Which HD LCD TV to buy !!!! Very much confused !!

[dranil]

LG SL 90 is a good choice.
I bought one last month, and don't know the
availability in India.
The picture quality is excellent, and a very slim model.

 

[sam9s]

Shashi, I understand what you mean. I too was in similar dilemma as Sony's PQ seemed very detailed - until I noticed that it's only brighter and hence the subtle details/backgrounds (better gray-scale?) are seemingly rendered better. Further, Sony (despite having BE3) was not reproducing the colors faithfully - i.e., not without adding/adjusting them (processing IMO excessively). Agreed it mesmerizes with its brilliant and brighter colors, but to me it looked like the TV was playing the scenes on its own rather than what the source is telling it to do.
I don't agree with CNET's comment on LG's lack of darkness reproduction and wide-angle viewing ability. On contrary I found them on par on even better to most LCDs in that range - except Panasonic Vierra which with its Alpha IPS panel shined superior in those particular area.

PS: Upwards of 70K for a 40" seems to me a bit outrageous. Sony is demanding it probably because of the relatively recent entry of EX series. If you are very particular about this model and don't mind waiting for a little time (6 months?!), then the price might come down.

However, if you've already bought a product, then don't worry too much. All these matters only when you watch them side-by-side. At your own home, your's WILL BE the best TV! :cheers:

I agree on every word you said, if somebody had cared to read my review I clearly mentioned that NEVER judge the PQ by the demo disk/movie/clip played there on the show room which is what "shashidharga" did, there are zillions of factors and some delebrately induced by the showroom people to make one LCD look better than the other. If you are serious and shelling out 65-70K for a product, atleast take the pain and take your own BlueRay and if possible blue ray player as well and then reset all the picture settings and enhancements and play the movie. This would give you a true picture of the quality.......(which is exactly what I did, when I went to choose the LCD) LG came out to be at par with sony/samsung if not better but with features and price tag LG stole the show........

 

[sam9s]

So much so for SONY v/s LG, SAMSUNG, PHILIPS etc. SONY TV though expensive than LG etc., but SONY never disappoints. If just comparing specs/VFM etc. then VIDEOCON will be even cheaper than LG.
My plus for SONY:
1) My eyes/ears dont get tired even if i watch 10 hrs. at a stretch, with Intelligent Picture, Intelligent sound.
2) Historically, SONY TV lasts ages. atleast TRINITRON did.
3) Better resale value. Resale required only if u wud be upgrading.

I defy your claim here, I can give you examples where LG never dissappointed.......and it is VFM but not on the cost of poor PQ, LG provides PQ at par with samsung and sony with a price tag difficult to compete, and hence true value of money......else there are cheap chinese LCD even cheaper than Videocon.....why dont people opt that.......if that is all what VFM means......

 

[reignofchaos]

well no offence to the lg owners,but the only lg model that i feel is good is the LH90,the others are at best above average,colors aren't perfect,SD quality isn't good atleast compared to the sony,philips,samsung.poor contrast,motion is by far the poorest compared to the above brands despite using a IPS panel.

After exhaustively comparing more than a dozen panels a few days ago, I kinda agree with you that most LGs are just hype over substance. The SL90 with edge lit LED seemed to have poorer contrast and black levels compared to a conventional CCFL lit Philips/Sony TVs and significantly poorer motion resolution.

I think the image processor on the LG TVs is much poorer compared to competition and can't handle motion that well. The panels themselves are rather nice though.

 

[shashidharga]

Hi sam9s..
The second day when I visited the showroom, I asked the sales person to play the Avatar DVD (this DVD was burnt by me from .mp4 file with video properties ; Frame width : 704 Frame height : 416 Data rate : 1615 kbps Total bitrate : 1742 kbps and frame rate 23 frames/second) by making all video settings in both the TV similar. Here also the Sony outperformed LG. What next !!!
Shashi

 

[sam9s]

Hi sam9s..
The second day when I visited the showroom, I asked the sales person to play the Avatar DVD (this DVD was burnt by me from .mp4 file with video properties ; Frame width : 704 Frame height : 416 Data rate : 1615 kbps Total bitrate : 1742 kbps and frame rate 23 frames/second) by making all video settings in both the TV similar. Here also the Sony outperformed LG. What next !!!
Shashi

If that file formatt would be your preferable source (which is poor if you ask me) for a movie then, per your vision sony has an upper hand and you should go for it.
I compared with a proper BlueRay of Night of the museum II and again per my review playing at default Picture settings both samsung and LG were more or less same......its when I fiddled with the Picture setting I managed to bring LG's PQ better than samsung......check out what I said in my review...

What I did was I took my own BRp and disk and connected it to a Samsung 47 and two of LGs 47, re-set all the display setting to one neutral figure. Turned off all enhancement modes available for all the models and reviewed. The BR I played was my Night in the Museum 2. Now believe it or not after doing this all 3 LCDs more or less were same in PQ, If I had to differentiate LG had better vibrant colours, and Samsung was better in displaying blacks. Sharpness was also better in LG, but the Glossy shine of the picture was in Samsung. Then what made me decide for LG.?? that is when I started fiddling with the PQ controls and started customizing the picture, that is where LG out performed by a fair margin, few adjustments with the picture controls and I was surprised how good LG PQ was looking over Samsung, unfortunately I could never configure Samsung controls to get the same PQ as LG. The blacks that were looking good on Samsung on neutral setting were overshadow and easily lacking by the richness of LG blacks by adjusting the Blacklevel, gamma, contrast and dynamic contrast. And trust me when it comes to customizing controls, LG has provided enough to adjust PQ per your needs. A clear winner.

Also the HD file I played to compare was 1920x720 (720p) @ 4000+bitrate..... AC3 DTS 5.1 sound @ 640kbps bitrate and LG was at par with sony (I did not compare samsung here, which I did with BR)...so after both these comparisions I went for LG.......... else if I were spending 70K+ I could have easily choosen Samsung or Sony as well...

Rest is subjective....ofcourse.......... if for your eyes Sony looks better you obviously should go for sony, my point is the way of comparision people follow and putting litigations.......with a preconcieved notion of "Sony is the Best"

 

[BLASTO]

well no offence to the lg owners,but the only lg model that i feel is good is the LH90,the others are at best above average,colors aren't perfect,SD quality isn't good atleast compared to the sony,philips,samsung.poor contrast,motion is by far the poorest compared to the above brands despite using a IPS panel.

Exactly what I have been saying. LH90 is an exception.

LG has poor black level and contrast.
100Hz and 200Hz exist for name sake and does not make the picture look any better.

IPS panels are anyday better panels. But the IPS panels used in LG's consumer grade TVs defy this logic. Be extra careful while selecting an LG. There is a reason they want to undercut the market even after claiming superior features.

On the other hand, if you are a average TV viewer with minimal movie watching, you might find the LGs interesting.

 

[shashidharga]

Hi Sam9s...
Thanx for your suggestion ... By playing a best BluRay disk with HDMI connections, any LCD TV will perform well. In my opinion, by playing a video file of normal or average quality the performance of the TV can be judged.... am I right ? any suggestions ?

 

[reignofchaos]

Hi Sam9s...
Thanx for your suggestion ... By playing a best BluRay disk with HDMI connections, any LCD TV will perform well. In my opinion, by playing a video file of normal or average quality the performance of the TV can be judged.... am I right ? any suggestions ?

Actually both matter. A poor quality file will test the TV's image processor and scaling. A high quality file will be very useful in seeing how good the detail retrieval capabilities are.

 

[sam9s]

Actually both matter. A poor quality file will test the TV's image processor and scaling. A high quality file will be very useful in seeing how good the detail retrieval capabilities are.

I was actually about to say almost the same thing. Playing a BR on all LCDs will perform the same is not true and same is the case with SD files as well. So yes we should try to find an LCD that is good in both. It might be possible that if I had played an SD file I might have found sony to be better but SD playback is not what I had intended to play, my objective was HD all along, and that is where I (note the keyworrd is I) found LG performing at par with samsung. SONY even if might have performed a wee bit better, the cost of a 47" did not justify it at all.
Coming to you, as I said if you feel that SD viewing is what you would mostly be doing on your LCD go for SONY as that is what your eyes have judged better......HD files for you performs same in all LCDs so that narrows down to SD viewing only for which Sony seems better and hence your choice should be sony.

PS::::Infact if that is the case you can further lower down the cost by going for HD ready LCDs rather than full HD.

 

[adder]

well a poor source such as the from a DTH will test the tvs image processing,this is what seperates a BENQ from a sony or a samsung,if one has seen the 37" benqs going for quite cheap and compared to samsung 37" FHD which has the same panel with different color filter and backlight,one needs not need a good eye sight to know the difference,the samsung clearly produces a better image.

although its also recommeded to take a DVD to check out the difference,most showrooms use RF out to connect every tv or use composite OUT of one tv to connect another tv they daisy chain all others tvs,which results in a loss of quality.

take videos like Dark knight ,I am Legend and animated movies like Monsters to check out the contrast,shadow details and upscaling.animated movies are easier for a person to notice how good or bad the upscaler is,although it works only if their are complex shapes like hair in the movie monsters, or beard of MR incredible in the movie The incredibles.

 

[shashidharga]

Hi Sam...
I'm not a professional guy, who tests in each and every aspect using benchmark tools. What I actually want is a good LCD of 40" or more with a good set of features and which also produces a neat and good quality video. I'm using the LCD to watch DTH channels, SD DVDs and also BDs. It has to produce good video quality in both SD & HD. I can not compromise on quality over price and I'm not a brand specific. I'm just comparing LCDs not Brands (like LG, Sony etc.,).... still not finalised .... help me
shashi

 

[unleash_me]

I'm not into TV that much but a quick search showed the Samsung 40B550 popping up a lot.

You can read about it here.

Samsung LE40B550 TV review - from the experts at whathifi.com
Samsung LE40B550 40in LCD TV Review - TV Reviews - TrustedReviews
Samsung LE40B550 Review
Samsung LA40B550 - TVs - Home Cinema - Lifestyle - Reviews - PC Authority
Samsung B550 (LE40B550) Full Review, Television Reviews on CNET UK
Samsung LE40B550 review from TechRadar UK's expert reviews of Plasma and LCD TVs

Happy auditions.

 

[sam9s]

Hi Sam...
I'm not a professional guy, who tests in each and every aspect using benchmark tools. What I actually want is a good LCD of 40" or more with a good set of features and which also produces a neat and good quality video. I'm using the LCD to watch DTH channels, SD DVDs and also BDs. It has to produce good video quality in both SD & HD. I can not compromise on quality over price and I'm not a brand specific. I'm just comparing LCDs not Brands (like LG, Sony etc.,).... still not finalised .... help me
shashi

Even I am not a professional person, but I strongly believe my senses in Audio and Video (not necessarily any professional benchmarks) and its in my nature to do a thorough research before buying anything be it a 2000,20,000 or a 200000 comodity. And I research without any notions.
Coming to you trust me when you say or any one says for that matter......a good LCD, it puerly is a subjective term and can vary with the reference. So its up to your eyes only to decide, I only argue on the way/method used for a comparision. Anyway.........
I think I already passed a verdict for you........you played a clip which you said was better looking on SONY then all I say is make sure all settings are neutral and all enhancements switched off. If still after that you feel SONY giving better quality ...sony passes your judgement, now play an HD file or preferabely BR and then compare, if you see no difference between SONY/LG (as you said before) then sony wins.............. as SD playback was already better.
Now if LG for you gives better PQ in HD files or BR then you got to decide what would you be using your TV mostly for....... SD or HD????? as SD was better in Sony and HD was better in LG. Choose your preference and make your choise...Best Of Luck

 

[shashidharga]

Hi Sam9s ...
Thanx for your suggestions :signthankspin:
Yesterday I went to the same showroom ... but the Sony Model 40EX500 was not there... Anyway, after the arrival of new stocks I'll visit the showroom once again and play both SD DVD and BD by changing all the settings to neutral and all enhancements switched off and decide whether to go for LG or Sony. Thanx once again.
Shashi

 

[sam9s]

Hi Sam9s ...
Thanx for your suggestions :signthankspin:
Yesterday I went to the same showroom ... but the Sony Model 40EX500 was not there... Anyway, after the arrival of new stocks I'll visit the showroom once again and play both SD DVD and BD by changing all the settings to neutral and all enhancements switched off and decide whether to go for LG or Sony. Thanx once again.
Shashi

You are most welcome friend.......dont forget to share your purchase and dont forget to use the thanks button if you do feel I was of some help....

 

[alokbharti]

shashi,

It may sound repetitive..If you are interested in playing movies (SD and HD) on your hard-disk directly from TV's USB port, then do check Samsung 40B650.. It's PQ is at part with Sony Ex500.. you can save about 5-6K..plus you will get some very useful additional features.

If I had to purchase a 40 inch LCD today...This would have been my choice..

Best of luck..and don't forget to share your purchase details..

 

[shashidharga]

Hi Alokbharti...
Thanx for your suggestion...
I've Oppo BDP-83 and after upgraing it to latest firmware, now it supports playing streaming media content from NAS. I'm planning to buy a NAS and not yet finalised. The BDP-83 produces outstanding quality of upscaled media content and this will be one of the top-notch player for video performance. And .. yes .... Samsung is also included in my wishlist ... now, I've to choose from Sony-LG-Samsung. Oh !!! really a difficult job ... yaaar !!! :sad:
Shashi

 

[shashidharga]

Hi friends ....
Today the sales person from Sony showroom telephoned me and offered final price of Rs. 69000/- for 40EX500 ... MRP Rs. 73900/-
shashi

 

[sam9s]

Hi friends ....
Today the sales person from Sony showroom telephoned me and offered final price of Rs. 69000/- for 40EX500 ... MRP Rs. 73900/-
shashi

seriously expensive if you ask me, that too for a 40" not even proper 42" and 2 inches does makes a difference.....I think even sony has cerain 42" inches model at 60K or so.......LG retails about 50-55 AFAIK