my new L.C.D. T.V.

[twinniefan]

I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy my new l.c.d. or plasma now and ended up with a Panasonic 94cm/37 inch l.c.d with 1920x1080 full h.d., 100 hertz,20,000.00.1 contrast ratio and both digital and analogue tuner.
I was going to buy my new t.v. when on holidays next month but I went window shopping last week and the guy at Bing Lee electrical mentioned that they received a stock lot of this model,(it is last year's model it seems.),and it normally retails for $1499.00 but he would do it for me for $900.00, but I needed to decide fairly quickly as they were selling fast in all the stores.
This is really the size I was keen on, and after seeing how it went in store I was sold and went for it.
The guy delivered it tonight and tuned it in and wired up the v.c.r.,d.v.d. player and Foxtel for me and the picture is just superb.
A very happy customer here and a new fan of Panasonic, they may not get as much floor space in the stores as L.G. and Samsung but I felt the picture quality and especially the sound quality as well was superior on the Panasonic.
Just as an aside the previous week we were in J.B. Hi-Fi and noticed a 32 inch Hisense(a Chinese brand.) which also appealed to me, however this shop had every t.v. playing a blu-ray movie,(which look great in any t.v.),and when I asked the salesman in this store if he would turn the movie off and put it on normal t.v. stations so I could see what the picture quality was like, he refused saying they were all wired up together playing the movie, so we left.
I think I have chosen wisely in spending some more money and getting both the size I really wanted and a known and quality brand.
Thanks to all of you for your suggestions in my previous post regarding this some time ago, I wrote a lot of them down and used them as guidance.
Cheers good people.
Steve.

 

[blackstone]

Hi-Def TV in Australia?

Last year, I was so glad when my console TV broke. I didn't even attempt to fix it; just went out and bought a Sony 32" Bravia LCD. Mounted it on the wall, freeing up a lot of floor space; couldn't be happier with it.

Question: how extensive is hi-def TV in Australia? I can really tell the difference when watching the hi-def (1080) channels coming through the cable. The low-def channels look great, too, but with a noticeable lack of detail. My cable subscription is "digital basic" (not anywhere near the most expensive, about $40/month); about 2 dozen channels are available in both low-def and high-def widescreen.

Interesting sales pitch, showing blu-ray videos on the display sets. I'd want to see regular broadcast channels, too.

 

[petek]

There's no turning back. We bought a 32" Akai LCD a couple of years ago and while it's good it's not as good as the 40" Samsung I bought last fall. I think anyways.. My other half prefered the smaller screen on the Akai but I brought it down to the rek room for my use and keeping the Samsung upstairs in the family room. It took some coercing to get my mom 86 y.o. to make the switch to LCD and she got the same Samsung a couple of months ago and is really happy with it. Prior to that she was watching on a 26" set from across the room and it was hard to see. Seldom if ever watch movies so not sure if a Blue Ray is worth it or not.. my current DVD player has about 3 hrs use over two years.

 

[brisnat81]

Hi Fred,

In Australia we have 5 FTA Broadcasters and they have regional subsidiaries.

ABC, SBS, 7, 9, 10.

With the Digital TV system we implemented, each station was allocated Bandwidth for 1 HD channel and 3 SD channels.

So we get the following
ABC HD = ABC1 SD
ABC 2 SD
ABC 3 SD
SBS HD = SBS1 SD
SBS 2 SD
SBS 3 SD
7 HD = 7 SD
72 SD
9 HD = 9 SD
GO (99) SD
One HD = 11 SD
10 SD

So we now have 12 Unique channels.

We have a 50" Panasonic Plasma and when switching between SD and HD programming, the big difference is the increase in depth between each channel the picture is a lot richer in HD. It's not incredibley different.

I cant compare pay TV as they've never had a package that would give us the channels that we want for less than $50-100 per month. Between ABC, ABC2, SBS, SBS2 we now get all of the documentaries and a fair bit of Discovery Channel programming that we'd otherwise have to pay for. It's removed almost any inclination to get Pay TV now.

 

[sudsmaster]

Panasonic makes good stuff.

I have their DVD recorder (it gave me an early way to receive digital broadcasts here) and their Blu-Ray player.

My only digital TV is a 42" Vizio 1080p. It's pretty good, but could use more contrast. It's in my living room. I think my next upgrade will be to a larger (50") model with better contrast for the living room, and retire the 42" model to the office/family room. The CRT there is hooked up to the DVD recorder (where it sees a lot of action) but the Sony tube model is on its last legs and is also hard to see (it's a 21"model).

I've heard that Toshiba makes the best flat panels, but maybe that is dated info.

I usually buy whatever Costco gives the best price on, with acceptable quality.

 

[blackstone]

Nathan,

The 12 digital channels that you receive, are they received with an outdoor antenna? I'm assuming yes, since you don't have pay TV. We are able to receive perhaps as many without cable, but reception would be unreliable, due to buildings, etc. Plus, with digital TV, loss of signal means a blank screen, not the good-old snowy picture. I didn't like to upgrade to $40/month, either.