06/06/2010 How do you buy a new TV?

Tagged under LCD, LED TV., Plasma, T3, TV
Posted by Len | No Comments

(By Len Wallis:- This article first appeared in the July 2010 issue of T3 magazine.)

OK – I am going to suggest something completely radical. If you are looking to buy a new flat screen TV, go out and have a good, hard look at the screens yourself. Try not to be swayed by anything other than what you, personally, need in a TV. Take the opinions of mass market reviewers but balance them with what you are thinking. And, most importantly, listen to the salesperson but don’t take their word as the final say. It’s not easy for me to say this. I’m writing in a well respected magazine as one of those reviewers. It’s filled with advertising from quality brands that have great products, and I have a store that supplies these products to you.

So why do I suggest this? In the forty years I have been in this industry I don’t think that I have ever seen any product category where the fortunes of the technology and the companies involved have waxed and waned for so many reasons, with precious few of them being performance of the products.

In the early ‘flat screen’ days the decisions were much easier, you only had a choice of plasma, or stay with the ‘old fashioned’ CRT. The fact that CRT was demonstrably better than Plasma in those early days mattered little – the new buzz was plasma, and that’s where the market went. Thankfully the rate of development was so rapid and it did not take manufacturers long to reach quality levels that justified the claims being made. If you jumped in to early you were stuck with a product that aged far more quickly than standard technology usually does.

Since then things have become very messy. LCD screens rapidly improved to a level where they could be considered to be an alternative to plasma. The LCD v’s Plasma debate quickly descended into a debacle. Suddenly LCD was the new ‘must buy’ product, based not on quality but on a lot of successful marketing campaigns However it was not long before plasma made a miraculous comeback. Did plasma technology suddenly improve in quality? No, its newfound popularity was based on a successful counter marketing campaign launched by plasma manufacturers. It was a convincing campaign and suddenly plasma was once again everyone’s flat screen of choice.

This isn’t to say that these waves of popularity are misleading or that the mass appeal is filling your head with lies. By the time plasma and LCD were really in their stride many of the products produced by the big brands were very good products. What it does say though is that no matter how good the other party was, it wasn’t the performance of the products that was leading the swing. This is why it’s so important to stay true to what you need and what you know about the products you’re after.

After plasma and LCD, along came LED. Firstly, an LED TV is not an LED TV. It is an LCD TV with backlighting (or in most cases edge-lighting) provided by LED lighting rather than the more traditional florescent method. This gives a very even spread of light, and it is brighter. It is going to be interesting if true LED TV becomes a commercial reality. Many people believe that they already exist, so how are companies going to market these?
Needless to say, being the new product on the block, LED is the current ‘must have’ product. I am fascinated by this. While I have seen some impressive LED sets, I have seen some well known brands marketing screens which puts the picture quality back where it was five years ago. Do they sell – of coarse they do. Is it because of quality – obviously not, it is just that the consumer has been convinced that this is the current technology, and so this is the one that they must have. Should you buy an LED? If it suits your needs then yes, absolutely. But do your homework. Look at the screens, read up on the technology and have a good hard think about it. The investment is large.

Now we are about to throw 3D TV into the mix. Not only do we have the plasma 3D v’s LCD 3D v’s LED 3D argument, but I believe there are currently nine different 3D standards. Heaven help the consumer. Looks like it’s back to the serious books.

Like I said at the beginning, if you are in the market for a flat screen, trust your eyes. It would be great if you could rely on everything that you are told and read. However in the real world this is not the case. Reviewers and store people don’t know what your exact situation is, where you live, the room environment and your watching habits, for example. They also have their own favorites.

So now that you are in the store, what do you look for?
Firstly you are already at something of a disadvantage; a retail environment is not the best place to be comparing screens. Showroom lighting, particularly fluorescent, gives a different effect to the lighting in most homes. Secondly most manufacturers know that their screens will be sold in a mass retail environment, and that you will automatically be attracted to the brightest screen, so their screens come out of the box ‘hot’ – that is with the brightness and contrast is turned up. It’s just part of the reality of a retail environment. The lights have to be fluorescent and the TVs have to be bright otherwise you won’t be attracted to them.

If you do your own detective work, there are a number of areas to pay close attention to.
From day one of the big issues with flat screen TV’s has been their ability to replay black. While this problem has been improving over the years a good number of screens still portray solid blacks as a dark grey. If you do find a screen that does display black blacks, also check that there is definition within that black.

In an attempt to overcome the inability of some screens to show black the manufacturers artificially enhance blacks, but end up without any definition. Check the screens with a night scene, or better still, with someone wearing a black or very dark suit. Can you still see the folds and creases in the clothes, or is it just a black blob? This will sort out the real deals from the fakers.
Another major downside of flat screens, in particular LCD, is motion artifacts. Again screens have come a long way in this respect, but have a look at some fast moving action on the screen. Is the action smooth, or does the image appear to move in a ‘jerky’ fashion.

Colour tones – are they natural. Almost every retailer uses animation movies to show off their screens. Why? – they are colorful, bright, attention grabbing, and most importantly, you have no way of telling if the colours portrayed are as they were initially intended. Possibly the best test for this is skin tones. Have a look at a row of screens in any retailers and you will find that you will naturally be attracted to the brightest, most colorful screen on display. Then have a look at a human face on that screen and the chances are very good that the skin tones are far more exaggerated than in reality (bright, ruddy complexion etc.) It doesn’t matter how much this screen appeals to you, either the screen calibration is wrong (making it difficult to make an educated choice) or it is a poor quality screen.

Have a look at depth of field. The better the screen the better the depth of field the more you can look ‘into’ the image.

Don’t be scared to walk up to the screen to have a close look at the image. A screen which gives a smooth image when you view it up close will always give a better picture from your watching position than one which is ‘blocky’ or jagged up close. However make sure that you do this on a good quality source, otherwise you may be looking at the failings of the material itself rather than the screen.

The importance of making your own decision will become greater if and when 3D takes hold. We are going to see a number of variations on the theme, and some will be better (more natural) than others. Again I repeat – trust your eyes. Does the image on the screen you are watching look natural? And most importantly, make sure you are viewing material where you can judge what natural should look like. Any good store will be able to sell you a good quality TV, but for the best set, trust your eyes and judgment to determine which one you choose. Good luck!

No Comments

Comment

* All fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory

Please enter a name.

Please enter your e-mail.

Please enter a comment.

Name*

Email*

Website

Please enter the total/sum of these numbers (6 + 10)

Comment*