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Our old plasma (I think the second generation) is beginning to have problems, so I could use an advice on new flat TV purchase.
I once was active in video... years ago... but lost interest, now I don't need no surround or stuff like that, so the TV must have good internal speakers.
Looking for 60" size, smart TV with good, and NATURAL picture...
Follow Ups:
The Samsung PNF8500 (60" model) is all over the place for about $1640. I doubt you'll do better for the money....
-RW-
Problem is finding it for that price locally. There is great beauty in being able to simply take it back if something is not working... otherwise you may end up calling "Joe's Budget TV's" and talking to the answering machine.
Talked a bit with my wife, she is in love with the super-thin LED TV's, doesn't like the bulky stuff... women... :)
Which smart LED would anyone recommend? I am still hot on plasma, but considering the options... I like home-made dinners. :)
Samsung is still in the market though at a premium for the slim models. I picked up a 51" F5500 series in January and it's simply outstanding. However, it is reflective and wouldn't work well in a bright room or where you have windows behind you and whatnot.
As far as a SmartTV, I have three of them and the new Samsungs are head and heels above any of the others. You can even do Skype with it with their optional camera. The Netflix interface is excellent and their touch pad remote is slick and makes navigation a breeze. It even has a voice UI though I don't use it, it does work well.
-Rod
Your house must look like the network control room! :) Hopefully each one can be set with split screen too! :)
But yes, Samsung is on the top of the list for now.
I didn't tell you about the three tube TVs in bedrooms and the other two 27" TV/monitors that the wife and I use for our PCs, Samsung P2770HDs. What is it? 8 total.
Only one is connected to a cable box, the rest just get the standard cable TV channels and a half dozen broadcast HD channels.
-Rod
That Samsung keyboard for $77 looks very nice, I suspect my wife will grow attachment to it! :)
I suppose it'd be useful for web browsing.
-Rod
And receiving phone calls. That is all we do with our phones... pretty much.
We are as anti-trend as it gets. I even hate typing on iPad, and never type on the phone.
No... the full keyboard is it! :)
2nd generation oled, 55" I have not seen this set so I can't really make a recommendation but from what I read it has a plasma quality
type picture
Victor,
First, I would like to say what a nice thing it is you are doing to try and help the old lady in PA. I told my wife about your effort and after a day of reading and watching TV about Ferguson and all the other ills of the world, she remarked to me that hearing about your effort reminded her that not everything in this world is f'd up. It is a simple thing you are doing, but it is nice to know people are still capable of extending small kindnesses to one another.
Anyway, my recommendation would be to scour Craigs List and other similar sources for a gently use Pioneer PRO-151FD. LCD has made advancements, but even the very best current model LCDs kind of suck compared to the Pio Kuros. There will likely be nothing to match the Kuros until such time that OLED gets all of its kinks worked out, and don't look for that to happen for at least 2 - 3 years.
Panasonic got many of the Pioneer engineers when they gave up the Plasma business. The last of the Panny Plasmas were considered even better than the Kuro sets.
However, Panasonic has been out of Plasma since about March of '14 and I've heard that Samsung is out, as well. That leaves LG, which while making a nice set, it NOT quite up to the other guys.I suspect one BIG problem is making a 4k plasma set.
I dont' know if you are talking $$ limit, but I'd get a '60' series Panasonic. The upper end models are superb, but costly. Still, not as costly as the Kuros WERE.
They caught me by surprise and I was NOT able to upgrade my S30 at that time. Drat.
Too much is never enough
Edits: 08/20/14
Thank you for your kind words!
I will check out that Pioneer.
Victor,
That Pio model has not been manufactured since Pio exited the plasma business at the end of 2010. The link to information about it on the Pio site is still active and appears below. It will probably fall short of your expectations for smartness, but somehow I don't think that will be what you focus on if/when you see one in action.
Well, Panasonic has discontinued plasma TVs, so if you want a plasma, it will be LG or Samsung. They both seem to have good picture quality by what I can tell in the store. My 8 year old Panasonic still looks great.
Sammy has announced they too are ditching plasma. So, if a Sammy plasma appeals to you, you'd better run out and buy it today.
It is a bit more than I would like to spend on a TV, at about $2.5K, but apparently it is a top ranking TV today.
Yes, at this point I am inclined to go plasma.
Any other models to recommend?
Over $800 less than the $2500 you quoted...
-RW-
good things about ours. Never ceases to get "oohs" and "ahs" from visitors. I've yet to see anything near it's naturalness or vividness.
The Kuros were nice, but the last couple of generations from Panasonic were better, according to all the review sites. Of course, Panasonic did buy the rights to the Kuro line from Pioneer.
plasma, because of its "no cost" design.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/is-samsungs-f8500-plasma-a-kuro-killer/#!bGQIsp
You'll notice the less-than-exciting comments about the Panasonic plasma and also the fact that the Samsung comments of superiority are one writer's admittedly non-objective view, i.e. the blackness wasn't subjected to test that established the Kuro's legend.
Edits: 08/20/14 08/20/14
Several years after the link you used.
Jack
You are correct. My apologies. I missed the next page button and saw the comments and wrongly concluded that was the end of the article. Although, the PRO 111FD is/was current @ 2008, the Pios, just like the Pannys, got better with each generation. Somehow not surprised at all that the Panny supplied PRO 151FD didn't show as well. Don't get me wrong, I think the Pannys were/are great plasmas, even steered my brother and two co-workers to them when they wanted to buy new TV's and they love them. I still feel the last gen Pios are a little better. I damn near bought a 60" Panny ZT this past December, but latched on to a very lightly used PRO 141FD Signature and plan to live with it for at least the next 5 years. Hopefully OLED will have its poop together by then.Edit: This post was intended as reply to mrdavis842. Sorry for getting it out of sequence
Edits: 08/21/14 08/21/14
That was one review I saw. There are several others out there that claim the same thing, that the latest generation of Panasonics did indeed beat the Kuros. As good as the Kuros were, time finally passed them up. Even when I bought my 50" Panasonic, I compared it to the Kuro in the store. After they were both calibrated, the Kuro was a tad better than the Panasonic, but not enough to justify the huge difference in price. At home, with nothing else to compare it to, I still find its picture superb, and it is a 2007 model.
"beat our in-house Kuro" Which Kuro? Funny he gets no more specific than that. Hardly what I'd call a definitive statement let alone remotely supported with anything other than the reviewers own subjective claims.
You should actually read the review, he clearly states what the 2 models of Kuros were that he used. I guess you also missed where he mentions taking [objective] measurements - oh that's right, you didn't read the review. BTW, where is your support for Kuro vs. Panasonic that you are basing your argument on?
The highly respected Tom Norton reviewed both the Panasonic ZT60 and VT60 plasmas, with measurements, for Sound & Vision (October 2013). He compared them against his own Pioneer Kuro Elite Signature Series PRO-141FD with the same outcome as the CNET review.
Maybe you should reread Mr. Norton's review. What he said was ...
"It’s perhaps important to note that during this comparison, our sample of the Panasonic TC-65ZT60 had barely 150 hours on its clock, while the Pioneer Kuro PRO-141FD had four years of almost daily use behind it. With that considered, however, the bottom line is that this new Panasonic flagship can take a direct comparison to a Pioneer Kuro and come out, if not on top, at least very much on equal footing."
So, a brand new Panny is as good as a four year old Kuro is what he said. Pointless to argue over which is better. They're both excellent and is a matter of personal taste.
ALL critics or at least a consensus saw the Kuro as being beaten. I showed that wasn't so.
Also, note the Panasonic isn't manufactured anymore, making buying a new one as difficult as a new Kuro.
The build quality of the Kuro had as much to do with its rep as the legendary performance.
"ALL critics or at least a consensus saw the Kuro as being beaten. I showed that wasn't so." Really? Where? All you "showed" was a three year old article that did not even have a last gen Panasonic to compare to a Kuro not to mention that the author was talking about 2011 TVs. Two years later the very same author review the last gen Panasonics and stated that they both outperformed the Kuros:
"Let me get this out of the way first: Panasonic's TC-PZT60 is now the best-performing TV we've ever reviewed."
"The TC-PVT60 also beat our in-house Kuro"
"I've read plenty of reviews saying Kuro has never been equalled--- and never will..." Could you link some of those, I would like to read them.
"Also, note the Panasonic isn't manufactured anymore, making buying a new one as difficult as a new Kuro." Common sense says that finding a new display that was discontinued only 8 months ago is far easier and more likely than one discontinued years ago.
And this, by the moderator at forums. highdefdigest.com
"It isn't about surpassing, or having the ability to. Pioneer couldn't figure out a way to make Kuro displays without them being cost prohibitive. Kuros weren't expensive because they were making money, they were expensive because it cost a lot more to make those displays than others.
Panasonic, when they bought a lot of the Kuro technology, took what they could that could be profitable, but were not able to find a better way than Pioneer had in getting the pure blacks and quality that Pioneer had been delivering with Kuro without running into the same issue of price that Pioneer ran into.
So, while we have a ton of new bells and whistles, at the end of the day, putting out a phenomenal $8,000 50" display is going to lose manufacturers money, and so they don't even go down that path.
Panasonic has their new ZT series, but I'm not sure what the difference is between that and that VT series." That's from 2013, the last year of Panasonic plasma.
Like that legendary Sony CDP-101, it's a classic. If Panasonic infinitesimally beat the Kuro in blackness, that still leaves overall picture and build quality.
Let's see if seven years from now people are competing to pay top dollar for the Panasonics.
.
As at least 2 others have posted in this thread, the last generation Panasonic plasmas are better than the Kuros.
nt
I don't watch the computer graphics, and in real world blackness doesn't even exist.Those who claim you need the blackest black to watch the B&W film conveniently forget the fact that the blackest black on film is actually just very dark gray.
I will buy a Kuro when I am ready to watch a black hole. There is now a very special material, developed by the Brits, that is the closest thing to true black on Earth. Another candidate for Kuro.
Single-mindedness is never a good guide. To me, other things, such as natural flesh tone are far more important than Black Holes.
BTW - do you really think posting a 2011 opinion in 2014 is all that cool? :)
Edits: 08/20/14 08/20/14
rest of the spectrum. And the Kuro has the most natural color of any TV I've seen. LED doesn't come close, it's like comparing bad digital to good tube.
The Panasonic is based on the Kuro, but cheaper materials (this from a review by a techie). They also left off the truly expensive stuff so as to be able to come in at a far cheaper price point.
Anyhow, it's all somewhat subjective. I don't have an axe to grind, however, like lots of reviewers do: it wouldn't exactly help product sales to concede that excellence years ago cannot be matched.
The quest for the lowest distortions in audio amps.
Remember than .001% was better than .002%?
Same thing here... people argue that .0005 candle is "better" than .001.
And I often wonder (NOT!) just how many angels *can* dance on the head of a pin? But maybe that's just me....
-RW-
and more than decent when compared to the tinny, abysmally sounding, speakers on our 55" Sony LED. Doubt you'd go wrong with either a Samsung or Panny plasma in the 60-65" range.
I'm wondering, what are the symptoms of your sick plasma? I'm looking for an excuse to "upgrade" in our media room but that danged bottom of the line Panny plasma just keeps on going......
--------------------------
"E burres stigano"
Most symptoms are mild - there are some color spots on clean white background, plus the Fox News logo on the bottom left is permanently burnt in. :)
These don't bother me much, even though you can see them on some images.
But recently something new developed - when you first turn it on, the picture is VERY dark. After about 30-60 seconds in becomes normal. To me that sounds like a serious problem developing.
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