TV Madness?

[HeroHog]

My wife's other aunt, not the one we live with, is in her 70s or early 80s, watches baseball with the sound off, in a room where the TV is 15' - 20' from her. Friday I took her to Worst (Best) Buy to get her a new TV. What was delivered and I set up for her yesterday:

Samsung - 55” Class Q80B QLED 4K Smart Tizen TV
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-55-class-q80b-qled-4k-smart-tizen-tv/6503083.p?skuId=6503083

Samsung - HW-Q600B/ZA 3.1.2ch Soundbar with Dolby Atmos / DTS:X - Black
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-hw-q600b-za-3-1-2ch-soundbar-with-dolby-atmos-dtsx-black/6505160.p?skuId=6505160

This pair is phenomenal! The picture and sound kick Major butt! SO much carp to setup, register, pair, plug in! Took me half a day but I whupped it. It has SO many features that she will NEVER use. Maybe I will inherit it before I get completely senile...

[K Frame]

Those QLEDs are incredible.

Friends of mine bought a new house a couple of years ago and went 72" or something like that. The picture is so vivid that there are times when it looks three dimensional.

I was watching an episode of Magnum PI on it and I realized that I could read the titles of the books that were on Higgins' desk.

I'm getting very close to getting a new TV. My 2008 Samsung is having more and more problems starting up.

I'm looking at a 7 series in the 65" range. Incredibly, that's only $500...

[Ben]

I've had the 55" QLED for around four years now. It really is a great picture. The one downside to both the Samsungs that I've owned is that the stupid built in smart menu (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc.) is ALWAYS problematic. Using Youtube TV off the Samsung menu, it's always stalling to load or else when a show is running, it will freeze up and buffer as if I'm having bandwidth issues. If I run it through my Roku, everything works fine. So I run all that stuff through the Roku, and it's likely more secure as well. I have the Roku running through a wired connection. The one thing with the smart TVs is you really have to go through the menu to turn off the "convenient, but we're spying on you" stuff.

I have a pretty big 2022 Costco reward that I haven't gotten around to using yet and that expires in DEC. I'm probably going to use it towards the series 8 65" NEO QLED now that the series 9s have been out for a while and the 8s are dropping in price. That's about the biggest TV I can put at the good TV spot in the living room, otherwise I would have gone 75". The 55" one will go upstairs to the bonus room, which I have slowly been turning into a game/arcade room.

HH - how are you  liking the Samsung soundbar? I'm thinking of getting one with the new TV. My current TV actually does really good sound, but I don't have the good onboard options for tweaking sound so that I can prioritize speech range over music in movies and stuff where they make the dramatic music so loud that I can't understand what anyone is saying. 

[HeroHog]

I've had the 55" QLED for around four years now. It really is a great picture. The one downside to both the Samsungs that I've owned is that the stupid built in smart menu (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc.) is ALWAYS problematic...

HH - how are you  liking the Samsung soundbar?

We are on Comcast/Xfinity and all those are built into the Xfinity DVR interface so we don't have to get into the convoluted Samsung interface.

The Soundbar: Sounds great! There is EQ built into either the TV or Soundbar that handles those issues, also built in compression so the commercials don't blow you out etc. Kinda flattens out the extreme loud parts and boosts the extreme lows parts.
It's connected by an HDMI e/ARC (HDMI 2.1) cable to the TV and to the wall for power. The Subwoofer is connected by Bluetooth and only has a power cable.

[Perd Hapley]

SO much carp to setup, register, pair, plug in!

You're telling me TVs come with fish now?   

[dogmush]

I spent a lot of time researching before I bought my new TV last year and am very happy with my Vizio P-series and matching Atmos sound bar.  It got consistantly better ratings than the Sony's, LG's, or Samsung's in it's price range.

[K Frame]

I'd say my TV is well on its way out. I need to make a decision soon.

At first, every once in awhile, it wouldn't start up correctly and would automatically restart.

That slowly became more common.

Now it's not only failing to start correctly once, it's often doing it two or three times in a row.

I'm afraid before too long it simply won't start at all.

[RocketMan]

I'd say my TV is well on its way out. I need to make a decision soon.

At first, every once in awhile, it wouldn't start up correctly and would automatically restart.

That slowly became more common.

Now it's not only failing to start correctly once, it's often doing it two or three times in a row.

I'm afraid before too long it simply won't start at all.

Sounds like the power supply is giving up.  The symptoms match pretty well.  Probably cheap Chinese capacitors, swollen and out of spec after a few years of use.

[K Frame]

I'm not sure if it's the power supply or not, but I wouldn't be surprised given that it's just about 14 years old.

The symptoms are, on start up, the screen comes on highly pixilated in, oddly enough, red, green, and white. It's almost like a candy cane snowstorm.

Sometimes you can see the a ghost outline of the program (people moving around and the like) before it goes into restart mode.

Sometimes it makes an extremely loud screeching noise, sometimes it's silent.

[HankB]

. . . Sometimes it makes an extremely loud screeching noise, sometimes it's silent.

Switch away from The View before you turn it off.

[Brad Johnson]

I'm not sure if it's the power supply or not, but I wouldn't be surprised given that it's just about 14 years old.

The symptoms are, on start up, the screen comes on highly pixilated in, oddly enough, red, green, and white. It's almost like a candy cane snowstorm.

Sometimes you can see the a ghost outline of the program (people moving around and the like) before it goes into restart mode.

Sometimes it makes an extremely loud screeching noise, sometimes it's silent.

14 years of dog hair and dust will do that. As RM said, sounds like something in the power supply is letting go, or some part of the main board power control circuit is toast.

Retailers are clearing previous models for the Christmas shopping season so there are some super deals right now.

Brad

[K Frame]

I'm fully expecting the release of the magic smoke any day now...

 

[Brad Johnson]

Best Buy has the 65" LG Series 90 NanoCell on for $899. I have the previous generation of this model. Full array dimming, native 120Hz refresh, and supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10. Picture quality is fantastic.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lg-65-class-nanocell-90-series-led-4k-uhd-smart-webos-tv/6453310.p?skuId=6453310

Brad

[K Frame]

Damn...

I just took a look at my credit card rewards points... I can cash in points worth $1,640.

I may be looking at an even higher end TV...

[Brad Johnson]

Damn...

I just took a look at my credit card rewards points... I can cash in points worth $1,640.

I may be looking at an even higher end TV...

Well, in that case...

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sony-100-class-bravia-xr-x92-led-4k-uhd-full-array-smart-google-tv/6463312.p?skuId=6463312

Brad

[K Frame]

Well, in that case...

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sony-100-class-bravia-xr-x92-led-4k-uhd-full-array-smart-google-tv/6463312.p?skuId=6463312

Brad

And Millie Montag's dream of 4 TV walls in her parlor are ever so much closer to coming true.

[Kingcreek]

Haven’t owned a tv since 1997 but when/if Elon musk comes through with my satellite I’ll be in the market for one. I’m overwhelmed by all the choices and new technology.

[K Frame]

If you get a new TV, whatever will you do with the cowbell that you beat on for entertainment?

[Kingcreek]

If you get a new TV, whatever will you do with the cowbell that you beat on for entertainment?

Hang it on the wall next to my bongo drum and sleigh bells?

[MillCreek]

Cowbell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s

[K Frame]

The thing that still stuns me about today's flat panel TVs is just how light they are.

My last CRT TV was a Samsung 32" that had, for the mid 1990s, a TREMENDOUS picture. Only, the damned thing weighed about 200 pounds (maybe not that might, but holy christ!)

My current 44" (I think) Samsung was something along the lines of 55-60 pounds with the stand.

The 65" model I'm seriously considering? It's 46 pounds.

[Brad Johnson]

Quick revisit because I just ran across a Best Buy add for "BLACK FRIDAY PRICES NOW!!!". Gave it a look see and some pretty decent deals if you're still in the market.

Brad