HDTVs rant
Someone on somethingawful was asking about cheap HDTVs, and I shared my experiences. Since it's sort of a long post I guess I'll post it here since this journal's pretty empty.
Wandering Idiot posted:
What's the word on Insignias (Best buy brand)? I'm looking at a range of 32 to 42 inch and less than $800, but the cheaper the better (hence Insignia).
My reply:
Just my anecdote, but I had a really bad experience with an Insignia TV.
One of my roommates had a 32" model that was pretty crummy. It had awful black levels (a TV shouldn't light up the room with a pitch black scene on it), lagged in its native 720p (we had to offset Rockband and Guitar Hero, over HDMI or component) and unbearably bad in 480i (PS2 games were largely unplayable, over component or composite), not-very-good viewing angle (depending on where you sat on the couch in front of it, the screen could look really different), the internal speakers sucked, and when you hooked the TV's sound output to a receiver, you couldn't use the TV's remote to control the sound level out to the receiver. Trust me, we looked for the options, but all it would adjust was the builtin speakers. Every time we'd need to adjust the volume, someone would have to get up and use the knob on the receiver.
Finally the sound on it died, which happened over the course of a few months. No matter the sound input (tuner, HDMI or analog audio with component, etc), or output (builtin speakers or external output), the sound started getting this weird clipping type effect where certain sounds would produce that "broken speaker" sound, or sometimes a crackly static sound. Eventually the sound died completely one day, and it reduced to a constant hum and nothing further.
Needless to say the TV was loathed by all but the roommate that owned it, and my other roommate and I celebrated when we had a solid reason to move my TV (a 34" Sony CRT HDTV) into the living room. The Insignia-owning roommate had insisted on having her TV out there, and my other roommate and I would always have to use my huge CRT crammed into my bedroom for any sort of gaming.
Even though it doesn't meet the OP's criteria, those looking for a good HDTV for cheap might want to consider looking on Craigslist for Sony HDTV CRTs. Many people say they're the best CRTs ever made, and that CRTs in general have lots of advantages over the other screen types, so they're nothing to scoff at. Mine (KV-34XBR800) was around $325 with official stand, but from what I've seen they've gone up in price. Still, if you can find one of them (especially one of the later/higher-end models) for a price that you like, I'd definitely jump on it.
They have amazing picture quality, an extensive service mode so you can tweak the picture to its fullest potential, don't lag unless you purposefully tell it to deinterlace 480i content, have good builtin speakers (mine has an actual subwoofer in it, nothing amazing but it sounds great for coming out of a TV), and are a theft deterrent (mine weighs about 210 lbs).
Really, the only cons I can think of is they can't be wallmounted, are bulky (with stand, mine takes up about as much space as a rear projection TV), are very hard to move (have two people move it at minimum), draw more power than flatscreens, from what I've seen, don't have VGA inputs (but they usually have DVI or HDMI, and component, and everything else under that, so you should be pretty well covered), and don't go bigger than 34". Well, there's a 40" 3:4 model, but those are just silly.
Wandering Idiot posted:
What's the word on Insignias (Best buy brand)? I'm looking at a range of 32 to 42 inch and less than $800, but the cheaper the better (hence Insignia).
My reply:
Just my anecdote, but I had a really bad experience with an Insignia TV.
One of my roommates had a 32" model that was pretty crummy. It had awful black levels (a TV shouldn't light up the room with a pitch black scene on it), lagged in its native 720p (we had to offset Rockband and Guitar Hero, over HDMI or component) and unbearably bad in 480i (PS2 games were largely unplayable, over component or composite), not-very-good viewing angle (depending on where you sat on the couch in front of it, the screen could look really different), the internal speakers sucked, and when you hooked the TV's sound output to a receiver, you couldn't use the TV's remote to control the sound level out to the receiver. Trust me, we looked for the options, but all it would adjust was the builtin speakers. Every time we'd need to adjust the volume, someone would have to get up and use the knob on the receiver.
Finally the sound on it died, which happened over the course of a few months. No matter the sound input (tuner, HDMI or analog audio with component, etc), or output (builtin speakers or external output), the sound started getting this weird clipping type effect where certain sounds would produce that "broken speaker" sound, or sometimes a crackly static sound. Eventually the sound died completely one day, and it reduced to a constant hum and nothing further.
Needless to say the TV was loathed by all but the roommate that owned it, and my other roommate and I celebrated when we had a solid reason to move my TV (a 34" Sony CRT HDTV) into the living room. The Insignia-owning roommate had insisted on having her TV out there, and my other roommate and I would always have to use my huge CRT crammed into my bedroom for any sort of gaming.
Even though it doesn't meet the OP's criteria, those looking for a good HDTV for cheap might want to consider looking on Craigslist for Sony HDTV CRTs. Many people say they're the best CRTs ever made, and that CRTs in general have lots of advantages over the other screen types, so they're nothing to scoff at. Mine (KV-34XBR800) was around $325 with official stand, but from what I've seen they've gone up in price. Still, if you can find one of them (especially one of the later/higher-end models) for a price that you like, I'd definitely jump on it.
They have amazing picture quality, an extensive service mode so you can tweak the picture to its fullest potential, don't lag unless you purposefully tell it to deinterlace 480i content, have good builtin speakers (mine has an actual subwoofer in it, nothing amazing but it sounds great for coming out of a TV), and are a theft deterrent (mine weighs about 210 lbs).
Really, the only cons I can think of is they can't be wallmounted, are bulky (with stand, mine takes up about as much space as a rear projection TV), are very hard to move (have two people move it at minimum), draw more power than flatscreens, from what I've seen, don't have VGA inputs (but they usually have DVI or HDMI, and component, and everything else under that, so you should be pretty well covered), and don't go bigger than 34". Well, there's a 40" 3:4 model, but those are just silly.