jenam93
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Seems like there has been a spate of these recently, but I am another whose Panasonic Plasma, a 50VT30, has stopped working, mine with a 7 blink led failure (Which apparently suggests 1 or up to 3 boards inside has gone).
We had recently been considering upgrading for a larger screen, but I'm one who rarely upgrades while things are working fine and the 50" would not really fit anywhere else in the house, so we quickly stopped looking.
As with others, I doubt I want to take the risk of spending £££ on repairs seeing as it is now over 8 years old.
Main viewing source is a BT Youview box (no subscription) through which we also run Netflix (SD subscription only and unlikely to pay more at present) and Amazon Prime plus the occasional catch up apps like iPlayer etc.
PS4 plays our disks which are Blu-ray or DVD, plus Disney+ and a few games.
We also play games on a Switch, more than on the PS4, and very occasionally original Wii too!
We watch an exceedingly occasional movie via Rakuten with a laptop plugged into the TV.
We do have some movies copied to a WDTVLiveHub but I cant remember the last time we actually watched one that way.
Generally do not watch much sport at all.
Sound is currently fed to a Marantz M-CR612 which is hooked up to some Monitor Audio Bronze 5 speakers, so stereo only and unlikely to change.
Our room is long and thin with the TV on the narrow wall, so viewing distances are generally excessive (hence why we were toying with the larger screen idea) with 2 people on a sofa against the long wall about 3.5 metres away and 2 people on a sofa across the width of the room around 4.5 metres away. This means a wider viewing angle is required for us.
The room is almost north facing so never any direct sunlilght into it, the windows always have venetian blinds that are down but tilted open during the day and closed as darkness falls (Or earlier when watching a movie). Lighting is generally some IKEA chain lights around 2 windows only so nothing too bright in the evening/night either.
I'm happy to tweak settings to try to get the best picture I'm able to, but unlikely to fork out on professional callibration.
Given most 4K content is available via subscriptions or 4K discs (and therefore 4K player), we are unlikely to watch that much 4K content (Other than on Prime/Disney+ if any apps suit playing it), therefore ability to handle SD content well is a must!
I don't know if we just got lucky with the 50VT30, or we just didn't look too hard for faults (Probably the best way), but no-one ever complained about the picture we had for any reason (well until it no longer turned on of course), so its hard to know which faults would annoy us most having not experienced/noticed them.
We watch quite a lot of TV, and don't buy TVs often, so I dont mind spending a fair chunk of money accordingly. I would not risk buying second hand, though wold perhaps consdier a manufacturer refurb if it was right to do so and a great value set.
Having tacked up a 65" cardboard TV for a while, see image below, I reckon we can push to this size, especially with the viewing distances.
From Dodgexander's excellect summary posts, the Sony 65XH9505 (£1300) handles upscaling well and has wider viewing angles so that would appear to suit our requirements and I'm not adverse to pushing the boat out on a LG 65BX, £1500 from Costco (Plus £15 membership fee), if the LG BX is going to serve our purposes better than the Sony listed.
I guess I have a few questions though as what concerns me is; with so much SD content being viewed, is it pointless spending this amount of money on either?
Shoud I consider an alternate model in this price, without pushing the budget up higher than the BX?
Should I just spend less as my requirements/usage don't warrant either the Sony or LG?
Are there likely to be any sales coming up soon? By that I mean very soon as watching an older 40" TV is like watching a portable from the old days!!
Many thanks in advance for reading and any further insight you may have.
Jon
We had recently been considering upgrading for a larger screen, but I'm one who rarely upgrades while things are working fine and the 50" would not really fit anywhere else in the house, so we quickly stopped looking.
As with others, I doubt I want to take the risk of spending £££ on repairs seeing as it is now over 8 years old.
Main viewing source is a BT Youview box (no subscription) through which we also run Netflix (SD subscription only and unlikely to pay more at present) and Amazon Prime plus the occasional catch up apps like iPlayer etc.
PS4 plays our disks which are Blu-ray or DVD, plus Disney+ and a few games.
We also play games on a Switch, more than on the PS4, and very occasionally original Wii too!
We watch an exceedingly occasional movie via Rakuten with a laptop plugged into the TV.
We do have some movies copied to a WDTVLiveHub but I cant remember the last time we actually watched one that way.
Generally do not watch much sport at all.
Sound is currently fed to a Marantz M-CR612 which is hooked up to some Monitor Audio Bronze 5 speakers, so stereo only and unlikely to change.
Our room is long and thin with the TV on the narrow wall, so viewing distances are generally excessive (hence why we were toying with the larger screen idea) with 2 people on a sofa against the long wall about 3.5 metres away and 2 people on a sofa across the width of the room around 4.5 metres away. This means a wider viewing angle is required for us.
The room is almost north facing so never any direct sunlilght into it, the windows always have venetian blinds that are down but tilted open during the day and closed as darkness falls (Or earlier when watching a movie). Lighting is generally some IKEA chain lights around 2 windows only so nothing too bright in the evening/night either.
I'm happy to tweak settings to try to get the best picture I'm able to, but unlikely to fork out on professional callibration.
Given most 4K content is available via subscriptions or 4K discs (and therefore 4K player), we are unlikely to watch that much 4K content (Other than on Prime/Disney+ if any apps suit playing it), therefore ability to handle SD content well is a must!
I don't know if we just got lucky with the 50VT30, or we just didn't look too hard for faults (Probably the best way), but no-one ever complained about the picture we had for any reason (well until it no longer turned on of course), so its hard to know which faults would annoy us most having not experienced/noticed them.
We watch quite a lot of TV, and don't buy TVs often, so I dont mind spending a fair chunk of money accordingly. I would not risk buying second hand, though wold perhaps consdier a manufacturer refurb if it was right to do so and a great value set.
Having tacked up a 65" cardboard TV for a while, see image below, I reckon we can push to this size, especially with the viewing distances.
From Dodgexander's excellect summary posts, the Sony 65XH9505 (£1300) handles upscaling well and has wider viewing angles so that would appear to suit our requirements and I'm not adverse to pushing the boat out on a LG 65BX, £1500 from Costco (Plus £15 membership fee), if the LG BX is going to serve our purposes better than the Sony listed.
I guess I have a few questions though as what concerns me is; with so much SD content being viewed, is it pointless spending this amount of money on either?
Shoud I consider an alternate model in this price, without pushing the budget up higher than the BX?
Should I just spend less as my requirements/usage don't warrant either the Sony or LG?
Are there likely to be any sales coming up soon? By that I mean very soon as watching an older 40" TV is like watching a portable from the old days!!
Many thanks in advance for reading and any further insight you may have.
Jon