Thanks for all the info guys - I think I'm settling for an LED. I just want to turn it on, use it, turn it off - no maintenance required.
The only thing you really want to be on the lookout for with these new LED TVs, is make sure it has good screen uniformity, basically little or no "clouding."
If you get a bad one, it can really make dark scenes look pretty bad. Problem is, its hard to tell under the bright lights of a big box store showroom. Do some reading up.
That would be really annoying
Yeah its awful especially during dark scenes. My brother considered bringing his back and getting a plasma which has perfect screen uniformity but he got lazy.
Uniform, rich darks are a pet peeve of mine too. No idea how many TVs and monitors I've returned due to banding and (now that I know what it's called) clouding.
I know the LED won't match a good plasma for uniformity, but there are some decent compromises out there too.
I always game with the lights off - so I'll know within 2 minutes of turning a new TV on if it's a keeper or not.
I wouldn't have thought twice about returning something like that. I have a cheap older Samsung lcd and at least its pretty uniform.
Btw, I've been looking into the prospects of going 4K at this point, and it turns out no TV currently meets the BT 2020 spec for 4K or 8K TV right now (and this standard will likely be refined some more). What this means is that if you buy a 4K TV now, it won't be able to display half the colours that video will be encoded in once 4K becomes more mainstream. The expanded colour gamut is probably the biggest change from going to 4K.
Isn't the Vizio Reference series supposed to meet that?
I am waiting because 4K really needs to take it to the next level. That and all 4K sets have horrid input lag.
Right now, the Samsung UN65HU8550 is on the top of my list. Just seeing if it drops in price in the next few weeks. Can't bring myself to buy a 1080p set when 4k are already on 2nd gen. Think I'm going to pass on curved as I'm thinking they aren't going to become mainstream and stick. This would be my 4th Samsung LED in the house if I get it.
Not sure if I'll put this one in my basement or in the living room. We are getting used to the 60" one in the living room now and I got a nice stand for it earlier in the week so it looks pretty good. The one in the basement will eventually be wall-mounted once I finish the basement.
You might to just be aware of this before buying a 4k TV:
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Artic...-Go-Obsolete-Faster-Than-You-Think-97544.aspx
You might to just be aware of this before buying a 4k TV:
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Artic...-Go-Obsolete-Faster-Than-You-Think-97544.aspx
No 4k tv released this year is capable of both full bandwidth and hdcp 2.2 on the same port.
Sony's picked hdcp 2.2 and have no full port, samsung has 1 hdcp 2.2 and full on other 2 (no hdcp) as the chips that do both are only now becoming available.
All avrs also released this year have the same issue, most (pioneer, denon, marantz) decided not to have a single hdcp 2.2 compatible port, while others (sony, onkyo) have one out 7-8 hdmis to support it.