All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Liam: There is a subject...
Ok - I advise on TV's part-time, so hear are my thoughts.
Start with the size. A Tv should fit, like shoes. Begin with Which's Tv size guide, but if your about 9-10 feet away, your a 40-42in, and perhaps bigger. Three times the size of the screen away from it is fairly comfortable, but its up to you. Dont buy something too small, becuase the thing will look a lot smaller pretty quickly. In fact measure the width of your existing TV - a new one will be often no bigger. IE - a 50in Sony is 44in wide.
OK, Freeview HD and Full HD should be standard. Dont go to a supermarket or a catalogue store to buy a TV. You need to look at it, ask questions, and know your buying the right thing. Frankly, your on the net, so Smart and wifi will be as well.
Full HD, with all the trimmings in a 4-42in is around £379 Buy LG 42LB580V LED HD 1080p Smart TV, 42" with Freeview HD | John Lewis . 3D starts around £449 in the same size range Buy Samsung UE40H6400 LED HD 1080p 3D Smart TV, 40" with Freeview HD, Voice Control and 2x 3D Glasses | John Lewis . The Samsung is a midlevel TV. Ultimately, your paying for the panel, so you should get better contrast ratio and better motion processing as the price goes up. Get the best you reasonably can, because you cannot change the panel! At the top level, your talking around 800-1200hz screen. And it should look even better. These are all Full HD.
Best tip (customers are very surprised by this) - ask (in a proper shop) to see the end credits from a film - a shop should have some films on the Sky box. The picture will be black and white, and it moves. Its a perfect first test, becuase these are the things you are paying for. I wan the best blacks/whites, and the least amount of shudder I can. The mid level is a good place to be, because you get a lot of value. The Samsung is a good baseline. Dont worry about 3D - your paying for the refresh on the panel, the 3D bit gets chucked in for nowt. 3D films on blu-ray are fine for the kids (less than £60 for the Samsung 3D blu-ray player), but its not a big thing, although gaming might be fine with it on the PS3/4.
Freesat? Lots of TV's have generic tuners, but your really looking at the Samsung 6700 Buy Samsung UE40H6700 LED HD 1080p 3D Smart TV, 40" with Freeview/Freesat HD, Voice Control and 2x 3D Glasses | John Lewis , the Samsung 7000/8000 series, and the Panasonic 740 (midlevel in panel terms, but extra kit).
4k/UHD? Customers like 4K, but there is little out there for content except for streaming House of cards on Netflix. All the brands are betting on it, but until Sky show movies/sport, the whole thing is a bit chicken and egg. Dont expect to see a 4K picture on a 4K TV, but instead 2K content upscaled. So it has to be a good panel - its making up 75% of the picture, and moving it, so more judder is likely. The Sony 9005 is lovely, but its over three grand, but the 8 series is nice. The Samsung 8 series won awards, but the sony is better. Go and see, but most 4K's start around the 49in mark, and I'd expect to pay around £1399 for a good one. A cheap 4K will have awful refresh rates, and really struggle. 4K are of course 3D! prices are coming down, but if your spending £699 on one from Bush, your wasting your money.
Find your size, look at your budget, and go to a proper shop (I think you can guess where I work!). If you've got a grand to spend (and remember that you might need a soundbar), then something like the Samsung 6700 in a 55in would be a good solid option - good picture, a lot of value, and Freesat (2 tuners).
Whats the size of your current TV, how old, and where do you sit in realtion to it? And whats your budget, and what will be attached to it?
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MikeP: OLED is lovely (although the LG that has just come into the branch was a bit dark until someone changed the settings, and then the blacks were fantastic), but your talking three grand for a 55. You can buy a mid level 55 LED for £899...
Colour is important, but the final credits test is a decent start - if it fails that, your not really going look at it further.
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Gordon Insley: I agree - a lot of customers must just put on the TV, and change no setting at all, on audio or video.
Ian: Your quite right - CRT's have big chunky components, with relatively large speakers on the side, all in a nice resonating box. Modern TV's are perhaps an inch thick, with no real resonance, and with space for no more than a pair of 10w speakers.
I warn all customers that the sound is not going to be great, but all TV manufacturers (and audio companies) now produce soundbars/bases, etc.
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Michael Walker: I suspect its what people are used to. My parents-in-law recorded the Queens Speech on BBC1 last Christmas. I suggested that since they had an HD recorder, why not in HD. They said it was fine, but I suspect they were simply used to using 1, rather than 101. Younger people will tend to use HD more, simply because they are more used to it.
I do laugh when people say they cant tell the difference between SD and HD - we do put them on side by side, at which point they change their mind. And I did have a couple not so long ago who said they couldn't see HD on their Sky HD box. Looking at the back of the departments Sky box, they admitted they hadn't changed the cable connecting the box to the TV from scart to HDMI, which might have explained it!
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MikeP: To be fair, a Bose sound system retails around £350 - which is almost the cost of a decent 42in TV!
While a cynic might conclude that making the sound poor allows a brand to sell a soundbar as well, the fact that there has been little change in the speakers used since flat panels first came in points to a bigger problem.
TV's can now have larger screens, and can be much thinner. We now like to put them on the wall, etc. So manufacturers have to chose what we consumers desire most, and what we are willing to pay for.
We want a decent picture, and a design which looks neat, even minimalist. Yes, you might want fantastic sound, but you cant have everything, unless you are willing to pay the sort of money that gets you a B & O, Lowe, etc. And since they use third party panels anyway, you could argue that the picture quality isn't going to be vastly different (and even if you bought I high end soundsystem you might still come out with change) or you could have a design like the Sony 9005 4K, with twin speakers systems on the side (and lovely they are too).
However, thats not a cheap TV, and frankly, people buy with their eyes. There is a reason why we dont sell 5.1 sound systems any more - customers dont like the clutter.
You could have a fantastic sounding TV, but if it big, bulky and a bit clunky, people are not going to buy it. They will love something thats minimalist, silvery, and has very little surround. Sony have opened out the bottom part of their TV's to get slightly more volume for their speakers (although its more of a pain to put on the wall), but I'm not convinced its made a huge amount of difference.
LG have made big TV's for us this year which have a decent 60w soundbar as part of the stand, but you really have a problem finding a place to put decent speakers in a modern TV. And if you could, they would either look a bit clunky, or be very expensive, which means we would probably not buy it.
Life is the art of the possible....and the use of intrusive music in programmes is another thing entirely!
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Jan: Your only 13km from Crystal Palace, so check the lounge TV's signal level - if the Samsung's are different models, their tuners may have slightly different thresholds when it comes to signal strength. Its likely that the signal strength is just too high. Search for 'too much of a good thing' on this site, and go from there.
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Ian: Essentially, your signal comes to via a thin bit of copper, part of which sits outside all year, in all weathers. Although you've checked everything, its almost certain that there is a fault somewhere along that path, perhaps a crack in a join which allows moisture to get in, or a connection starting to go.
If you read through all the complaints about poor signal, etc, those that come back with the problem corrected (which most people dont, unfortunately), its normally a problem with the cable.
You havn't given us a postcode, so we cant check your signal path, etc, but you could try plugging in your TV to a neighbours aerial, and perhaps borrowing a TV from them, just to check if its any other equipment. The other thing to do is to change the aerial lead. This simple fix has worked several times - if its a bit duff, then a swapout might cure the problem.
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Alan Green: Remember that your TV might have just been on the tipping point when you watched it, and being in the middle of the night, there might be a slight difference in atmospheric conditions, hence a slightly lower signal level. Why not use an attenuator (they are just £1.59 each from Amazon), and see if it makes a difference?
Different tuners react in different ways, and they might not have a problem, whereas yours might be a tad sensitive.
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Ian: Your just 15km from Winter Hill, so you should get a cracking signal. Could well be water in a junction box. Best thing to do is to eliminate each possible problem, and if you've got two TV's, you can narrow it down to the point where the signal splits, etc.
If you look back at the comments who have problem like yours, its not always the weak channels that disappear first, it can be a lot more random than that.
Let us know how you get on.
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Sunday 26 October 2014 6:34PM
Mena Lawrence: Check that your tuned to the right transmitter. You should be Winter Hill, which is 30km away. But it could be that your tuned to Emley Moor, which is 87km away, but in pretty much the same direction, but has a slightly lower frequency.
If you are tuned into Winter Hill, check the signal strength, it should be no more than about 80% - could be too strong a signal.
If the signal is very low, then you've got a probelm with your aerial system, and you need to call someone out.