The wife wants to re-do the living room and make it into a TV room so I just began my research. PC Richards has a presidents week sale - tomorrow's the last day. Don't really know too much about this stuff to be honest but I'm reading some stuff now and I wanna go in there tomorrow with a little idea.
I think I narrowed the TV down to the Samsung LN52A550 52" LCD. This looks like a good one - $1499 on their website but hopefully I can bang 'em down some more tomorrow in the store. Some questions - This is a 1080p TV which I thought was the best resolution but now reading something about 1080i - is 1080i that much better and worth it? LCD and plasma - pretty much the same I guess? I know that LCD is newer and selling very well.
DVD player - not sure what's good. Guess it's time for a Blu-Ray, but do Blu-Ray DVD players play regular DVDs too? Reading about an "upconverting" feature some players have - is that feature only with regular DVD players and not with Blu-Ray players? Is it assumed Blu-Ray players do that already or is there such a thing as a Blu-Ray player with upconverting also?
I read that the sound on some of these big flat screen TVs is a little weak so if I could get a nice wireless home theater system I might grab that too. Any suggestions? I know Bose makes a great product but their stuff is so expensive.
Thanks for the help in advance.
[Edited by - finestrg on 02-20-2009 11:54 PM]
I think the best quality right now is 1080p. That is the resolution used for BluRay I think.
I have an older Sony Wega 52" Projection TV and it is 1080i.
If you are buying BluRay then you might want to consider PS3. It has a BluRay player.
i have that exact HDTV u'r looking into but mine's a 42 incher... it's an awesome picture but the sound sucks... make sure u get a surround sound system to hook it up to... or u can get away w/a nice set of computer speakers, i have mine hooked up to a set of Logitech Z-2300's & it's fine for a small room.
$1499 is a bit pricey, i paid $1400 about 6 months ago for mine at Best Buy, u can probably get it for cheaper than that if u do some research... check Pricegrabber to see if u can get a better deal... i found one for 1355 w/free shipping at:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/user_sales_g...also make sure u order an HDMI cable to go w/it if u're gonna hook up a DVD/bluray or a PS3 to it.
good choice bro... enjoy the HD experience.
oh & btw, all bluray players will play regular DVD's & most will upscale them... the PS3 is consistently 1 of the highest rated bluray players out there which is why i picked that up over the Xbox 360.
as for surround sound, don't bother with Bose, they're severely overpriced... u can get a comparable sound experience w/Boston Acoustics or a nice Polk system w/a good reciever for much less.... good luck
[Edited by - TMS on 02-21-2009 12:51 AM]
Yeah wifey and I fightin' already on how to reorganize the furniture. This is gonna be one of those days man, I can tell right away...
Think I got it narrowed down to the Samsung LN52A550 TV (although it might be too big for the room now - I gotta see how the rearranging of the furniture shakes out - might not be able to put this thing where we originally wanted it) and the Samsung Blu-Ray BDP1500 DVD player. I read the same thing about the low sound quality for that TV from a lot of people too - looks like that's the only drawback. I'll deal with it until I can properly research a good wireless surround sound system I guess.
Thanks for the help fellas. I'll let ya know how it goes...
wireless surround system's gonna be tough, not many good ones out there right now... the problem is even if the surround satellite speakers say they're wireless, they will still need to be plugged into a power source, which kinda defeats the purpose... battery power won't cut it for any quality speaker system.
u're most likely gonna end up checking out the virtual surround sound 2 speaker w/sub systems that project sound off the walls to simulate the surround sound feel, but those systems will never stack up to a true 5 speaker & sub system no matter what kind you get & your choices for those kinds of systems are a little limited.
alot of the all-in-one systems whatever brand they are come w/a built in DVD player which u won't need now that you're getting a bluray anyway, so there's another consideration...
my brother bought the Bose Cinemate speakers to hook up to his TV which cost him about 5 bills, but those aren't surround sound & u can get a better experience using the Logitech's that i got mine hooked up to for $120 or less.
check out some of the reviews on this link for more choices:
http://hometheater.about.com/od/homethea...oh, & whatever system u choose, make sure it's compatible w/HDMI output.
[Edited by - TMS on 02-21-2009 10:14 AM]
Bought the TV I wanted from PC Richards today and got a good deal. Like an idiot, I overpaid for a 6' Monster HDMI cable ($65.00) and a fancy Monster surge protector (also paid $65.00) though but after discussing it with my buddy, I'm returning them both tomorrow. Gonna just get regular HDMI 1.3b cables (the newest version of these cables) & a regular surge protector from either Meritline.com or from a small electronics place nearby.
My buddy and I just got done researching the surround sound system and it looks like I'm gonna wind up going with the Panasonic SC-BT100 5.1 Blu-ray HTIB. Has everything I'm looking for:
- Comes with the Blu-Ray DVD player that also 'upconverts' regular DVDs (most of these HTIB systems only come with regular DVD players).
- Has "wireless" rear speakers (wireless in that they don't connect to the front receiver but instead connect to a rear receiver that you have to plug in the wall which is fine. I read some reviews where people complained that the speaker wire for those two rear speakers is supposedly a little short but hopefully I'll have enough play to have them about 10-15' apart from one another. It's not typical speaker wire too, apparently it's a little different so it might be a pain to extend it but it can be done - some dude said he did it after a quick trip to Radio Shack.
- Has an ipod dock so you can listen to your ipod. Nice.
- Has some SD feature that allows you to watch pictures you took from a digital camera on your TV.
- Supposedly the sound and picture quality is awesome regardless of whether you're listening to music or watching a movie.
- Upgradable to 7.1 surround sound, but I'll probably never use that. Still nice to know it has that.
All I'll need is a couple of speaker stands for the rear speakers and I should be good to go.
Thanks again for all the input dudes. I appreciate it.
[Edited by - finestrg on 02-22-2009 02:19 AM]