what is considered to be the best HDTV LCD TV 32"—-40" ? reliability, picture quality& clarity & color? cost for the money? A lasting LCD HDTV & quality for the money, with good customer service?
Buying a new LCD HDTV, will be connecting it to a DirecTV HD DVR receiver, but my existing DVD library is all in standard definition (as well as…gasp…all my old VCR tapes), and I don’t plan on instantly throwing all that media away in favor of Blu-Ray. I’m going to need (I assume) to buy a new DVD player that will upconvert my SD DVDs to 1080i (maybe there’s a Blu-Ray that will do that too), doubt there’s anything I can do relative to the VCR except hook it up via the appropriate connectors. Of course, I’ll use HDMI cabling for the DirecTV and new DVD player.
At any rate, I’ve heard horror stories that SD content looks like crap on an LCD HDTV (in terms of graininess) compared to the picture I’d get on my old tube TV. I know about setting the format to 4:3 for non-widescreen HD stuff, just more concerned about general SD picture quality. Do some HDTVs do a better job of presenting a high quality SD picture, and if so, which ones? I’m looking at a "budget" model (Philips, Vizio, Toshiba, LG, Sharp) in the 42-47" range, preferably 120Hz, trying to keep the price under 0. I’d consider paying a little more for a Samsung or Sony if they will display a far better SD picture than the other brands. Does anyone have any recommendations (or want to steer me away from certain brands/models)? Am I worrying needlessly?
For those of you thinking about up grading your aging CRT TV with an HDTV, I want to simplify the process for you. Stick with a major player like LG and take a look at the LG 32LH30 LCD. Priced just under $500, it will compete with units priced much higher. Let me clarify that, you will not find any significant difference between one costing up to $1000 TV when compared to this one.
HDTV is a buzz word meaning high density TV. It’s the industry standard and in a few years, people will once again refer to their television as the “TV”. HDTV just sounds cool! The eyes never lie. Go down to your local electronics gadgets store and you will see for yourself how clear the picture is. I don’t need to be talking pixels and refresh rates. Sure they are cool for the geeks, but what really counts is what you see on the screen and how good it looks.
With prices relatively low and the foot prints of TVs like the 32LH30 LCD so small, people are rapidly replacing their old analog CRT TVs. Units like the 32LH30 are only a 3.1 inches thick! To give you a perspective, they are fractionally a little larger than your computer monitor! Another factor adding to dumping these old TVs is the growing availability of HD programming-both online and off-line.
The built in picture wizard helps the consumer perform calibration of the controls for brightness, contrast, tint, color, horizontal and vertical sharpness, and back light. This is better than many competing models. The LG 32LH30 LCD is the Best Entry Level HDTV.
Connectivity with the 32LH30 LCD is not an issue. You will find two HDMI ports, a component-video input, an AV input with composite video, a RF input for antenna or cable, an RGB-style analog PC input, and an optical digital audio output located on the back panel. On the left side is the third HDMI input plus a second AV input with composite video.