Thinner flat Screen televisions

[citizen72]

My wife and I had decided we would buy our first flat screen LCD television to watch the Super Bowl. The young salesmen at Best Buy, who waited on us, amazingly told us should really wait a few months as the new 08 televisions are going to get a bunch thinner. Thinner to the tune of say 1 centimeter. He said something about an organic set known as OLED that is also coming out.

Anyone know what is going on here?  Was the young man correct about waiting?

[Steve]

I don't know if what you were told was true, but if it is, then that will just drive the price of current LCD & plasma TV's down even more.  1 centimeter seems pretty ridiculous to me, but whatever, emerging technology always drives down the price of the existing sets.

I am still sticking with my 3 year old analog 32" CRT tube TV.  Still works great for me, even though I will need a digital converter box about a year from now.  By that time, I will probably be able to to buy a 50" plasma HDTV for $500, at the rate things are going.  Technology seems to be changing so fast these days.  The smart consumer won't be rash and take a wait-and-see stance.

[okieinla]

The Consumer Electronics Show offers a glimpse of what's ahead in TV technology.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cestv13jan13,1,2363819.story

LATimes article from last Sunday. There's mention of the OLED... super cool, thinner but very expensive.
I hope the video plays when you link up.

[sgrizzle]

OLED will be great, but they aren't exactly on the truck yet. There is awhile to wait and TV's will get thinner but new technology has been unreasonably slow to market in the HDTV realm because the manufacturers have dragged their feet.

SDTV (The TV;s most of us grew up with) where originally supposed to be discontinued years ago, like 2005. That way, when Feb 2009 hits and analog TV is turned off, more people are prepared.

[Ibanez]

OLED will carry a fairly hefty price premium when they hit the market. Go ahead and find a set you like now and buy it. If you keep waiting for the next best thing you will never get a new set.

I would strongly suggest you go the LCD route. We currently have a DLP set, a LCD set and a plasma set. The plasma set looks great, if the conditions are perfect. We have big problems with light reflections on it and the viewing angle seems to be fairly narrow both vertically and horizontally. It does have a better picture than the DLP or LCD sets, but only when everything is just perfect. Even then the difference isn't that great.

[TheArtist]

Yea, I was going to say, If you wait to get the next new technology you will be paying 20,000$ for the same sized set you can get for 2,000$ of the "old" types. Course if you want to wait some more, perhaps 3 or 4 years, for the price to drop...

[sauerkraut]

Heck- I still have my 20" RCA TV from 1992. It works great. I read in a mag. that some new TV's are about to come out called "Laser TV" they have clearer pictures that can blow away the current crop of TV sets. I guess some were on display at the Las Vegas Convention. The laser TV sets were due to come out before Christmas according to the article, but they put it off. I guess soon the blu-ray and HD-DVD discs will be replaced by some kind of "card" that can hold more data and give a clear picture. If I was you I'd hold off.

[sgrizzle]

Keep in mind you have a year to do "something" before everything goes widescreen and HD.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

Keep in mind you have a year to do "something" before everything goes widescreen and HD.

uh, not everything is going widescreen a year from now.  In fact, expect lots of 4:3 dreck on digital cable for years to come.

[restored2x]

quote:Originally posted by wavoka

OLED will carry a fairly hefty price premium when they hit the market. Go ahead and find a set you like now and buy it. If you keep waiting for the next best thing you will never get a new set.

I would strongly suggest you go the LCD route. We currently have a DLP set, a LCD set and a plasma set. The plasma set looks great, if the conditions are perfect. We have big problems with light reflections on it and the viewing angle seems to be fairly narrow both vertically and horizontally. It does have a better picture than the DLP or LCD sets, but only when everything is just perfect. Even then the difference isn't that great.

Wow. That surprises me. I have a 27" LCD (I use as my computer monitor) and two 42" plasmas. One is a Panasonic that I've had for 4 years (ED not HD) the other is a cheapo ($400) refurb plasma. The plasmas are incredibly superior to the LCDs I've seen. The Panasonic cost me $2700 when I bought it and is made of superior quality components. Glare was never a problem, and viewing angle is suppossed to be better on plasmas than on LCDs. If I could afford it (and was crazy) I'd get a 50" Panasonic plasma over ANYTHING available. The cheap plasmas have problems with burn-in. LCD does not suffer from this weakness. Many people perceive the LCD motion to be "staggered", others don't see it.

All in all, I'd prefer a quality plasma over an LCD or DLP any day. Bring the family over for Super Bowl - then make a decision.

[Ibanez]

quote:Originally posted by restored2x

quote:Originally posted by wavoka

OLED will carry a fairly hefty price premium when they hit the market. Go ahead and find a set you like now and buy it. If you keep waiting for the next best thing you will never get a new set.

I would strongly suggest you go the LCD route. We currently have a DLP set, a LCD set and a plasma set. The plasma set looks great, if the conditions are perfect. We have big problems with light reflections on it and the viewing angle seems to be fairly narrow both vertically and horizontally. It does have a better picture than the DLP or LCD sets, but only when everything is just perfect. Even then the difference isn't that great.

Wow. That surprises me. I have a 27" LCD (I use as my computer monitor) and two 42" plasmas. One is a Panasonic that I've had for 4 years (ED not HD) the other is a cheapo ($400) refurb plasma. The plasmas are incredibly superior to the LCDs I've seen. The Panasonic cost me $2700 when I bought it and is made of superior quality components. Glare was never a problem, and viewing angle is suppossed to be better on plasmas than on LCDs. If I could afford it (and was crazy) I'd get a 50" Panasonic plasma over ANYTHING available. The cheap plasmas have problems with burn-in. LCD does not suffer from this weakness. Many people perceive the LCD motion to be "staggered", others don't see it.

All in all, I'd prefer a quality plasma over an LCD or DLP any day. Bring the family over for Super Bowl - then make a decision.

The older LCD's had more problems than the modern ones. Samsung makes LCD sets that have great pictures. They use a different backlighting technique, can't remember what it is called, that greatly improves black levels, viewing angles, motion blur and etc... OUr Plasma is a LG and it looks good, but if the light is too bright there is a lot of screen glare. The viewing angle problem is likely my fault for mounting it too high, it is in the bedroom and I wanted it high enough that I could lie my lazy donkey in bed and still see it.

One thing I have been reading is that they expect plasma to go the way of the Dodo fairly soon.

The laser sets you have been reading about have been pushed hard by Samsung and TI. One of my cousins works for TI and was on the team that originally devloped the DLP chip. He is now on the team working on the laser television technology.

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

Keep in mind you have a year to do "something" before everything goes widescreen and HD.

uh, not everything is going widescreen a year from now.  In fact, expect lots of 4:3 dreck on digital cable for years to come.

I predict 4:3 in a 16:9 signal, so you get the black border on all 4 sides if you have an older 4:3 set (that doesn't have options like zoom and aspect ratio.)

[nathanm]

OLED is and will continue to be a crock until they get the useful life up to something more..useful. There are two things that limit the life of the LCD. Practical obsolescence, as in it gets so old that newer models are far more featureful and the backlight failing.

In OLEDs, the actual elements themselves fail to function after a relatively short amount of time.

As far as plasma vs. LCD, go someplace where they have controlled lighting conditions. A big box store is about the worst place to view the various screens. In general, though, LCDs are better if the lighting in your viewing room is uncontrolled and/or you tend to do more of your viewing during the day, while the plasma will be superior if you can control the lighting in your viewing room.

The average LCD will be significantly brighter than the average plasma screen, even after calibration, but at a cost of fine detail in dark areas on the picture. LCDs are getting better every year, though. After I calibrated my two year old LCD set, it looks very good, but it can't hold a candle to the new screens from the major manufacturers. I should have waited six months and gotten a 1080p 120Hz set, but I didn't. These days I could get a significantly larger set with much better features and performance for the same price.

My living room has a big sliding glass door among other impediments to keeping the room dim, so I went with an LCD.

The salesman may be right about waiting, but you'd probably be better off getting something good from the '07 lineup. I haven't been paying much attention, but I don't think there are a whole lot of new features in the sets this year. If not, there may be some very good discounts on the current crop in a few months.

Last year I happened to see the same set I have going for about 40% off what I paid in a few places. Of course, they were trying to get rid of a 720p TV in a market saturated with 1080p ads and gear.

If you have the time, you might check out AVS Forum for more discussion about these things than anybody in their right mind has time to read.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

quote:Originally posted by inteller

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

Keep in mind you have a year to do "something" before everything goes widescreen and HD.

uh, not everything is going widescreen a year from now.  In fact, expect lots of 4:3 dreck on digital cable for years to come.

I predict 4:3 in a 16:9 signal, so you get the black border on all 4 sides if you have an older 4:3 set (that doesn't have options like zoom and aspect ratio.)

you see that to a certain extent already, but the cable box still has some preset options.  

i wish they could banish 4:3 content to DVD releases of old shows.  And a channel should not be aloowed to go HD until it has 50% or more content in HD.  The **** that Discovery can out with with Science HD and Animal planet HD is horrible with lots of strange half donkey stretchovision stuff.  Even TNT does a better job than Discovery.

[sauerkraut]

We don't plan to buy any TV set- we'll use the converter box on our old TV. We are more intrested in the new "laser TV" sets when they come out- info on them can be had by googling "Laser TV" They are the cream of crop they have it all deep brite colors, great movement and as clear as a TV can be. They work by using 3 laser guns that shoot a green, red and blue bean at the screen. (A bit like the old CTR's electron gun). The picture is super they blow away todays TV sets.