recommendation for TVs ( specific requests stated! )

[savvyguy]

kinda sick of BS coming from the salespeople already. most of them cannot even get the basics right ( e.g. they don't know what's dejudder ) i've done quite a bit of research myself, but there's still a lot of models out there, which makes it hard for me to narrow down my choices. to make it worse, every shop carries a different variety of HDTVs, making it hard to compare and contrast.

anyway here are my requirements.

- best SD/HD upscaler out of the lot ( very important, because here we're still receiving SD broadcast signals )
- decent PQ/ viewing angles ( doesn't have to be tip top )
- matte screen ( a plus, not a must )
- best dejudder processing with minimal artifacts ( purely for movie playback on the HD media player [should be astone 360T or ACRyan Playon HD], i'm not a sports fan! hence ruling out the sony z5500 ) - and because of this factor, i guess it rules out many of the cheaper TVs ( like the new samsung series 5! )
- ability to play .m2ts / .mov files ( not a priority since i can buy a media player later on )
- LED not necessary
- DLNA/internet/wireless stuff not necessary (basically no frills!)
- exterior doesn't have to look good
- don't mind plasma or lcd ( does plasma have dejudder processing built in? here it seems the highlight is still on LCDs.. )
- considering only these sizes : 40/42/46"
- most value for money

that's all. hope i can make some headway here! do give me some models so i can do more research on them. Thanks a million!

[savvyguy]

just to clarify : my usage for the TV is simply

1. watching SD broadcast cable television
2. watching .m2ts/.mkv video files from the Astone 360T

not planning to use it to play blu-ray discs or play ps3/xbox360 and what nots..

[savvyguy]

anybody?

[jagabo]

DeJudder is an NTSC issue. It shouldn't be a problem for you with PAL systems. Dejudder for NTSC video won't do anything for odd frame rate issues (duplicate or dropped frames to match frame rates).

[edDV]

Difficult to keep up with all the models as you have found.

Last I did this analysis about 18 months ago, the Samsung level 7/8/9 and upper Sony XBR had the best reviews for image processing. Today their top line models split into LED backlight, internet connectivity, playback codecs and 3D features. Start with the most expensive model then work down the feature list.

To complicate matters, models and series names differ by international region. Samsung usually launches new models around July followed by Sony in September. New technologies are previewed at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in January.

"PAL/DVB" region models usually process to 100 Hz refresh, "NTSC/ATSC" region models usually process 120/240 Hz. 60 Hz models will show motion "judder" due to 3:2:3:2 frame repeats from 23.976p. 120/240 Hz models have no judder.

[savvyguy]

yup i'm in the PAL region.. and we only have 50hz sets here ( for the lower end models ), no 60hz. btw, maybe i got it mixed up. the video processing i want = soap opera feel. don't really like the film look after i saw the 60fps interpolation for the first time.

another irritating thing i find is that a lot of extra features are often bundled with the motion smoothing feature, resulting in extra costs. there doesn't seem to be one TV that can handle motion smoothing well but none of the unnecessary features ( for my purpose ).

[jagabo]

Judder usually refers to the way 24 fps material is displayed at 60 Hz, alternating between showing each frame for 2/60 of a second and 3/60 of a second. Not only do you get the inherent jerkiness of 24 fps film, but on top of that you have an obvious judder. The 120 Hz sets eliminate judder by displaying each frame for 5/120 (1/24) second. That leaves you with just the jerkiness of 24 Hz film.

What you want is the step beyond that, the synthesis if in-between frames with interpolated motion. The last time I took a close look at that with TVs was when it was very new. I decided it wasn't worth the extra US$1000 it cost at that time. Even if it was free I didn't think I would use it. It worked well for simple panning shots but with many other shots there were too many obvious artifacts.

[sanlyn]

Samsung higher-end LCD's and plasmas appear to have a long record of decent SD scaling, besides having thorough CMS systems for calibrating color. SONY higher-ends also treat SD pretty well, but you'll play hell getting the color right. Biggest problem with Samsung: quality control and reliability issues.

Try http://www.whathifi.com or http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk for suggestions.

[savvyguy]

Samsung higher-end LCD's and plasmas appear to have a long record of decent SD scaling, besides having thorough CMS systems for calibrating color. SONY higher-ends also treat SD pretty well, but you'll play hell getting the color right. Biggest problem with Samsung: quality control and reliability issues.

Try http://www.whathifi.com or http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk for suggestions.

i did test out the SD channels yesterday with a few sets : samsung vs sony vs toshiba.

one feature i found missing in the samsung was the crop function ( if i'm not wrong ). that salesman showed me the toshiba had this "Super Live" feature which can display 4:3 images normally on their 16:9 screen without stretching it, so it should be cropped? However on the Samsung ( 55" LED model ), no matter what settings you put, the image will always look stretched, unless you put in 4:3 mode with black bars at the side.

that aside, i think the PQ for SD channels were pretty close.

if i were to take Samsung, i'm still thinking whether the series 6 is worth the premium over series 5 ( difference = interpolation ).

how about a comparison of LG's plasma TV to the Samsung LED's? thinking of getting the 42PJ350 ( price is 4x lower than Samsung! ), but wonder what i'm missing out.. another thing is it seems there's no plasma model that does the soap opera feel. why so?

thanks for the links, will check it out

[savvyguy]

Judder usually refers to the way 24 fps material is displayed at 60 Hz, alternating between showing each frame for 2/60 of a second and 3/60 of a second. Not only do you get the inherent jerkiness of 24 fps film, but on top of that you have an obvious judder. The 120 Hz sets eliminate judder by displaying each frame for 5/120 (1/24) second. That leaves you with just the jerkiness of 24 Hz film.

What you want is the step beyond that, the synthesis if in-between frames with interpolated motion. The last time I took a close look at that with TVs was when it was very new. I decided it wasn't worth the extra US$1000 it cost at that time. Even if it was free I didn't think I would use it. It worked well for simple panning shots but with many other shots there were too many obvious artifacts.

thanks for the explanation.

yup. this tech still costs a bomb now.. but much lesser.. probably USD300+/- difference.

[jagabo]

If your computer monitor runs at 60 Hz (or multiple thereof), and your computer is fast enough to run a 60 fps video smoothly, you can download the video in this post to see 24 Hz judder:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/307004-Best-framerate-conversion-%28eg-23-97-to-30-...=1#post1888926

[Squash]

ssavvyguy,

You might want to check out the new Sony Bravia KDL-EX500/503 line (the 503 is sold in the UK, not sure if it's called that in other PAL regions or not). I picked up a 500 last month when looking for a small TV for my bedroom (and also to temporarily replace my Samsung, which was in the shop for a failing display panel). Like you, I was looking for something that would do motion-compensated frame interpolation (the "soap-opera feel" as you put it), and without a lot of widgets and other stuff I wasn't interested in. I got the 32", which is the smallest I've seen with interpolation. Price was a little over 600 USD.

These models were just introduced in February of this year. It's a relatively no-frills LCD unit and budget-priced (for a Sony, anyway). No widgets, internet, etc. (but I've seen posts saying that the UK 503 model has some internet features for the services offered there)).

The Sony's motion interpolation works fine for NTSC-sourced material and is comparable to my 2008/2009 Samsung 650, but unfortunately it does not work well for 25 fps xvid AVI files; it produces terrible juddering when interpolation is turned on. My Samsung has no problem with the same PAL-sourced videos. I would think that a PAL TV would not have this problem, but I'd definitely check out the interpolation on both 25 and 23.976 MKV and AVI files.

The Sony manual sucks; very vague. You'd never figure out how to turn interpolation on by reading it (although it is enabled by default). You have to turn CineMotion to Auto1 (Auto or Auto2 disables it), and in addition Motionflow must be set to Standard (medium interpolation) or High (high interpolation).

I've found that with my problematic 25fps AVIs if I turn interpolation off by disabling CineMotion, and set Motionflow to High, that they are perfectly watchable, just with no interpolation. The manual's description of CineMotion says that it is for "film-based content", so I conjecture that it may be forcing an assumption of 24 fps, disabling the 3:2:3:2:2 pulldown that would (I think) ordinarily be used to convert 25 frames to 30, but I'm probably wrong. [edit] More specifically, I think Cinemotion is seeing the incoming 1080p, 60fps video coming in from my media player, and says "I need to recover the original 24 frames by reversing the 3:2 pulldown (frame repeats, whatever) so that I can do my wonderful processing". But since the original video was 25 fps which had 3:2:3:2:2 pulldown applied to it, Cinemotion just creates a mess. If this is the case, then Sony needs to divorce Cinemotion from interpolation and have only one control for it, like Samsung does. [end edit] Anyway, in PAL-land, I'd assume that this would be different.

Picture quality, to my eyes, is excellent. The people over at avsforum by-and-large agree:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1227927

So, bottom-line, after all this rambling, I can recommend the Sony IF the interpolation works for you over in PAL-ville. The shops around here (Bestbuy, Walmart, etc.) are very good about letting you return TVs until you find one you like; after all, you're going to be staring at it for years. I don't know what the store policies are like in Singapore, but I'd try to find one that allows easy returns. Find a few that look interesting and try them out at home for a few days. If anything about it makes you uncomfortable, take it back. I decided to keep the Sony in spite of the interpolation issue; it's for the bedroom anyway and I don't watch 25fps AVIs there.

I can't compare the Sony to an LG (never tried one) or a Samsung (haven't tried this year's models).

And if you get a Samsung, get the extended warranty. Lucky for me I registered mine on-line to get the 3-month extension to my 1-year warranty, so when my display panel started failing after 14 months, I was covered.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Buy a Panasonic plasma.

[savvyguy]

If your computer monitor runs at 60 Hz (or multiple thereof), and your computer is fast enough to run a 60 fps video smoothly, you can download the video in this post to see 24 Hz judder:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/307004-Best-framerate-conversion-%28eg-23-97-to-30-...=1#post1888926

the top row was nauseating. gosh

luckily the problem is not so pronounced when we're watching movies..

[lordsmurf]

I think it's hard to top the quality of a Sony HDTV.
I'm not a fan of most Sony products, but televisions is definitely something they excel at.

[savvyguy]

I think it's hard to top the quality of a Sony HDTV.
I'm not a fan of most Sony products, but televisions is definitely something they excel at.

that would have been true years ago ( sony dominated the CRT era iirc ).. but now everyone's playing catch-up, especially samsung

[MOVIEGEEK]

I wouldn't buy a Samsung HDTV, their quality control and support are awful.
Buy a Sony, Panasonic or LG.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/home_electronics/samsung_tv.html

[jagabo]

but now everyone's playing catch-up, especially samsung

How can everybody be playing catch-up? You have to have somebody to catch up to. I agree that Sony was once the king of CRT TVs, but they are just another brand now. They buy their LCD panels from Samsung, last I heard.

[Squash]

They buy their LCD panels from Samsung, last I heard.

Yeah, the consensus over at avsforum seems to be that the Sony EX500 line I referred to above uses a Sharp panel for the 60" and Samsung S panels for 55" and below, except the 37" which uses AUO.

[budz]

Second the Panasonic's! I haven't kept up with the latest models from Sony although I own one. The clouding issues still appear on some models from what I've read. If I needed another TV I'd buy a Panasonic Plasma.

[savvyguy]

I wouldn't buy a Samsung HDTV, their quality control and support are awful.
Buy a Sony, Panasonic or LG.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/home_electronics/samsung_tv.html

there's one very big factor - 3yrs panel + labor warranty from samsung, versus 1year from other mfgs like Sony and LG. ( LG gives 1yr panel, 2yrs labor ). argh!

[savvyguy]

but now everyone's playing catch-up, especially samsung

How can everybody be playing catch-up? You have to have somebody to catch up to. I agree that Sony was once the king of CRT TVs, but they are just another brand now. They buy their LCD panels from Samsung, last I heard.

oops. slip of the tongue. haha.

[savvyguy]

Second the Panasonic's! I haven't kept up with the latest models from Sony although I own one. The clouding issues still appear on some models from what I've read. If I needed another TV I'd buy a Panasonic Plasma.

i've seen a lot of good reviews for panasonic models. however in reality, i compared the LG and panasonic plasma ( lower end models ) side by side - the difference was negligible, really.

[budz]

Second the Panasonic's! I haven't kept up with the latest models from Sony although I own one. The clouding issues still appear on some models from what I've read. If I needed another TV I'd buy a Panasonic Plasma.

i've seen a lot of good reviews for panasonic models. however in reality, i compared the LG and panasonic plasma ( lower end models ) side by side - the difference was negligible, really.

Everyone's eyes are different what you see may not necessarily be what another will see. That's why when I'm asked which brand is better my answer is go down to the store and do the comparison between brands/models.

[savvyguy]

then again, it's hard to audition all/most of the brands you want to see side by side. buying TV is a headache!

[lordsmurf]

that would have been true years ago ( sony dominated the CRT era iirc ).. but now everyone's playing catch-up, especially samsung

Aren't we agreeing? Everybody is playing catch-up to Sony ... still. It also doesn't matter than Sony doesn't manufacturer every part in the set. Nobody cares. It's what Sony does with the parts that makes the television. A screen without everything else is just a screen. It's the only brand that is consistent with good TV products.

With Samsung, LG, Panasonic -- even Sharp -- quality tends to range a good bit from series to series, model to model, LCD or plasma (or whatever).

The smartest thing suggested so far was to go to a store and look at some TVs in person.

[fritzi93]

A buddy of mine recently got a Sony Bravia LCD, 46" I think. He asked me to come over and calibrate it, also to give my opinion.

Well, as it came the picture was pretty much spot-on with automatic settings, which surprised me. Motion interpolation too, quite smooth with no artifacting.

I was surprised because on my Philips 47", I had to turn all the automatic crap off (and it *is* crap), and calibrate the picture. Motion interpolation on the Philips is plain bad, which doesn't much concern me anyway. Picture is fine though after necessary adjustments.

So in my non-expert opinion, all previous comments on Sony's superior image processing ring true to me. As for Samsung, the reports of quality control problems (e.g. capacitors), would deter me from considering them.

[savvyguy]

A buddy of mine recently got a Sony Bravia LCD, 46" I think. He asked me to come over and calibrate it, also to give my opinion.

Well, as it came the picture was pretty much spot-on with automatic settings, which surprised me. Motion interpolation too, quite smooth with no artifacting.

I was surprised because on my Philips 47", I had to turn all the automatic crap off (and it *is* crap), and calibrate the picture. Motion interpolation on the Philips is plain bad, which doesn't much concern me anyway. Picture is fine though after necessary adjustments.

So in my non-expert opinion, all previous comments on Sony's superior image processing ring true to me. As for Samsung, the reports of quality control problems (e.g. capacitors), would deter me from considering them.

what was the model of his TV? was it the NX700 series?

to be honest, i didn't know anything about Samsung's QC problems till i read the posts here..

[jagabo]

If your computer monitor runs at 60 Hz (or multiple thereof), and your computer is fast enough to run a 60 fps video smoothly, you can download the video in this post to see 24 Hz judder:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/307004-Best-framerate-conversion-%28eg-23-97-to-30-...=1#post1888926

the top row was nauseating. gosh

luckily the problem is not so pronounced when we're watching movies..

Yes, the extreme contrast, simple pattern with sharp edges, and medium speed motion really accentuate the problem. With film, motion blur and softer images tend to alleviate it.

[fritzi93]

what was the model of his TV? was it the NX700 series?

to be honest, i didn't know anything about Samsung's QC problems till i read the posts here..

I'm pretty sure it was an EX500, it's 120Hz, and not an LED model, Bravia Engine 2. (So not the latest and greatest, isn't that the Bravia Engine 3?). He got it at Wal-Mart. Sony calls their motion interpolation "MotionFlow".

There have been threads from time to time on Samsungs, and a recent thread on problems with them. I'll see If I can find it for you.

[EDIT] Here's a couple, one from a week ago, one from a year ago:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/322155-Headsup-on-Samsung-LCD-TV-screens

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/samsung-lcd-tv-32-quot-fullhd-won-t-turn-on-t374268.html