Beginner What TV specs required when buying now?

4K - why nobody broadcasts it. Netflix has a few but a pull need very fast broadband and to be honest I don't see much difference between 4K and HD.

HDR - just why?

Don't forget how successful 3D has been. All those people that ran and had to have a 3D Tv. Even sky pulled the only 3D channel they had.
 
ecoleman said:
4K - why nobody broadcasts it. Netflix has a few but a pull need very fast broadband and to be honest I don't see much difference between 4K and HD.

HDR - just why?

Don't forget how successful 3D has been. All those people that ran and had to have a 3D Tv. Even sky pulled the only 3D channel they had.
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Not really, Netlix state there 4k streaming need 15.6mbs - not that much when you look at todays current speeds
 
ecoleman said:
4K - why nobody broadcasts it. Netflix has a few but a pull need very fast broadband and to be honest I don't see much difference between 4K and HD.
HDR - just why?
Don't forget how successful 3D has been. All those people that ran and had to have a 3D Tv. Even sky pulled the only 3D channel they had.
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To answer your question (perhaps you didn't read the start of the first post?), I am not going to buy a new TV every time a new standard comes out.
4k and HDR and quality levels, and not "features" or gimmicks. It is inevitable that they will improve. It is not inevitable that 3D will come.
 
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ianp5a said:
To answer your question, I am not going to buy a new TV every time a new standard comes out.
4k and HDR and quality levels, and not "features" or gimmicks. It is inevitable that they will improve. It is not inevitable that 3D will come.
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The why question was aimed at HDR. I mean when last did you look at a TV program or movie and think to yourself "I wish I could see more shadow detail"

I'm afraid that HDR is just that, a gimmick to get people to upgrade.
 
I can 'definitely' take a higher dynamic range if it's available.
And HDR is no longer at a price premium. And I'm buying a new TV 'anyway'. If I'm buying now, I'll not want to get one that doesn't cope with higher dynamic range broadcasts. If it doesn't have HDR, it is likely to be older stock, and would probably 'appear' better value to someone not aware of HDR.
 
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I always make sure there is a headphones socket.

but then again I prefer wired phones.
 
ecoleman said:
The why question was aimed at HDR. I mean when last did you look at a TV program or movie and think to yourself "I wish I could see more shadow detail"
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Many films set predominantly at night or inside and/or in low light conditions, it can sometimes be hard to see a lot of detail. A lot of horror and Sci Fi are set in low light situations.
 
redhed17 said:
Many films set predominantly at night or inside and/or in low light conditions, it can sometimes be hard to see a lot of detail. A lot of horror and Sci Fi are set in low light situations.
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In both cases, I would imagine it's meant to be dark. Wouldn't be much of a horror if all the lights were on.
 
ianp5a said:
3D TV Is officially Dead! Which may or may not not surprise you.
"LG and Sony, the last two major TV makers to support the 3D feature in their TVs, will stop doing so in 2017."

Didn't they realise the world is flat? It took Trump put them on the right track!

Until the next time....
View attachment 94023
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It's a shame 3D has died out.

Our TV has 3D capability (we didn't buy it for that, just a feature that happened to be there). When we first got it, Sky had a 3D channel (still can get 3D movies via Sky). Watching football and golf in 3D was very impressive IMHO. Movies can be good, though it depends on the movie and for sure it's a pain having to wear glasses to watch TV, but sometimes it's worth it.
 
Can anyone help me with a TV subwoofer?
I want to get a decent bass. But not if it's a hassle to switch on/off or control the volume from a separate remote.
This might affect my choice of TV. Which, incidentally might end up being a Sony.
 
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Our sound bar does have a separate remote but other than using it to turn the bar on, it generally sits unused unless there's a significant volume change between channels. At a guess, a Sony bar will be controllable from a Sony TV remote - check with the retailer before buying if it'll be a deal breaker.
 
I appreciate you are not looking at recommendations for brand names right now but having said that I will mention that 'Which' (Consumers assoc) do exhaustive tests on TV's and currently 18 of their 20 smart Tv best buys are Samsung TV's ! You do of course have to be a member (I am) to read these tests.
 
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Logitech Harmony remotes, first world multiple remotes problem solved.

I've got Harmony Hub smart control, which is a traditional remote with a hub that can also be controlled by the smart phone. It controls everything in the cabinet under the TV. I just have to press "activity" button: TV, nVidia Shield or listen to music (via Shield with TV off), or watch Bluray. The Harmony hub sets up everything for me.
 
Sound bars and sub woofers are great at helping getter a better sound with today's TVs. Bose, sonas are very good
 
badlywornroy said:
I appreciate you are not looking at recommendations for brand names right now but having said that I will mention that 'Which' (Consumers assoc) do exhaustive tests on TV's and currently 18 of their 20 smart Tv best buys are Samsung TV's ! You do of course have to be a member (I am) to read these tests.
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Thanks. But Samsung don't currently make the short-list in the 600-750€ range. They are palming off old 50Hz TVs at those prices. :-(
 
By some miracle when we moved house 18 months ago my wife actually encouraged me to buy a new TV set up.

We bought a Sony Bravia 55" model which is superb BUT the biggest step forward was also getting a BOSE sound bar set up at the same time.

The whole viewing experience is so much enhanced when using it.

Wouldn't want to go back to the TV sound now.

PS I would have actually preferred a proper surround sound system but I wasn't pushing my luck and consider what we got to be a result lol
 
rjbell said:
That's the only feature I would pay the premium for.
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I will go OLED when they come down in price. The ones I saw were triple the cost of LCD. Next time.

FEEDBACK
I bought a Sony Bravia 49" XD7005 in the end. Everything is great, except some menus are stupid if you don't have a user manual.

Regarding the subwoofer and sound bar, it seems the sound system has to have an "HDMI connector with ARC" for you to control the volume from the TV remote control. Ones with just an optical connector need you to use a separate remote control for volume and power-off. Which would be annoying.
Anyway, more reasons to have lots of HDMI sockets on the TV.
 
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Nod said:
... At a guess, a Sony bar will be controllable from a Sony TV remote - check with the retailer before buying if it'll be a deal breaker.
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You would have though so. Sony Customer support thought so too (emails):
Me : "Will the Sony HT-CT80 be controlled from the TV remote control?"
Sony: "The HT-CT80 could over HDMI controlled, from both Remote controls."
So I bought one.
Me : "The TV does not control it. Is there any way to control the HT-CT80 with the TV remote control?
Sony: "Unfortunately only an HDMI connection supports using the remote control of your TV. We're very sorry."

I'm going to send the sound bar back once I've found a viable replacement.
wuyanxu said:
Logitech Harmony remotes, first world multiple remotes problem solved.
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If I'm desperate I'd go the programmable remote control route. But that's not what I want.

So I thought HDMI ARC was the answer. Now some soundbars talk only of HDMI CEC. Grrrrr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Control
 
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ARC stands for Audio Return Channel, allowing for 2 way dataflow between soundbar and TV on the same HDMI port.
CEC is the standard for controlling over HDMI. It usually only works when both are from the same manufacturer.

Did you connect the soundbar using HDMI? Connect soundbar HDMI Out to TV's HDMI ARC. Enable CEC on both devices.

I've had CEC working between my Yamaha and Samsung TV for a while, but randomly it decided to stop working. Never worked again. Luckily I've got Logitech Harmony so it's no big deal for me. NVidia Shield to Yamaha volume control always works. So I think it's the TV manufacturer being funny with their firmware.

I bet if you buy from a TV manufacturer who doesn't make sound equiptments, and buy soundbar from someone who don't make TV's (eg. Yamaha). Everything would work well.
 
Alastair said:
Do TVs really date that much? If you've "gotta keep up with the Jones'" there's no avoiding frequent updates to technology.

Me, I'm happy with a 10yr old 720p 32" LG - the only thing I think I'm missing is connectivity (only 1x HDMI). Maximising the connectivity options will generally future-proof more than built-in features. I mean 4k would be nice, but I'm watching shows for the plot not the pixels.
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Who cares what the technical quality is when the programmes are crap? If I had my way, we wouldn't have a TV!


Steve.
 
ecoleman said:
The why question was aimed at HDR. I mean when last did you look at a TV program or movie and think to yourself "I wish I could see more shadow detail"

I'm afraid that HDR is just that, a gimmick to get people to upgrade.
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Not true. If you look at the subjective test reports by the European Broadcasting Union, CableLabs, ARIB et. al. then the increase in perceived quality reported by the test subjects is significantly higher than that provided by increasing resolution or framerate.

The detail increase is mainly in the highlights, especially speculars.

Many of the large broadcasters are now shooting HDR and DVB have recently released a transmission spec.
 
In this new 4k TV's built in Amazon player, you can see a UHD tag or HDR tag on each show or film that is in that quality. There seems to be quite a few. I've not got round to checking them out yet.

I did play the THX intro clip, to test out the subwoofer though! Bloody marvellous! The neighbours thought so too!
 
i just bouht a 50inch samsung smart TV from john lewis just before xmas and have to say it is amazing, i googled all the smart functions as that was its biggest draw for me as i wanted to replace my old WD TV box and it has been awsome.
best thing i ever did, i use a yamaha surround amp that had HDMI passthrough but that is now redundant as we only use freeview and the smart TV for playing over ethernet .
 
Mr Bump said:
i just bouht a 50inch samsung smart TV from john lewis just before xmas and have to say it is amazing, i googled all the smart functions as that was its biggest draw for me as i wanted to replace my old WD TV box and it has been awsome.
best thing i ever did
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In my new TV the built in Amazon Prime player is a cut down version of the external Fire TV box. Which is much nicer to use.

Mr Bump said:
i use a yamaha surround amp that had HDMI passthrough but that is now redundant as we only use freeview and the smart TV for playing over ethernet .
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I don't understand why your amplifier is redundant now?
 
The amp isnt redundant the HDMI pass thorugh is as i now dont have any connected devices.
 
ianp5a said:
I will go OLED when they come down in price. The ones I saw were triple the cost of LCD. Next time.

FEEDBACK
I bought a Sony Bravia 49" XD7005 in the end. Everything is great, except some menus are stupid if you don't have a user manual.

Regarding the subwoofer and sound bar, it seems the sound system has to have an "HDMI connector with ARC" for you to control the volume from the TV remote control. Ones with just an optical connector need you to use a separate remote control for volume and power-off. Which would be annoying.
Anyway, more reasons to have lots of HDMI sockets on the TV.
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Thanks for this now you've had the TV a little while are you able to comment how it handles sport or other fast moving action please and does it suffer from the old Sony problem of being slow to change get channels or between menus. I'm thinking of getting eitner this or the Samsung KS7000, undecided at the moment
 
taxboy said:
Thanks for this now you've had the TV a little while are you able to comment how it handles sport or other fast moving action please and does it suffer from the old Sony problem of being slow to change get channels or between menus. I'm thinking of getting eitner this or the Samsung KS7000, undecided at the moment
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I've not watched sport but there is no issue with fast movement. And the menus all work as expected also with no issues.

It's not set up for broadcast TV. So I've not done any channel switching. It's all via the Internet. Where the inbuilt services work without issues, and with the same performance as my Amazon Fire TV (quad-core) external Internet device does.

The reason why I didn't get a Samsung was the similarly priced ones only had a 50Hz refresh rate. All the other TVs had between 200Hz and 1400Hz. It's on my checklist above. And 50Hz, these days, is not acceptable. So check it first!
 
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BT sport 4k streams at over 20 I believe and is good but limited content. I hate watching SD now but the difference between 1080p and 4k seems less obvious on a 49" TV although still noticeable.
 
I just purchased a Hisense 65" for PC use mainly 4k@60Hz which looks amazing BTW , i also have sky HD which also looks Awesome as the TV upscales it very well indeed. The cost was £668 delivered 2 years manufactures warranty which i believe a bargain for a set this size and quality. Yes it does have a few niggles a little banding a little back light bleed but not really noticeable unless you are looking for it. The same size TV in OLED would be an extra £2500-£3000 plus and IMHO is just not worth it.
 
Hisense seem to be very well regarded, RS were sold out for a while. I suspect their prices will increase soon as their name gets stronger.
 
I love mine and no doubt the big boys as in Panasonic/Sony/Samsung will be also following the Brand.
 
gman said:
Hisense seem to be very well regarded, RS were sold out for a while. I suspect their prices will increase soon as their name gets stronger.
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Thanks. Didn't know about Hisense. Looks like great value for money.
 
OLED is pretty much the main thing; but they are still mighty expensive.

You would want want that has at least full sRGB colour space if it is beyond watching TV programming rubbish. Most are sadly at or under 70% which is ridiculously bad for 2007, let alone 2017.
 
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