Hi all.

I'm plotting to buy my first 36" WS TV, for no more than £2k, & ideally about £1800. The Toshiba 36ZP18Q seems to have had good reviews, & I do n't have any separate 5.1 speaker setup, so the Tosh's integral 5.1 & included speakers are an attraction.

Anyone know of a better 36"?

My dad was a TV repairman for 30 plus years until he retired a few months ago, & advises to get a 5 yr guaranttee with any 36" TV as he used to see a lot of 36" TVs returned with blown tubes.

Best price I've found for the 36ZP18Q with 5 yr guaranttee is from RGBdirect - £1520, well within my price range. On the other hand, John Lewis sells it for £1795. John Lewis should be about for the next 5 yrs to honour a 5 yr guaranttee, but will RGBDirect ?

What's the general experience of buying online?

The Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 3 will simply blow your mind

It's far superior even to a Loewe Anaconda (don't bother with Panasonic or Sony - it's just marketing)

You have to see it in action with the Bo DVD 1 to see what only your eyes can feed your mind

for £2,600, you feel like you're looking at a million pounds of picture - it's that good

no digital TV even comes close - that includes Philips' Pixel Plus technology - which, incidentally, is what Bo uses, but just improved further with their own cinematic picture technology

It's a shame Bo don't market like Sony do - but then, what have they got to prove...

If you can't make that extra £600 - go for the Philips Pixel Plus Digital 100hz TVs - very close to the BeoVision, but light years ahead of anything else

The only TVs in this day and age you should buy are:

Bang & Olufsen
Loewe
Philips

In that order

Years ahead of the pack

p.s. stick to 32" CRT
36 -40" is great - for awhile, until you need to move it and the extra size is not important enough for 32" CRT always having a better geometrically strong tube

[gringottsdirect]

Originally posted by ixos
The Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 3 will simply blow your mind
It's far superior even to a Loewe Anaconda (don't bother with Panasonic or Sony - it's just marketing)
You have to see it in action with the Bo DVD 1 to see what only your eyes can feed your mind
for £2,600, you feel like you're looking at a million pounds of picture - it's that good
no digital TV even comes close - that includes Philips' Pixel Plus technology - which, incidentally, is what Bo uses, but just improved further with their own cinematic picture technology
It's a shame Bo don't market like Sony do - but then, what have they got to prove...
The only TVs in this day and age you should buy are:
Bang & Olufsen
Loewe
Philips
In that order
Years ahead of the pack
p.s. stick to 32" CRT
36 -40" is great - for awhile, until you need to move it and the extra size is not important enough for 32" CRT always having a better geometrically strong tube

Thanks, this has brightened up my day , really, really, funny .

[Nic Rhodes]

I wonder who he works for

£2600 B and O is a great sugestion for someone who want to spend £1500

The Toshiba is a very decent telly at a great price but be warned no telly is without it's faults unless you believe IXOS. Just make sure it does what YOU want in the way of facilities.

[ZenmasteR]

man I feel like going into the B&O shop and buying one of those sets!!!

If you can't make that extra £600 - go for the Philips Pixel Plus Digital 100hz TVs - very close to the BeoVision, but light years ahead of anything else

...remember this?

You have Loewe (pronounced "loave") and Philips to choose from, the Bo is just the ultimate and I wanted to highlight the technology "Pixel Plus" that Bo/Philips use - Loewe has dastically reduced their pricing too

Bo is the best however - seeing the BeoVision in action is like having your eyes tested and realising that you had poor eyesight all your life

Philip's Plus Pixel technology (28-32) is the one to go for - and the best one I know of is the Philips 32PW9617 (£1600) - the Pixel Plus technology is astounding (even with 100hz).
Make sure you have a £400 DVD player (Harmon Kardon DVD 25) to go with it - then watch Toy Story and see something you didn't think was possible

It's like IMAX-3D Toy Story (this is no joke)

[Nic Rhodes]

If Pixel plus is so perfect why are there so many dissatisfied customers posting here?

For many it is the dogs ********, for others they just can't live with it regardless. Buyer beware and know the limitations of what you buy.

[CARLOS]

Originally posted by ixos
[B]
Make sure you have a £400 DVD player (Harmon Kardon DVD 25) to go with it - then watch Toy Story and see something you didn't think was possible

It's like IMAX-3D Toy Story (this is no joke)

Yeah !!

Animated movies really show you what the sets capable of

[lynx]

Originally posted by The Beekeeper
I wonder who he works for

Date Registered: 10-11-2002
Status: New Member
Total Posts: 2 (2 posts per day)
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Stick to 36". You won't regret it. Yes moving it can be a pain if the stand is not on wheels but how often do you really need to do this.

Apart from the intermittent scrolling bars on my Sony 36" tv I have no problems. I don't see the bars on DVD - only video and terrestrial.

My only caveat is to bear in mind the size of your room. Make sure a 36" won't overwhelm it.

[mh66639]

I still like the Sonys...even after all my probs with quality control.

I recently bought the KV36FS76 and its a great TV, no geometry probs due to the vertical stablization etc. and nice picture. OK, I sent the 1st back as I wanted better geometry and 2nd as it buzzed - but other TVs seem to have many more problems!

Online buying humn...I think I prefer shop buying - better customer service and pricematch using Barclaycard.

Matt.

The Philips, the B&O and the Loewe all look 'overly processed' to me... if you like that pixelly but very very sharp look I reckon the Philips Pixelplus thingie is the best. B&O do something with the glass that makes there picture look expensive and it does a great job of dealing with reflections. Only seen the Loewe in a shop but it too look over-processed....

BUT if you want a film like quality go for the Sony FS70 series and set it up with Video Essentials... still to my mind nothing like it. I've just sold mine and 'upgraded' to Plasma and in some ways I still much prefer the 36" Sony CRT.

Sharon

[lynx]

Beekeeper. Check the smiley and the astrix.

[Nic Rhodes]

My first deleted post perhaps IXOS gets the message he should go by forum rules. That is why they are there.......

Am I a bad boy now?

[lmccauley]

Originally posted by The Beekeeper
Am I a bad boy now?

Re. Beekeeper:
"Now, you listen here! He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy! Now, go away!"

[Bogside]

Anyone know how the sony and philips sets compere to panny's 36" ers. I'm very impressed with the panny 36PB50 in terms of it's feature list - but picture is obviously more important. But I can get this tv for £3- £400 chaeper than the others.

(PS my one big concern about 36" 110hz tv's is possible blurring/smearing when watching sports. Does anyone find this?)

Never seen it on the Sony 36FS70

I took delivery of a 36pb50 on Saturday. damm its heavy

I set it up on Sunday with the Video Essentials disk and everything looks fine apart from one niggling problem.

I'm getting a colour effect when the screen pans across things like wire mesh. Similar to the herringbone effect on checked jackets.

Haven't solved that yet. I'm sure I can do some more tweaking to the picture too, as I frigged about with the settings to try and rectifiy the above problem.

I have only noticed it on ntsc DVDs via s-Video tho. I haven't noticed it on TV broadcast and TiVo recordings. The player I was using was an american player so didn't have scart.

I'll try it again when my denon 3800 arrives. I also plug in my PS-2 and see how that gets on.

[Bogside]

I'd be really interested to hear how things go for you with both the colour on movement and the effect of the PS-2. Any chance of an update later in the week?

How do sports looked (if you've tried) - fast moving objects so it might give saqme colour problems?

I'm a fat lard so tend not to watch sports far too energetic

I'll try and remember to watch the sports highlights on the news

Originally posted by sharon
Only seen the Loewe in a shop but it too look over-processed....

I thought the same. I remember watching one which was showing TPM from DVD and the CGI foreground elements were massively overly defined and it ended up being unwatchable.

I guess it could be argued that the Loewe was so good that it highlighted the inherent flaws of the CGI but if it's 'so good' as to look terrible, I'd question the advances made.

BTW, I don't doubt that the shop set was incorrectly set-up which lead to the above problems. It's just a shame they choose to demo them in that state (the 'shop' was a decent, well known outfit too).

I think the latest Sony 36FS76 is the bees knees. I've not seen any digital or processing artifact on DRC100 and it doesn't seem to have the focus or scrolling bars of previous sets (fingers crossed!!)

I was messing with the telly last night, and accidently selected football.

Tired me out just watching!

Anyway, the picture was AWFUL! The team in blue/red thier shirts were smearing all over the place. I dropped the colour down but it was still evident.

The white team seemed to have a halo around them (is this called ringing?) and there seemed to be some ghosting


Talking to the chaps here - ITV always gives bad football pictures. I couldn't test it on $ky I was recording another channel.


I couldn't see any motion artficacts or other picture distortions other than thos mentioned above which could be due to a dodgy connection in the ariel lead seeing as I've just moved them all around. I may have caused some damage - I'll need to check/re-crimp.

I'll try some more. Ps-2 check will be later - I've got to dig out the cable from the garage as its currently component in to the projector :-) Vice City on a 7ft screen woo hoo

[Bogside]

Thanks Graham. This advice has been great so far.

I'm still hoping that it was a bad ariel connection - I'm that kinda optimist.

It's hard to find the model in the shops (I've only seen it on the web) but it looks like I'm going to have to search harder and try to see the thing in action.

Cheers for all the help.

Sony are at the moment introducing (in HDTV form at any rate), 3D-Digital 10bit Comb Filters - hopefully, to the standard TV. I've seen it - it's almost like a holographic image.

Pixel Plus - agreed. It is an acquired taste, but for CGI films and CGI-content movies, the drawbacks are not so clear cut - for instance, CGI will make an ever increasing percentage of films and a different type of screen technology is needed to make the most of it.

Sony FD Trinitron tubes - very impressive. But Loewe produce better CRT, The Aconda (sorry about the misnaming before) has the most clear, natural, picture I've seen - and you CAN turn off the processing...

Philip's Pixel Plus is an infant of technology - but it has awesome potential once it is refined - the BeoVision and the Avant from Bo is proof that minor improvements on Pixel Plus, show that Philips is going the right way toward HDTV-like picture technology.

[Bogside]

Originally posted by Iam


Anyone know of a better 36"?

What Hi-Fi have done a supertest on 36" TV's this month.

Their vote goes to the Toshiba36ZD26P

Toshiba wins on price, not just picture - although, yes, the picture is very good (and Component helps it through, but you'd have to use Supra's AV3 to see that 3D field effect come to life - which incidentally, Pixel Plus achieves with S-Video and pure RGB). But compared to the Sony Trinitron FD DRC-MF tech - it would come second.

Philips' Pixel Plus beats them both - with the exception of the obvious artifacting inherent in Pixel Plus (you see this with DVD than with a digital broadcast - which is inherently breathtaking)
The Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 3 doesn't have those failings. It's Pixel Plus Perfect.

With Pixel Plus CRT, you must, however, use the following cables:

Supra AV6(RGB only) RGB Scart/Pure/Video
or
Chord's Silver S-Video (my preference)

Connect a decent DVD player through one of those cable connections to a Pixel Plus CRT tube...
and watch your chin hit the deck (including spectators)

Which brings me to the next equation in TV picture quality - cables. You use the wrong one with the wrong type of technology, and it's the difference between a flat tyre and a weather balloon.

No such thing as HDTV over here so Sony wont be introducing that technology in this market, mores the pity

Ixos, surely a brand such as B & O does not need to be touted on here, even if I do agree with you.

Pixel Plus is the reason Bang & Olufsen is mentioned.

Philips' technology is the way to go - and Bang & Olufsen have evolutionised it.

I think it's important that you realise I'm not saying "Bang & Olufsen is the best here" - I'm simply saying, "It uses Philips' CRT Pixel Plus"

That in itself, warrants Bang & Olufsen, a mention here

HDTV will go European in 2006.
It's not THAT far away.

Originally posted by Bogside
What Hi-Fi have done a supertest on 36" TV's this month.

Their vote goes to the Toshiba36ZD26P

[/b]


Rule of thumb.

NEVER rely on a review to make your decision on buying around £1500-2000 of television.

Trust me.

Go see them for yourself. Have them demonstrated. Use your own DVD or reference hardware to try them out. Just do it.

Relying on a magazine and filtering out reviews with 5 red stars against them, is foolhardy (take that from personal experience :D )
Again, don't be fooled by magazine reviews when it comes to the marketing glitz associated to it (they get paid by marketeers, marketeers get paid for paying them - a viscious circle).

Right now, a Pixel Plus television is by far, superior to anything out there right now, and it does it to near HDTV standards.
Once you see it - bar some minor - minor - flaws, you'll know the wisdom of my words.