New LED tv's. Wow!

[Brad Johnson]

Was cruising the local Big Box Electronics center yesterday and saw a couple of the new LED televisions. Holy Smokes! I thought the picture on some of the higher-end plasma and LCD units was good. This puts them all to shame.

They had a Samsung 46" unit set up with PotC: Dead Man's Chest on Blu-Ray. I had to do a double take. The picture is, in a word, stunning. I literally had my mouth open in amazement. My GF poked me in the side after a few seconds. She laughed and said, "You're drooling." No kidding!

Too bad they are three times the price of a comparable LCD unit. *sigh*

Brad

[Nick1911]

Too bad they are three times the price of a comparable LCD unit. *sigh*

Give it a year or two!

[MechAg94]

I have a Samsung 42" LED HDTV.  It was a good bit cheaper than the comparable LCD and plasma units I was looking at.  Works great as far as I am concerned. 

[mtnbkr]

I saw the Samsung model shortly after the ads started and was stunned as well.

Chris

[HankB]

"LED" televisions just use LEDs for the backlight - nothing magical there. The actual picture is still produced by an LCD.

Are they good? Sure - if they're from a name brand. But IMHO the current inflated prices are not worth the (very) small incremental improvement in picture quality.

But be aware, places like Best Buy adjust their sets to look good in their brightly-lit stores . . . in fact, some manufacturers have "store" and "home" as options for initial setup. Casual shoppers are attracted by brighter sets, artificially oversaturated colors, and excessive contrast.

[mtnbkr]

That doesn't change the fact that the LED TV I saw had a better picture than anything I've seen before.  It was better than the LCD sets elsewhere in the store.

LED might be nothing more than a marketing gimmick, but the picture quality was better and it wasn't subtle.

Chris

[Jamisjockey]

Tough market to introduce a new, high end TV. 

[RaspberrySurprise]

At least you shouldn't have to ever worry about replacing the back light in an LED TV.

[MicroBalrog]

What's an LED TV? Is it the same as an OLED TV?

[mtnbkr]

Tough market to introduce a new, high end TV. 

I think it came out last Winter or early this year.  But, yeah, it's not a good time for multi-kilobuck consumer toys.  As nice as it is, I'm not tempted to go into debt for it.  I'll wait till things improve and I can get a 40" (no need for anything larger in my house) version for well under a grand.

Chris

[BryanP]

Just to clarify, the "LED" TV's are LCD TV's.  They have an LED back light.  The first LED backlights were mounted at the sides.  The newer ones just now coming out will have an array of LED's across the back of the TV.

Edit: nvm, someone else already pointed it out. 


They do look stunning though.  And unlike my LCD the backlight bulb won't need to be replaced.

[AJ Dual]

What's an LED TV? Is it the same as an OLED TV?

What BryanP above points out... The LED's have a much longer lifespan than teh CCFL's that are normally used as LCD backlighting.

I will be more excited when OLED's become common. And then become common on flexible or rollable substrates. 

[Nick1911]

I will be more excited when OLED's become common. And then become common on flexible or rollable substrates. 

Advertising will be more annoying then ever before!

[Marnoot]

Further clarification: LED-lit rear-projection DLP TVs (what I have)—using one red, one green, and one blue LED—have been out for awhile and are pretty cheap.
The benefit compared to other rear projections TVs being that they don't have a bulb to burn out. The downside of course to a rear-projection being that they're quite thick, and the viewing angle is poor.

The LCD LED TVs are newer, use white LEDs (I believe), are just as thin as previous LCDs if not thinner, and have the benefit of the backlight not burning out. When a fluorescent backlight burns out on an LED, you're out of luck, they're generally not a replaceable part.

[French G.]

You people have TVs? We have a 13in CRT for watching DVDs. Stuck in the stone age we are. I had dish but needed $60 a month. Now, for the two years since we killed service, the dish people call about once a week. If I ever finish my family room I'll get some monstrosity to hang up in there. Surround sound, big sub-woofer, and CoD IV!



If my wife lets me...   

[HankB]

I'll wait till things improve and I can get a 40" (no need for anything larger in my house) version for well under a grand.

A couple of months ago I bought a 40" Toshiba 40XV645U for under $800 at Best Buy. Use it in the master bedroom. 10-bit panel (probably made by Samsung), 14-bit processor, 120 Hz, and it still has the S-Video connector that some manufacturers (notably LG & Samsung) have discontinued. Even making due allowance for store settings, it still looked better (or at least as good) than some much more expensive Sony and Samsung sets right next to it.

It took a little tweaking to get it looking the way I wanted - default settings had noticeable black crush - but I'm very pleased with it right now.

(One annoyance - Toshiba literature said this model has channel labeling. The literature lies - it doesn't.  )

[280plus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut

Liquid crystal display (LCD) screens filter the light emitted by a backlight. The gamut of an LCD screen is therefore limited to the emitted spectrum of the backlight. Typical LCD screens use cold-cathode fluorescent bulbs (CCFL's) for backlights. LCD Screens with certain LED or wide-gamut CCFL backlights yield a more comprehensive gamut than CRTs.

[StopTheGrays]

http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/200909094647/sony-puts-3d-into-bravia-lcds.html
Sony 3d TV is coming. Will it take as long as it took HD to become mainsteam?