Recommend a good 37 inch TV

Niall1234

Anyone recommend a good 37 inch HDTV.

Will be hooking it up to SDTV Sky Digital and a PS3.

Really frustrating me that there are very few places online showing prices. The best I could find was the Harvey Norman website.

Am I likely to get a 37inch 1080p with decent contrast ratio for circa €1100 ? My primary concern would be that it would show SDTV with a nice picture. I hear that for showing SDTV, Plasmas are better than LCD's ? What would be a reasonable price for a Panasonic Plasma 1080p ? Would a 720p be far more in my price range ?

I've also seen that a lot of the new TV's have digital tuners in them. I'm guessing for the most part that these are all MPEG2 and will be useless when as presumed, RTE go for MPEG4 encoding with their terrestrial digital service ?

big_moe

for SDTV, yes plasma is better. at 37" there is no 1080p plasma. 42" is the smallest 1080p plasma.

there is a new panasonic out now fro 1199 the PV80, http://www.allianceelectric.ie/products/tv/plasmalcd/th37pv80.htm

or some places have a few of the older models at 899, the PV70 http://www.allianceelectric.ie/products/tv/plasmalcd/th37pv70.htm

the new PV80 has a few extra sockets over the older one and the picture is a bit better with a higher contrast ratio.

and yes, digital tuners in tvs at the moment are mpeg2, so fairly useless in the long term. they'll work on the rte trial dtt service but as you said, rte will be going mpeg4 for the "proper' service

adam

Niall1234

Thanks for the information.

Is there a reason why Panasonic use 1024 x 720 pixel format for their 37 inch Plasma ? How come they don't use the standard 1366 x 720 format which is normally used for HD Ready TVs ?

Does this mean the pixels are elongated ? Any issues with picture quality because of this ?

I'm guessing that any similar sized Pioneer is out of my price range. Very hard to get price info on the net btw.

py2006

I am currently looking at the Samsung 37"ers. The LE37M87 and the LE37F8 ones. They both seem like good lcd's. You should consider them too.

xanthor

py2006 wrote: »

I am currently looking at the Samsung 37"ers. The LE37M87 and the LE37F8 ones. They both seem like good lcd's. You should consider them too.

The 37 inch version of the M8 doesn't have the "Super clear" panel that is on LE40M86/7 and larger models. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but that panel is one of the selling points of the M8.

Niall1234

After a fair bit of reading and a look around the shops today, I have to say I was impressed by the 37 inch Panasonics I saw. A lot of the Sony and Phillips LCD's didn't have the smooth image of the Panasonic Plasma.

My only hold up is the 1024x766 resolution. I find it odd that it was rectangular pixels. Does it display images from a PS3 well ?

311

The panasonic really shines when your looking at movies in low light.

I've got a 37" Panasonic and I have to say ,it's a quality tv and I'm glad I bought it.
Occasionally higher res would be nice ,but that only happens when the movies are s**te tbh:D

Niall1234

Sorry to bug everyone, but does anyone have a PS3 or XBox hooked up to one ?

Hows does it look ?

big_moe

i had a 37" with ps3 and now i have the 42" with the ps3 and its savage. call of duty 4 on it is stunning. and then blu rays... jaysus! just got the corpse bride on blu ray over the weekend and the picture is unbelievable.

even using the ps3 for older games (ps2) still makes it look decent

adam