Owners of expensive televisions, what do they do for a living?

[tinfoilhat]

I really really wanted an ambilight TV! Jealous now. Can we stop these threads now as I end up all envious!

 

Love mine, spent ages wondering we should get that or something else. Great picture, had it since 2008 I think, never had a blip. However.....

 

TOP TIP:

Just get some old Xmas lights hide them behind the telly plug the lot in and VIOLA! your very own Ambilight telly.

 

 

You could do the above. Ours isn't wall mounted and even when it was the whole ambilight thing was interesting for about a week.

[Fudbeer]

Just out of interest, how much is one of those "mid range" TVs ?

 

 

Depends on size but I class mid range 4k as £500-£650.

 

Some nice Panasonic TV's in that price group.

[Justin Smith]

If we're talking 4k sets, then going by RicherSounds, somewhere between LG's entry-level 40 inch 4K (no part number given) at £349, and LG's flagship 77 inch Curved OLED 4K Ultra HD 3D Smart TV (77EC980V) at £25k.

 

I'd expect "mid-range" to be closer to the £600-£800 mark, than the £12k-ish median between £350 and £25k.

It is "nothing" for what you get, compared to what TV and features £375 bought you this time last year or the year before.

 

FWIW I just bought a 32" Samsung LED Full HD unit from RicherSounds for less than £170 last week. It's not quite as good an image quality as my 3- or 4-years-old 47" LG (full-)LED Full HD unit (though it's not that far)...but then that £170 is about 10% to 15% of the LG's price (which is itself probably worth beans now, since TVs seem to depreciate faster than anything these days, even cars and PCs!)

 

TV pricing has pretty much gone through the floor in the last two years, in case you missed it.

 

Sounds like you should change (upgrade) your target market, btw

 

I wouldn`t spend more than £200 on a TV, I`m just not interested, it provides a picture and when you`re sat at the other end of the room (as opposed to being right next to it as you are in a TV shop.....) it looks the same unless you want a huge TV which I definitely don`t. Reliability wise when I was a TV engineer there was precious little difference in the reliability of most budget TVs and the top end models, and the top end models were usually harder to repair.....

 

I realised TV repair was something to get out of more than a decade ago, and that was before the universal adoption of difficult to repair LCD TVs.

 

It does **** me off how people are quite happy to spend £100s or even £1000s of pounds on their TVs, yet are so bleedin` tight about the aerial which supplies its signal. And before anyone starts mentioning satellite and internet streaming even these days most people still get most of their signals through their TV aerial, though many of the kind of people (technology wise) who go on Forums might find that hard to believe.

 

Ever since I got into TV aerials, and even more since we concentrated on just selling them, we only go for quality and therefore generally only sell to people of the same persuasion, and/or people who are more educated about the subject. Many of the latter having learnt most of it from our website.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Justin Smith

[Funky_Gibbon]

£600 for a decent TV really isn't that much. Now if it were the 80 inch monster that I saw for sale the other day for £8000 then that'd be different...

[Cyclone]

There's a nice looking 65" curved screen panasonic in the Dixons window display in Meadowhall, £2500... Probably cheaper online, maybe £1999.

It does look incredible.

[Justin Smith]

£600 for a decent TV really isn't that much. Now if it were the 80 inch monster that I saw for sale the other day for £8000 then that'd be different...

 

It depends what you call a decent TV though doesn`t it ? I do not want a big TV, personally I dislike the way they dominate the room. Neither am I interested in surround sound or anything like that (though I`m not disparaging those who are, each to their own at the end of the day). But the point is, for me, when all I want is a relatively small simple TV, £600 is far too much.

[L00b]

It depends what you call a decent TV though doesn`t it ? I do not want a big TV, personally I dislike the way they dominate the room.

Decent is a subjective term, and if a TV dominates a room, then it probably is too big for that room.

 

There are useful metrics that are relevant to calculate what size screen should best fit and at what height, according to where and how high a viewer habitually sits to watch the screen.

 

For our lounge (a rectangle), with the TV being wall-mounted centrally (no adjacent hearth or chimney breast or such) and the habitual seating/watching point being orthogonal to it, the metrics say it's 50" max for the screen, and the VESA mounting point about 1,5 - 1,4m high (so the centre of the screen is at approx. 1,2 - 1,3m, adult-sat-down-eyes-height). And that is a biggish lounge by contemporary standards.

 

That's where and how ours is, it doesn't dominate the room (that wall is a dark colour, that probably helps 'mask' it a bit), and I can't objectively see how any bigger would be any better (and we have used projectors with a large 70+" screen in the same space/configuration).

 

If and when I'd have to buy another (I buy a main TV in the expectation that it will last at least 7 years), I'd go same (47", in any case no bigger than 50") but with a narrower bezel (there's just about none left in current models, which I find pretty amazing considering their width/thickness) and OLED, and give the shoulder to curve (viewing angle + looks stupid against a large flat wall) and 3D (I can't see it).

Edited December 23, 2015 by L00b

[Justin Smith]

Decent is a subjective term, and if a TV dominates a room, then it probably is too big for that room.

 

There are useful metrics that are relevant to calculate what size screen should best fit and at what height, according to where and how high a viewer habitually sits to watch the screen.

 

For our lounge (a rectangle), with the TV being wall-mounted centrally (no adjacent hearth or chimney breast or such) and the habitual seating/watching point being orthogonal to it, the metrics say it's 50" max for the screen, and the VESA mounting point about 1,5 - 1,4m high (so the centre of the screen is at approx. 1,2 - 1,3m, adult-sat-down-eyes-height).

 

The TV doesn't dominate the room, and I can't objectively see how any bigger would be any better (and we have used projectors with a large 70+" screen in the same space/configuration). If I had to buy another, I'd go same (47", in any case no bigger than 50") but with a narrower bezel (there's just about none left in current models, which I find pretty amazing).

 

I agree with you on your first point, but not your second, which seems contradictory. I personally don`t like to see a big TV in my lounge, to me even our 29inch is too big, but I accept that as my eyes get older I need a set that big !

[L00b]

I agree with you on your first point, but not your second, which seems contradictory.

It isn't contradictory at all, it's quite simply a function of the viewing distance (between the user and the screen), which is itself directly correlated to the size of the room.

 

A screen looks different from 6 feet away as it does from 15 feet away. Now, is your lounge 6 feet wide or 15 feet wide?

 

In that context, "decent" can be related to that particular issue as well: what do you mean by "decent"? Image properties and quality? Interconnectivity? Build and/or panel and/or components quality? What? If image properties and quality, again the normal/average viewing distance will be quite important to assessing whether it is "decent" or not.

Edited December 23, 2015 by L00b

[Obelix]

 

It does **** me off how people are quite happy to spend £100s or even £1000s of pounds on their TVs, yet are so bleedin` tight about the aerial which supplies its signal. And before anyone starts mentioning satellite and internet streaming even these days most people still get most of their signals through their TV aerial, though many of the kind of people (technology wise) who go on Forums might find that hard to believe..

 

Depends how strong your signal is really I guess. Round here most people run with about two feet of wire in the back of the TV and just don't bother with an external antenna at all... Of course then you get those that have a gold plated antenna (like that makes any difference) and re use twenty year old water filled coax....

 

There was a great deal of hilarity when someone decided that they wanted signals from a rather distant mast and put up an external wideband preamp. That didn't cope with my transmissions especially well and the amount the poor guy had spent on it was astronomical.