that possible?

I have no real brand preference. That price limit is going to make this a rear projection TV, something like a DLP or similar type. I've not begun looking yet, does anyone have any recommendations?

OK since I got no responses, how about I ask the question differently?

I'm looking for a 50" HDTV set. I want 720P resolution and am not looking for the greatest lastest newest technology because this TV will be going into the kid's playroom.

So that said, is there anything inherantly wrong with buying a TV that would be considered last year's model, or perhaps last year's technology?

Afterall, it would still be a HDTV so the picture quality should be much better than STV or EDTV quality. Right?

B_Skurka said:

So that said, is there anything inherantly wrong with buying a TV that would be considered last year's model, or perhaps last year's technology?

Afterall, it would still be a HDTV so the picture quality should be much better than STV or EDTV quality. Right?

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I don't see why it would matter - anything you buy that isn't the latest/greatest is probably going to be "out of date" so what's a few more months?

Geesh...$1500 for a kids TV.
Guess my kids are right...I need to get myself up to date!

B_Skurka said:

I'd like to keep the price under $1500. Is that possible?

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Bob, looking at ebay, I think you are a little ambitious with just 1500 bucks for Plasma HDTV 48- 50"

No Vin, NOT a plasma HDTV.

It would very likely be a rear projection DLP or other microprojection chip based 50" HDTV.

The only problem I have with Ebay is that I would really like to see the picture before I buy.

B_Skurka said:

No Vin, NOT a plasma HDTV.

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Ok

Hmmm.

I've been pondering the same and have been casually looking.

My 2 cents (again, based on what I see/hear and not based on personal experience).
- The rear projection bulbs are very expensive (several hundred $) to replace and I've heard they're not very reliable. Consider an extended warrantee.
- Like computers, the prices drop significantly from year to year (or month to month). Whatever you get, there will be a better one for a cheaper price on the shelf the next day. That's why I'm procrastinating
- Unless the signal coming in is HD, the picture is no better than any other digital picture.

I'll continue to wait/shop. I'm probably going to avoid the rear projection and go straight to plasma. I've been seeing 42" plasma in the $1500 range so I'm hoping by Christmas, I can get a 46" for the same price.

bczoom said:

Hmmm.

I've been pondering the same and have been casually looking.

My 2 cents (again, based on what I see/hear and not based on personal experience).
- The rear projection bulbs are very expensive (several hundred $) to replace and I've heard they're not very reliable. Consider an extended warrantee.
- Like computers, the prices drop significantly from year to year (or month to month). Whatever you get, there will be a better one for a cheaper price on the shelf the next day. That's why I'm procrastinating
- Unless the signal coming in is HD, the picture is no better than any other digital picture.

I'll continue to wait/shop. I'm probably going to avoid the rear projection and go straight to plasma. I've been seeing 42" plasma in the $1500 range so I'm hoping by Christmas, I can get a 46" for the same price.

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Well I say jump in and buy.
I've got a top of the line 56" DLP in the living room and it is damn amazing. Watched an episode of FIREFLY on the HDTV last night using a Denon DVD player with Up Conversion to bring DVDs up to NEAR HD quality. WOW. And as good as it was, it is not as good as watching a FULL HD broadcast. Dish Network offers about 30 HD channels in my market so there are plenty of choices. I presume other services offer similar amounts?

But just do it. The HD experience is pretty damn amazing.

As for the projector bulbs, yes, they do go out, and yes they do cost a couple hundred $$$. But my HDTV is 18 months old and probably won't need a bulb replacement for at least another 18 to 24 months. On the other hand, when I bought my HDTV, it was a several thousand dollar proposition and at the time, Plasma screen had a life that is shorter than they are today, and Plasma screens cost DOUBLE what I spent for a similar screen size. So for me to get a roughly 56" Plasma, 18 months ago, would have cost something in the range of $6 to $8K. I don't watch TV enough to warrent that type of cash outlay.

If you buy a Plasma, buy the newest and best because the newer units have screen lifes that are longer than even Plasmas that were built a year or year and a half ago. And I can tell you from some of my current searching, there are still a bunch of HDTVs for sale today that are 2005 models.

Bob, not sure if this will help, but I saw the latest Consumer Reports magazine at my in-laws and they rate flat screen (LCD and plasma) TVs. I'm not a big fan of CR, but it is a place to start.
Bonehead

Well I'm in a quandry. At lunch I went to pick up some shelf brackets for the new bookshelves we are finishing up in the living room and on the way back stopped into Circuit City for a little peek at the TVs.

They had a couple of them at/under $1500, and are even offering a 5% rebate via gift card.

Now here is the rub, I looked at all the sets on display in the 50" size range and to be honest the picture quality looked the same to me (maybe I should have put my glasses on?). They had 720p sets and 1080p sets, and they looked the same. Samsung looked like Sony and Sony looked like Mitsubishi. But the problem is they have an RCA on sale for $1299, which is by far the cheapest 50" set . . . but they were out of stock so I could not see it.

To make matters worse, I went to C|Net to read a review about it . . . there was none. I did a web search, could not find a review anywhere except the Circuit City website. All agreed it has good/excellent picture quality, all agreed the sound quality was 'average'. There was one reviewer who got a dead TV.

Anyone have experience with any RCA TV sets? Are they any good?

I'm looking at the RCA Scenium M50WH187

Well I went ahead and made a purchase today that I am pretty happy with. Unfortunately I was unable to see the RCA TV in person so I was afraid to buy it without seeing the picture quality. However I was able to view several Samsung, Hitachi and Sony sets. Samsung had a model HL-S5086W that had a great picture but was priced a little bit over my budget at the stores around here. I found it on Amazon.Com for $1299.00 with FREE SHIPPING. I also picked up a new DVD/VCR combo deck with Up Conversion DVD playback, and DVD recording functions to go with the new TV.

Now I just have to tell the lovely Mrs_B what she's getting for Christmas

Congrats Bob. Please let me/us know your review once it's up and running in the house.

B_Skurka said:

Now I just have to tell the lovely Mrs_B what she's getting for Christmas

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Ahhhh. And what are you getting her for Christmas? It better not have something with a cord attached.

bczoom said:

Ahhhh. And what are you getting her for Christmas? It better not have something with a cord attached.

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I'm actually thinking of buying her some Frank Lloyd Wright furniture for the dinette area now that we remodeled the kitchen/dinette. We have some fairly nice stuff from Ethan Allen, but its getting a little worn at about 8 or 9 years old. Still good, but not really a decent version of FLW design and since our house is a modern recreation of a real Prairie Style house, we try to add more authentic details to it as we can find and afford them.

Here is some stuff she really likes and it is sold by the Frank Lloyd Wright preservation organization and is authorized by them. The table, chairs and sideboard would replace our breakfast table/chairs and the current sideboard in the dinette. The second photo shows a small side table and chair, I'm looking at a couple chairs and a table for our bedroom to replace a seating area up there. She likes furniture and would really like to replace the dinette set. All this furniture is available in either oak or cherry and I'd buy it in cherry as that is what most of our furniture, cabinets, and trim is made of.

That's a much safer idea.

Not related to the TV but since we're talking about FLW, too bad I didn't pay much attention to his stuff when I was a kid.

I grew up in a place called the "Larkin Estate" in W. NY. My neighbor was the heir of what was left (just money) of the Larkin Soap Company.

The executives of Larkin Soap company were very good friends with FLW and FLW designed 3 of their houses as well as the Larkin Admin. building.

When "Pops" (as we called him) Larkin passed away, we disposed of most of the contents of his house by burning or pitching in the trash. We came to find out a couple months later that a lot of it was priceless furniture, pictures... due to its history with FLW.

Priceless is right. I've heard of original FLW chairs selling for nearly $500,000.00 each!!!

B_Skurka said:

Priceless is right. I've heard of original FLW chairs selling for nearly $500,000.00 each!!!

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And we probably threw some in the bonfire...

Bump.

How's the new TV Bob?

I was checking them out again last night.

The best deal I found as a 42" plasma Samsung for $1619. I'm strongly considering getting it but a digital (non HD) signal looks worse on these TV's than my regular tube TV.

I heard many cable providers are going to boost their HD signals starting in January. I currently only have about 20 channels in HD but really need more before I switch to the plasma/HD TV.

B_Skurka said:

Here is some stuff she really likes and it is sold by the Frank Lloyd Wright preservation organization and is authorized by them. The table, chairs and sideboard would replace our breakfast table/chairs and the current sideboard in the dinette. The second photo shows a small side table and chair, I'm looking at a couple chairs and a table for our bedroom to replace a seating area up there. She likes furniture and would really like to replace the dinette set. All this furniture is available in either oak or cherry and I'd buy it in cherry as that is what most of our furniture, cabinets, and trim is made of.

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Bob, have you checked out Karges Furniture? The Last Great American Furniture Company When I was at the home of one of the guys who owns a business I do some work for, I found that most all of his furniture (extremely beautiful!!!) was made about 2 miles from my house. If your wife likes what you pictured, check out the above link.

**Just a little warning; extremely high quality American made furniture isn't cheap**

Dargo said:

Bob, have you checked out Karges Furniture?

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Brent, as our house is a real Prairie House design, we've picked up a lot of Prairie style pieces and even had some pieces built based on photos of original F.L.W. designs. The Karges stuff looks too ornate for our house.

bczoom said:

How's the new TV Bob?

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The TV is great. I get 31 HD channels between the local stations and the Dish Network offerings. Regular TV looks good on a DLP set, I'm not sure how it looks on a Plasma or LCD flat panel. What I do know is that I would stay away from the lower priced flat panel TVs. I've never heard anything good about the low priced flat panel sets, lower contrast, blacks that are not black, lower brightness, and worst of all, shorter life span.

As for my new TV, it is equal in quality to the older, more expensive DLP TV we have up in the living room. The brightness, contrast and blacks are amazing. The speakers are decent, but really I should hook it up to a surround sound system and bypass the internal speakers completely.

I was very happy with the ease of set up of the HDTV, some of them have to be calibrated all sorts of ways and you do have to go through a routine to get it set up properly but it was very clear cut and simple to do. I had no problems setting it up.

Buying the $80 HDMI cables were also the right move, as they give the best signal quality and keep everything digital. Why spend this type of money for a TV and then knock the signals down to analog only to then reconvert them to digital? I also upgraded the DVD player to a new unit that Upconverts the DVD signals to near HD and also has an HDMI cable output to the TV. So hooking up the TV required plugging in the power cord and connecting 2 HDMI cables. Nothing else!

Bear in mind that DVDs are not recorded at HD quality levels so to get the most out of your standard DVDs you need to get an Upconverting DVD player. Prices on those are dropping like rocks and you can see the difference in picture quality between a standard DVD player and an upconverting DVD player on a HD set.

Here is a photo of the playroom with the TV in the new wall cabinets we put in early last year. The TV is a 50" widescreen and it fills the opening just about perfectly.

Even Bob's playroom is green
Got a lot of that paint, did you Bob? It's in your office and house.
BTW, turn the brightness down.

Thanks for the review.

I spend about an hour talking to the TV guys last night (much to the chagrin of my 5 year old that was with me).

We discussed DLP, LCD and plasma.

Two main factors for me are life expectency and durability, the latter being related to external forces (since my kids are little and it'll be in their play area).

I've discounted the projection type due to bulb replacement and the fact the screen is pretty fragile (compared to LCD or plasma).

That left LCD and plasma. The plasma had a crisper picture and for the 42" I was looking at, it was only slightly more expensive.

I bought a Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR2 for the pool house and am pleased with it. I have the same thing but in 30 something inch in my bedroom and I liked it so well I just got the same thing thing, but bigger, for the pool house. I'm not any expert, but mine doesn't quite look as green as Bob's.

Dargo, are those the new 1080p sets? Both of mine are only 720p. When I shopped for my newest HDTV it struck me that my satellite company only transmits in 720p, it also struck me that the 1080p sets are about double the price of the 720p sets . . . but damn they look good when you set them side by side there is a real difference!