[mythtv-users] Which TFT to get?

[Meatwad]

R. G. Newbury wrote:
> Apropos the comment below about buying the 'name', the backside of that 
> is that the name brand is built with better components and will last longer.
> 
> My Sony stereo receiver and its remote recently died. I got them fixed 
> for $75 Cdn. Needed a new CR2025 battery for the receivers tuner memory, 
> some capacitors in the power supply and a new IR transmitter/reciever 
> diode in the remote. The repair guy asked me when I bought them. Some 
> research pointed to ~1982!.
> Interestingly, the 26" Sony Trinitron TV then started acting up. I 
> started thinking about a nice LCD widescreen... and the cost thereof.
> 
> Turned out to be the same sort of power supply capacitor problem. The 
> repair guy *made a house call* to remove the guts of the TV rather than 
> my humping the 70 odd pounds to his shop and had it back in 2 days for 
> another $75. He also tuned up the convergence and other bits and lo and 
> behold the picture is astounding.
> 
> I recovered this TV from the trash coming out of a house across the 
> street after someone moved. They took the 37" and left the 26"!. I had 
> no idea of its age. The repair guy tracked it down to 1988 from the 
> components inside.
> 
> Now I will NEVER buy a Sony CD because of the DRM crap, but I WILL buy 
> Sony hardware. Sometimes you do get what you pay for.
> 
> Then again, this free advice may be worth exactly what you have paid for it!

This was very true of Sony HW (and a few other brands) until the 
mid-to-late 90's. QC and build quality have dwindled to match that of 
the popcorn commodity offshore crud (here in the US anyways) because 
consumers have been blinded by the plummeting price of electronics and 
have become accustomed to just throwing away the POS and replacing it 
with another.

Most custom installers like myself won't touch the stuff anymore because 
of the dismal failure rates within 24 months. There is nothing worse in 
my business than having to explain to a customer why his $X piece of 
equipment needs to be replaced after only a year or two when they are 
spending 100*X on a system. Not good when you live on word-of-mouth.

Mitsubishi was always a great tube/RP but they went out of their way to 
make it near impossible to integrate their offerings with automation 
systems. Haven't used any mitsu liquid panels so I can't really say one 
way or the other. Not many of my peers use them either.

Samsung is a crapshoot. Every now and then they make a great piece but 
they keep missing the mark, series after series, regarding integration 
and reliability.

I'll *pay* the Phillips rep to stop calling me.

Panasonic has been a "go to" brand for a long time but they are starting 
to behave like Samsung in the last couple of years.

As for the OEM bezel branders (Maxent, Akai, Sceptre, etal): Don't know, 
don't care. I don't have the time to play around with stuff rolling off 
the recycled 1st and 2nd generation manufacturing lines. I can't afford 
to waste time trying them out.

LG looks promising so far. Have been with them in distribution so far 
just to get the feet wet and will likely go direct if I can keep up the 
volume. The failure rates reported by peers have been very, very low. 
Mostly DOA and likely due to handling. When LG purchased Zenith, they 
took on the marketing crew and reliability has always been job one with 
Zenith.

My .02 from a CI's perspective: If you can't fit Runco into the budget, 
take a look at LG.

--
mw