Gotcha. Yeah, the menu is a little sluggish, and I’ve got arrow keys instead of a keyboard which just adds to the annoyance. Still, I like saving money. It was an extra $100+ to get a smart TV at the time, or an extra $30 for a smart Blu Ray. Seemed like a no-brainer.
Sure, if you actually watch movies on physical discs like a caveman!
Thats cool, I did look for that online as it looks great.
One thing thats is still different over here in the UK is TV size, 28" used to big now most have 36" - 50" but asking 10 people at work today only 1 had 50" and most were 40" or under. Really big TV’s while here are not that popular yet but as more people replace their tv’s I am sure 50" will become the norm.
Hopefully I will pick something up this weekend but even choosing one I shall want to physically see it so have a few stores locally I can do that and then decide
I think that TV sets tend to be bigger on average in North America due to the bigger house sizes. This translates into the need for a bigger screen to maintain immersion at a longer viewing distance. I was perfectly happy with my old 46" TV when I was only sitting 6’ from it, but it seemed pretty small in my new house’s basement with the 13’ viewing distance. One of those viewing distance site calculators indicated I should go for 70" or bigger, but I’m not made of money!
Have you gone to one of those calculators and punched in your numbers? You might be surprised.
Lounge is 30ft by 12ft. The view is across the room so no more than 10ft maybe closer to 8ft. I used to watch Tv on my 26" tv when I moved in here :D
LOL - a caveman, I am.
I’m not going to lie, I went for a cheap brand this time. I stare at TVs all day at work and generally recommend Samsung and Vizio, but ended up with an Element. I guess I just don’t see the difference as really being huge anymore under HD content and I don’t sit in front of the TV that much anyway. $250 for a 40" 1080p LED seemed like a good idea. I guess if it fails early I’ll learn my lesson.
We’ve had our 42" Insignia TV (Best Buy brand) for about a year, still works great. A discerning eye can see the digital artifacts on these cheap TV’s, but for general viewing, they’re fine.
The difference between the insignia and elements and the vizio is that according to all the reviews, the vizio actually has an objectively high quality picture. It’s not just cheap, it’s a good deal.
Like the el-cheapo korean monitors in that thread-- they also have great pictures. IPS displays, very sharp, gorgeous. Unlike the vizios here, they’re grey-market off-brand imports, so some of the displays have defects, so the analogy isn’t perfect. But if you get a good one, it will look just as good as a dell monitor costing 3x as much. And if you don’t, the defects are usually very hard to notice anyway, so it’s a gamble.
Much as I like Wirecutter, I have to say that one of the last TVs in the world I would buy is their top pick, the Sony X900B series. It’s a great looking LCD TV, but encumbered by those worthless, huge speakers, expensive, and using tech that will age badly compared to upcoming TVs.
They also recommended a 1024x768 model for their “$500 TV” for quite a long time. That was batshit crazy.
I’m all for that effective resolution and viewing distance stuff, but I’m not going to buy a TV that isn’t even 720p, no matter how great its picture quality is.
I chose a UK-based viewing distance calculator for you, and according to this, from 8’ you should get a 60" set, and for 10’ you should get over 65". Of course your wife would probably strike you down instantly for even suggesting it, so blame the site and not me! As for your previous 26" set, as far as I’m concerned, that’s a computer monitor size only suitable for spreadsheets and the occasional word processing task ;)
I can’t wait for easy to wear and high resolution VR-type goggles / glasses to exist at a reasonable price. Then we can throw these giant glass rectangles out for good, and get a virtual set the size of a movie theatre screen. I wonder what the paired watching experience is like with something like that, since I am almost always sitting next to my wife when watching TV or a movie.
Of course you can get a smaller TV, those are simply the sizes you should purchase to get the full benefit of a 1080p image. I wouldn’t purchase larger than recommended, as with 20/20 vision you’ll start seeing pixels, and the field of view gets too wide giving a front seat of a movie theater feeling.
Most people actually sit ~9 feet from their TV, and that site doesn’t even go that high!
Most people actually sit ~9 feet from their TV, and that site doesn’t even go that high!
Have you been in a British living room? I sit maybe 5’ from mine.
lol, well mine is around 10ft but i think it really depends if you have a lounge or a lounge/diner in 1.
Really? That’s tiny. I sat 6’ from my TV in my old ridiculously small manhattan apartment, and I didn’t have room for a coffee table. When I opened up the couch bed for visitors, it touched the TV. You must be in London.
Edit: And from your profile you are indeed in London. Perils of urban life!
To be fair, my sofa is unusually close to the TV to accommodate a dining room table that’s probably too large for the room, but even so, there aren’t many flats I’ve lived in where I’ve been more than 6-7 feet from the TV.
Your parents out in the suburbs sit 6’ from their TV also? If not, seems like an urban thing, not a british thing.
Sure, but Britain is a very urban country, and urban houses/flats there are typically much smaller than in non-Manhattan America. And, at least in my experience, even bigger suburban houses tend to favour more over larger rooms, relative to the US. My relatives in the States have much, much bigger living rooms than my parents have had.
It’s important to maintain a safe viewing distance from your telly in case the penguin explodes.