[mythtv-users] Which TFT to get?

[R. G. Newbury]

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!

Geoff



Brian Wood wrote:
> On Mar 17, 2006, at 12:58 PM, Ben Edwards (lists) wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, 2006-03-17 at 12:19 -0700, Brian Wood wrote:
>>
>> Was thinking more of a 20-25" TFT, preferably under £400 (due to some
>> strange maths/logic the us dollar/UK sterling cost of things is often
>> very smiler!). I have also noticed the ones with tuners (i.e. TFT TVs)
>> are a LOT more expensive and often have artifacts.  I have a 20"  
>> Samsung
>> SyncMaster which I got for around £200 and its has a better picture  
>> than
>> 17" LCD Tvs which are over twice the price.
>>
> 
> Sorry, I keep thinking everyone lives in the USA, us Americans are  
> very bad at that. I read a couple of Linux mags from the UK and I've  
> noticed that prices there seem to be outrageous by US standards.
> 
> Funny how 20 years ago they would remove the expensive RF and IF  
> components from a TV set, and replace them with a 75-cent BNC jack to  
> create a "monitor". Somehow this seemed to increase the price by 50%.
> 
> Now they add a $20 tuner to a "monitor" and increase the price by  
> $100 - $200.
> 
> I've noticed that there is not a direct correlation between price and  
> quality, and you do seem to pay a lot for a "name". That might be  
> important if you have a problem and need service, but it's worth  
> nothing if the unit works OK.
> 
> The specs can be jiggled to be anything you want (response time to  
> what? black to white to black?, gray to gray ? Black to white ? Off  
> to off ?). I was very leery of buying a monitor sight unseen but it  
> has worked out OK.
> 
> The best looking 20" 16:9 LCD screen I have seen is the one on my  
> iMac, and with the Intel machines out now you might be able to pick  
> up a G5 refurb unit cheap enough to be worth it for the screen :-)
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-- 
        R. Geoffrey Newbury			
      Barrister and Solicitor
  Suite 106, 150 Lakeshore Road West
     Mississauga, Ontario, L5H 3R2

   905-271-9600  Fax 905-271-1638
        newbury at mandamus.org