TV suggestions

unrealii

Active Member
I have an old school sony 27" tv which was built in 1986. It took a crap on me a while ago, but now I am having the urge to have a working tv in my room. Here is a picture of my old tv. I am afraid to spend any money on a tv which isn't already hd/1080i compatible because I dont want it to outdate so soon. Now I have some options:

-A small local electronics store has an old sony similar to mine, but it has rca inputs, stereo, built in 1988, and works. They want $100 for it with 30 day warranty. I asked about a year warranty, the guy said $150 :( I think I have seen this thing sitting there for the past few months...maybe I could offer $70 with the 30 day warranty? If this lasts for a year, I will be happy. Hopefully by then I will have a stable job and can afford to buy something nice.

-Ken Cranes has an open box demo model toshiba 32HFX73 for $700. This thing has been marked down from $1300, to $1000, to $700. I might just tell the salesguy to call me when he can sell it at $500 because I dont see many people looking for a 4:3 crt hd set in a high end shop. It has 2 1080i inputs as well as dvi input. 32" is a bit large, but would be a good tv to grow into as I am graduating this spring and will probably move out of my house within 3-5 years after graduation, or sooner if I get hired somewhere else.

-24" sony wega crt, I could just buy this, then deal with an upgrade when I need it.

-lcd tv, I would like one of these, but can't afford anything name brand, nor any off brand with 1080i capabilities.

-tv tuner for lcd monitor, could always buy a tv tuner and turn one of my 17" monitors into a tv, but problem is that it is on my computer desk.


Right now I am leaning towards the used sony. I just hope it can support whatever resolutions that my ps2 gives to it via rca composite input. It also saves me from having to buy any furniture since you can see all the other crap I need the tv to hold. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Budget, no more than $500 for a crt tv, want it to last long though...or $800 for an small lcd. - I dont think I will find anything worth while for $800, but thats already stretching my wallet :lol:
 
I personally would just buy a small tv from Wal*Mart, you can buy a 19" for under 100 bucks, brand new. Then create an online savings account, and keep dumping money in there until you are ready to buy a big TV. A lot of things are changing right now, so it doesn't make sense to invest in a big nice TV right now.
 
Hmm...Never thought of that... :(

This one has caught my eye: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp...9875#long_descr
http://www.sanyo.com/entertainment/televis...m?productID=929
$130

not to shabby...it has component inputs. 65w power consumption isn't bad either considering the used sony is 160w. I am a bit weary as of the 4 sanyo's my family has owned, two have broke on us. But my little brother was the one using those, so I guess that explains it :lol:

Thanks for the suggestion E, I'll definitly check it out. I'm not up for buying any furniture, so I may have it all ghetto rigged for a bit. :lol:
 
screw it...I can't justify buying a tube, so I picked up a hauppage WinTV-PVR-USB2 . It has hardware decoding, so now I am going to use it at a pvr and record a crap load of shows. If I feel like lying down in bed, I can put my laptop on my dresser and watch tv...this seems to fit what I need. Lets hope it works well :lol:
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of HTPC's

The TV tuner you have is a great choice, but the software that comes with it.... well, you'll see soon enough...:lol:

TT
 
Yeah, this thing is nice. However, if I were to buy some htpc software, would it be able to take advantage of the built in hardware encoding...otherwise it may be better I return it and buy one without the hardware encoding.

Any suggestions for some htpc software? All I want is a good pvr software.
 
Probably the two most popular commercial Windows-based PVR programs are BeyondTV (www.snapstream.com) and SageTV (www.sagetv.com). Both say that they work with the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-USB2. According to Hauppauge's site, it also works under Windows MCE 2005 (if you want to change OSs). There are quite a few other PVR programs out there (some free, some not).

Oh, and you always want something with hardware encoding if your goal is to record video. It puts much less demand on the PC. If your goal is to stream incoming video (not recorded video), then you might want to consider something that doesn't use hardware encoding (to eliminate the overhead of encoding, decoding, and encoding again).
 
hey...I dont know if I mentioned this, but I didn't feel like stomaching $130 for that tv tuner. I figured I would buy a nice tv when I graduate. I have a job lined up in consulting and will be living at home since I will be traveling a lot.

Now I'm thinking of going with an lcd.
This samsung has really caught my eye. I can get it for $935 shipped from jr.com ...I hope they are a good company, I think amazon is partnered with them...
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Me...sung.07-3308166

-3000:1 dynamic contrast radio (dunno what dynamic means in this, but I know that number is a lot higher than other lcd tvs...could it be adjusting the brightness of the tv too??)
-12 ms response time..im not complaining
-23", 500 nits brightness, hdmi input, 2 components, vga input
-only 1 year warranty...not sure about dead pixel policy
 
As far as I know, J&R is a perfectly respectable company - unlike most businesses located in NYC. It's not a hole in the wall like a lot of the others. I've never ordered anything from them or been to the store, but I don't think I'd hesitate if I found a good deal.
 
Cool, I'll have to beefs with ordering from them.

Anyone know any more details on that samsung?...YAY or NAY?
 
I can't comment on that one, but I bought a Samsung 32" HD from Crutchfield about a year ago and it's great!
 
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