Hi everyone. There is a story to go with this one. Hopefully it will answer a lot of peoples questions that are novices at big screen technology. I have been in the market for a big screen and have researched them for about a month. The main factor, which was well beyond any factor, was picture quality. There are pretty much three competing technologies, which are affordable, today which are LCD, DLP, and CRT. Please note that with LCD it?s the rear projection LCD not the flat panel LCD. Th Flat Panel LCD?s are extremely expensive, at least if you want to get into bigger sizes. Another thing I would have like to have is a thin, lightweight tv but it was far behind picture quality as a criteria. Of course price was another big criteria. One a site note there is also something called LCOS which is pretty much light on silicon technology that intel was trying to get into. There are only a few companies (JVC) that are really making TVs with this technology and its expensive and, to my eyes, doesn?t have that great of picture quality.
One thing is I would recommend not buying a tv online. I had a friend who did and has bad stories to tell. Something went wrong with his tv and he had a hel1 of a time getting it fixed. The authorized Toshiba repair center didn?t want to dealwith him because he didn?t buy the tv from them so they put him last on the list. He also had LOTS AND LOTS of problems with it and it never got fixed. He ended up having to pay for shipping for a big screen back to the online retailer. Just because a tv reviews good doesn?t mean it will look good to your eyes. Everyone persons eyes are different and what looks great to one person might light bad to another. Without actually seeing the picture I would never buy a tv.
Ok I started researching the different technologies. No technology is perfect and each one has its set of flaws. I can tell you though LCDs and DLP rear projection are a lot lighter weight and not as huge as the CRTs are. They are also newer technologies. Just because they are newer doesn?t mean they are better though. Yes they are definitely lighter and have the ?cool? factor but, in general, a good CRT will beat them on picture quality test especially when property calibrated. They are also cheaper. So Cheaper + better picture quality = easy decision for me ?. SO it was a CRT. On a side note, if I had to choose between a DLP & LCD I would go with a LCD. Like I said they each have their flaws but LCD doesn?t have as many. Also DLP have a lot of mechanical moving parts that could go bad. They have a fast spinning color wheel (ive heard as fast as 10000rpm) which would just scare me. They also have mirror assemblies that could stick. Also the LCDs seem quite a bit brighter. My favorite unit for LCDs was a 50 in Hitachi at Circuit City but it was $2500.
Anyways here goes. Generally speaking Hitachi and Mitsubishi are known to have the best CRT units. I went and looked at Hitachi 51?? & 57?? at circuit city. They were $1600 and $1800 respectively. I went to best buy and found an awesome deal on a Mitsubishi 65?? tv for only $1800 on clearance which is a hot deal in itself but don?t worry more comes later ?. To me the Mitsubishi had the BEST picture of any unit I have viewed up to this point. The Hitachi CRTs were very good and were close but the Mitsubishi still beat them. Also it was 65??. I was like WOW a 65?? tv for this amount is a steal. I decide on the Mitsubishi for both its size and picture quality. Also Best Buy has a WAY better deal on extended warranties than does circuit city. A 2 year at Circuit City was $200. A 4 year at best buy was $250. You tell me..which one would you do? Also the sales person told me about a rewards program best buy has. Pretty much it cost $10 yearly subscription and you get so many points per dollar you spend. After you spend so much they send you a gift certificate good for anything in best buy. The subscription doesn?t automatically renew so don?t worry. With buy this tv I would earn enough points to give me $60 in gift certificates. For $10 this was a no brainer.
While I was talking to the salesperson, I faintly remembered getting a 12% off any tv in the mail. I told him about it. He said if I could find it I could bring it in with me and they would subtract the cost from my total. I usually throw these things out when I get them cause I never use them. When I got home I found out I actually didn?t throw it away. 12% was a big deal for how much I spent so I rushed back to the store excitingly. While I was driving, half way there, I read the disclaimer on the back and it specifically said?only for items not on sale or on clearance and this tv was on clearance. It also specifically said it excluded ?Mitsubishi Diamond? products and I was sad ?. I said, what the hel1, im half way there I will just see what they do. Well when I got there the csr along with her supervisor that was helping them didn?t flip the coupon over to see the disclaimer portion and they gave me a extra $232 off ?. I was soo happy. I also have $60 in reward certificates coming.
So I ended up getting this TV for a little over $1500 without tax and with everything including deliver, service plan, reward subscription, and tax I paid just over $2000. This is a hel1 of a deal for a 65?? tv. The TVs picture was awesome. Go demo it for yourself. Yes i got this tv delivered. I have a full size truck but this monster is huge and weighs over 300 pounds. It was worth the $50 (kind of high for delivery charge though).
Ok like every TV this one is not perfect. While it has most of the stuff I wanted it doesn?t have everything but for the price and for the picture quality I was willing to sacrifice. One is it doesn?t have an HD tuner. What does this mean? It means any local stations that you have that are HD you can?t receive until you buy a separate tuner which aren?t that expensive on ebay. This definitely was not a big deal for me. This does not mean you can?t receive HD video. You can still see HD if you have HD enabled cable/satellite. Another thing this tv doesn?t have is HDMI. It does have a DVI though. One thing you MUST make sure is that your TV has HDCP (High Definition Copy Protection). Its something the movie theathers are doing so it will be harder for people to copy HD digital content. It might make viewing certain video in the future impossible if your tv doesn?t support this standard. As far as I know all HDMI is HDCP complaint but not all DVI is. Also its easy to get a converter that will convert between HDMI & DVI. There really isn?t a big difference between these technologies both of them carry your video digitally but HDMI also has an audio channel. No worries with this TV because the DVI is HDCP complaint so you will be good to go.
Ok I know this was long and drawn out but hopefully it will help newbies to Big Screens to find out if this tv will meet their needs or not.
Here is the tv
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp...ctCategoryId=cat03006&id=1077625453350
Oh just let you know this is the previous years model. The new model does have HDMI but its $700 more. Definitly not worth it for me.
One thing is I would recommend not buying a tv online. I had a friend who did and has bad stories to tell. Something went wrong with his tv and he had a hel1 of a time getting it fixed. The authorized Toshiba repair center didn?t want to dealwith him because he didn?t buy the tv from them so they put him last on the list. He also had LOTS AND LOTS of problems with it and it never got fixed. He ended up having to pay for shipping for a big screen back to the online retailer. Just because a tv reviews good doesn?t mean it will look good to your eyes. Everyone persons eyes are different and what looks great to one person might light bad to another. Without actually seeing the picture I would never buy a tv.
Ok I started researching the different technologies. No technology is perfect and each one has its set of flaws. I can tell you though LCDs and DLP rear projection are a lot lighter weight and not as huge as the CRTs are. They are also newer technologies. Just because they are newer doesn?t mean they are better though. Yes they are definitely lighter and have the ?cool? factor but, in general, a good CRT will beat them on picture quality test especially when property calibrated. They are also cheaper. So Cheaper + better picture quality = easy decision for me ?. SO it was a CRT. On a side note, if I had to choose between a DLP & LCD I would go with a LCD. Like I said they each have their flaws but LCD doesn?t have as many. Also DLP have a lot of mechanical moving parts that could go bad. They have a fast spinning color wheel (ive heard as fast as 10000rpm) which would just scare me. They also have mirror assemblies that could stick. Also the LCDs seem quite a bit brighter. My favorite unit for LCDs was a 50 in Hitachi at Circuit City but it was $2500.
Anyways here goes. Generally speaking Hitachi and Mitsubishi are known to have the best CRT units. I went and looked at Hitachi 51?? & 57?? at circuit city. They were $1600 and $1800 respectively. I went to best buy and found an awesome deal on a Mitsubishi 65?? tv for only $1800 on clearance which is a hot deal in itself but don?t worry more comes later ?. To me the Mitsubishi had the BEST picture of any unit I have viewed up to this point. The Hitachi CRTs were very good and were close but the Mitsubishi still beat them. Also it was 65??. I was like WOW a 65?? tv for this amount is a steal. I decide on the Mitsubishi for both its size and picture quality. Also Best Buy has a WAY better deal on extended warranties than does circuit city. A 2 year at Circuit City was $200. A 4 year at best buy was $250. You tell me..which one would you do? Also the sales person told me about a rewards program best buy has. Pretty much it cost $10 yearly subscription and you get so many points per dollar you spend. After you spend so much they send you a gift certificate good for anything in best buy. The subscription doesn?t automatically renew so don?t worry. With buy this tv I would earn enough points to give me $60 in gift certificates. For $10 this was a no brainer.
While I was talking to the salesperson, I faintly remembered getting a 12% off any tv in the mail. I told him about it. He said if I could find it I could bring it in with me and they would subtract the cost from my total. I usually throw these things out when I get them cause I never use them. When I got home I found out I actually didn?t throw it away. 12% was a big deal for how much I spent so I rushed back to the store excitingly. While I was driving, half way there, I read the disclaimer on the back and it specifically said?only for items not on sale or on clearance and this tv was on clearance. It also specifically said it excluded ?Mitsubishi Diamond? products and I was sad ?. I said, what the hel1, im half way there I will just see what they do. Well when I got there the csr along with her supervisor that was helping them didn?t flip the coupon over to see the disclaimer portion and they gave me a extra $232 off ?. I was soo happy. I also have $60 in reward certificates coming.
So I ended up getting this TV for a little over $1500 without tax and with everything including deliver, service plan, reward subscription, and tax I paid just over $2000. This is a hel1 of a deal for a 65?? tv. The TVs picture was awesome. Go demo it for yourself. Yes i got this tv delivered. I have a full size truck but this monster is huge and weighs over 300 pounds. It was worth the $50 (kind of high for delivery charge though).
Ok like every TV this one is not perfect. While it has most of the stuff I wanted it doesn?t have everything but for the price and for the picture quality I was willing to sacrifice. One is it doesn?t have an HD tuner. What does this mean? It means any local stations that you have that are HD you can?t receive until you buy a separate tuner which aren?t that expensive on ebay. This definitely was not a big deal for me. This does not mean you can?t receive HD video. You can still see HD if you have HD enabled cable/satellite. Another thing this tv doesn?t have is HDMI. It does have a DVI though. One thing you MUST make sure is that your TV has HDCP (High Definition Copy Protection). Its something the movie theathers are doing so it will be harder for people to copy HD digital content. It might make viewing certain video in the future impossible if your tv doesn?t support this standard. As far as I know all HDMI is HDCP complaint but not all DVI is. Also its easy to get a converter that will convert between HDMI & DVI. There really isn?t a big difference between these technologies both of them carry your video digitally but HDMI also has an audio channel. No worries with this TV because the DVI is HDCP complaint so you will be good to go.
Ok I know this was long and drawn out but hopefully it will help newbies to Big Screens to find out if this tv will meet their needs or not.
Here is the tv
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp...ctCategoryId=cat03006&id=1077625453350
Oh just let you know this is the previous years model. The new model does have HDMI but its $700 more. Definitly not worth it for me.