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Official Black Friday HDTV Discussion Thread


Brad

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As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

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I think this BF will be about 4k tvs.  Most of the major players have announced their exit from the plasma market and prices on plasmas and LEDs are insanely low RIGHT NOW.  For instance, Dell has a 720p, 42", plasma for $299.99 with a $125 gift card earlier this week.  $300 - $125 is $175 -- an insane price for a 42" anything.  You could also rack up 15% in Dell and ShopDiscover cash back.  $600 60" LG plasmas have been pretty common this summer.  I got mine the day before the Superbowl.

 

Midnight55, you should be looking at televisions already.  I think the 4k sets look pretty good, but there is a lot of variation in quality between the economy sets and the mortgage-your-house sets.  Best bang for your buck continues to be the plasmas.  I don't think they get to 70" and 60" is much more common than 65", but they look great.

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http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A7658008

 

 
60" VIZIO 1080p 120Hz LED Smart HDTV + $200 Dell eGift Card - $797.99 FS @ Dell
 
60" 1080p LED Backlit LCD Display

120Hz
4ms Response Time
5M:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio
300 cd/m2 Brightness
4 HDMI and 2 USB Inputs
53.1" x 8.7" x 32.8" (w/ stand)
 
Plus another $80 cash back via shop discover for a $500 60" LED smart tv
 
It's always black friday somewhere!
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I'm looking for me too.  I bought the 42" plasma (just got my cash back notification, so $144 OOP) and am hoping to apply the $125 eGift card to an LED for my pool room.  I have a wall that would be ideal for a 60-70" screen.  I have a couple 32" LCDs that would look nice in two corners.  My wife thinks I'm a little nuts, but not completely.  We used to spend a lot of time playing pool and we all agree that it would be much more safe and economical to not have to drive home after a Sunday of football, billiards, and everything that goes with that.

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Len, where's my invite?

 

I am so bummed about plasmas going away...

I don't think I'll buy another TV until OLED's have matured a bit.

 

It's always open house.  It's easy to see why plasmas are going away.  Plasmas are the beta max of the flat screen era.  Beautiful image, but heavy, reflective, and expensive to build/ship.

 

It's too early to get into plasma vs 4k, but people shopping for a TV should spend some time looking at TV screens before BF.  Nothing like an informed buyer.

 

For the record, the reason I am looking for an LED for my pool room is that they can survive an occasional cue ball hit.  I don't see that happening, but I could never be comfortable with 12 ft^2 of glass so close to a billiard ball.  

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4K's are already coming down in price.  However, without the content to watch on them, they're just an expensive, really good 1080 for now.  Studios are just catching up to 4K with their cameras and graphical computers.  It'll be a couple of years before there's alot of native 4K content.  Most will be "enhanced" HD that the studios will be trying to sell to the masses.  I recommend taking advantage of the uninformed and buy top-of-the-line 1080p LED's from Sony or LG that should be coming way down in price as the 4K market is ramping up.  You'll get 4 or 5 years out of a good 1080p and then get a 4K when the content is more available.

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You might be suprised to learn that the only truly native (not "enhanced"/scaled up from lesser content) 1080P content available even today is direct from a BluRay disk or some PS4/Xbox/games. 

And 1080P has been out now what, 7 years?  Maybe longer? 

 

No major studios, even today, either over the air or on cable/satellite, broadcast true 1080P. 

They all still broadcast in either 720P or 1080i.

Though DirecTV and Dish do provide 1080P content for Pay Per View, there is a lot of discussion on the quality of that feed due to compression during transmission.

 

I can't imagine how long it will take before we actually see 4K content of any value.  From what I've read, big media houses aren't even playing with the idea of making new 4k Blu-Ray players - they're looking to stream it all, so if you buy a 4K TV, I hope you have a good broadband connection at your house.  Netflix says you need to have at least a 15Mb/s connection to stream 4K and that's just for one TV.  If you have more than one going in the house at the same time, wow.  And you just KNOW that Comcast and the like are going to have conniptions over all the extra bandwidth it's going to take.

 

Personally, I value 4K capability as much as I value the quantity and quality of the little rubber feet that are on the bottom of the stand for the TV (which I would never use anyway as it would be mounted to my wall).

Paying an extra penny for a 4K TV is SO not worth it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey, that looks familiar... ;)

 

It's been six years since I bought my first HDTV -- almost to the day.  That's how long I have been carrying that chart around.  We had just purchased a PS3 and it looked like crap on my 36" Sony Wega.  That 'deal' popped up and I jumped on it, set the delivery date for six weeks away, and started researching HDTVs.

 

The HTIB is pretty dated, but the tv is still amazing.  

 

As for the chart, take it with a grain of salt.  What it says is that if you put a 50" 720p next to a 50" 1080p tv, all other things being equal, you can distinguish one from the other at six feet.  That does not mean the 720p set does not look great at six feet.  My kids always pulled chairs within four feet of the tv to play games (no retention after five years of game play).

Edited by len_mullen
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Remember 2004? Deep cuts on projection TVs @ 50 inch. Remember 2006? $500 cut on 42 inch 720p 2nd tier HDTVs. Remembering how far we have progressed and how low prices are now helps us to keep the proper perspective when dealing with the newer generation of HDTVs.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I have gotten the Walmart online TV deal several times and been happy for the most part because it had free shipping right to my door.  Only one year my TV just went black after 5 months - it was Mother's Day, and I had to spend several hours trying to get Walmart to at least give me some store credit to get another TV.

 

Those online HDTV deals often come with a 'no returns' caveat in the small print.

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So ya'll think it's OK to get a plasma? I've always been told to steer away from them because if one little spot gets messed up then your TV is ruined.  I want the beautiful clear TV I saw at Sears but I think it was like over $1000.  Way beyond my budget.

 

At any given price point for a given screen size, a plasma will look much better than an LED.  Both can have dead pixels or cells.  The night before the last superbowl, I paid less than $600 for a 60" 1080p plasma that looks great.

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At any given price point for a given screen size, a plasma will look much better than an LED.  Both can have dead pixels or cells.  The night before the last superbowl, I paid less than $600 for a 60" 1080p plasma that looks great.

I bought a 50" Panasonic Viera 11 or 12 years ago and I still get compliments about the picture quality. I still love it. It is only 720p but we have HD cable programming, which makes all the difference. We never had a problem with it, but I get panic attacks when my brother in law stays over because he can't sleep without the tv running. I have to wake up every few hours and turn it off so the screen doesn't get burn in. I wish he never figured out the sleep timer!

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