Saved your pennies and all set to buy a big screen TV? Alas, the vision you see when you get to the store will more than likely burst your bubble.
While out and about on the week-end I took the opportunity to cruise through a consumer electronics mega store that opened recently in my neighbourhood. The new shop was tastefully decorated, cool on a hot afternoon, and held a sea of TVs as far as the eye could see. Get set to drool, right?
The Wow factor quickly turned into Whoa! when I started to take a closer look at the individual sets. LCD and plasma alike, the pictures looked bad - fuzzy images, poor contrast and generally uninspiring vision abounded. I wondered how anyone could be convinced to spend $500 dollars, let alone $5000.
One of the stumbling blocks is that stores generally put video feeds through a splitter to push them to multiple sets, and it's difficult to tell how far the set you're interested in is from the source. Hopefully the direct signal you'd get at home would be stronger, but that's not a very reassuring concept if you're about to spend serious money. A solution is to bring your own DVD and insist it be played on any TV on your short list (preferably with the same DVD player).
The other big problem I encountered was the floor layout of the plasmas, with the big screens facing off across a narrow aisle. As point number one from our Big Screen Buyers Guide makes clear, no matter what the quality of the product, the closer you are to a large screen, the more you'll notice flaws within the picture. Even standing as far back as possible, I was still less than a metre away, when optimum viewing for a 42-inch screen is a minimum 1.6 metres. Sets that looked good in CNET.com.au lab tests failed to impress in this environment.
If you're reading CNET.com.au perhaps I'm preaching to the converted, but my little expedition really drove home the point that TV buyers must really do their homework and know what they want before hitting the shops.
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John Ord
17/01/2006 07:04 PM
I have recently purchased a 42" Panasonic Plasma HDTV. Given the purchase price, I took an awfully long time to review a whole range of models and sizes. I used CNET as a reliable guide to weed out the not so good Plasma offerings. One thing always struck me when visiting TV showrooms though. If HD and Plasma was meant to be so great, why did they all look kinda fuzzy and pixelated? Even when sufficient room allowed me to stand back from units, I was less than impressed by their clarity and sharpness. Of course those playing animated DVDs such as Toy Story or anything else by Pixar Studios always looked good. But the HDTV test signals on free to air TV looked quite average to me. I almost abandoned my Plasma purchase plans because of this. I thought that the technology was just not up to scratch yet. I then read on numerous Internet Forums that others were highly impressed by their Plasma purchases once installed at home. I took a punt and I went ahead with my purchase. Thankfully I wasn't disappointed once the installation guy had set everything up. The picture clarity and sharpness is wonderful, I am still in awe of the display a month later. My conclusion, the quality of the digital signal in stores is often average to say the least. However, if you have a decent digital signal at home then your new Plasma should look as good as the literature suggests it should. TIP: Borrow a friend's digital set top box and do a signal test in your house, before any big purchase. It is strange that stores should run high-end hardware, advertised as the 'best' image technology, on such average connections and splitter setups. It's sort of like the local Porsche dealer offering test drives in the latest model using low octane petrol.
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nez
18/01/2006 04:51 PM
If I'm paying upwards of 6K to buy a tv, I want to have a good picture regardless of where I stand or sit. And why would you buy a big 42" screen, only to have to sit 2.5 meters away from it to get a decent picture?? Aren't you defeating the purpose of getting a big screen then in the first place? Sounds crazy to me. I think I'll pass on LCD / plasma
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Marcus
19/01/2006 08:01 AM
Yes, this is so true. And i hate the fact that we have to put up with it. I work in the sales department of a leading company in the national sales of TV's, hifi's and other home entertainment equipment. I really hate coming into work each day to see the crap quality image of some our finest Plasma Screens. You stand there with each customer, asking about why the quality is so low when it's supposed to be HI Def. You explain to them about the signal splitter you need in order to get the picture to each TV in the store. One signal is quite difficult to strech across to all 53 screens in the store. Some customers are convinced. Usually by their friends who already have one that the image will be improved dramatically when they get home. But there always those who feel they're let down by the in-store display. To those people, we try our best. But sometimes it's just not good enough
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Michael, Queensland
19/02/2006 10:10 PM
I was very impressed by the CNET review of the large BENQ lcd model with true HD native resolution, so before Xmas my partner and I went along to Harvey Norman who are BENQ distributors, and there was the exact model on the floor. All the digital sets in the store were, of course, showing the Channel 7 HD presentation (channel 70) that makes them look good. Right next to the BENQ was an LG. Despite the fact that the BENQ theoretically had 2 million pixels right there on the screen the picture looked ordinary. We bought the LG 37 incher and it's beautiful. I've moved my PC to the lounge room and typing on it now!! When people come round I put on channel 70 and their jaws drop, it looks so much better than in the store. Apart from saving about a grand I sometimes wonder what the BENQ would actually look like here at home properly set up. Michael Bribie Island Queensland
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