Well it has been time for a new TV for quite a while, and the $50 coupon in Sunday's Best Buy flyer pushed me over the edge.

It is pretty much down to two TV's, but I'm open to suggestions.
Sony 27" WEGA KV-27FS100
Toshiba 27" 27AF42

Spec. wise and price wise both TVs are almost identical, give are take $20 and an input. And both are a hugh step up from the current 13" Toshiba.

Any opinions on which will be the better TV? It will be paired it with a same brand DVD player and, once they come out, a Series 2 Directv TiVo.

Help!

The WEGA all the way. You will not be dissappointed. I'm not big sony freak or anything, but that is a kickass tv.

Also, when i used to work at the Good Guys, we got like 0 returns on WEGA's as compared to, well, more with Toshibas. We never had open box wega's, and the one time we did, i bought it. The Toshiba isn't a bad set, however, IMHO, the Sony is a better set.

We never had open box wega's, and the one time we did, i bought it.


Didn't you mean "We very rarely had...." ??

I'm not a sony freak either, but I'd recomend the wega too, as far as reputation they're the best out there. I've got one of the 24'' ones, and it's been great so far.

As I've been starting down the road of unviersal remotes this week, I've got to recomend making sure everything you buy has "discrete codes" available. For those who don't know what they are (me, 48 hours ago), they're remote codes which perform one action instead of toggling a state. A seperate code for power on from the code to power off, for instance. The other example is selecting inputs. This will make macros which can actually perform valuble functions possible. I got a ReplayTV this weekend, and I'm learning the immense value of JP1 enabled remotes, even though I havn't built the interface cable yet.

Good Luck, and enjoy the new TV.

Matthew

i got a 32 inch wega shortly after they first came out, and it sucked. I had 3 of them, they all sucked! it took sony over 9 months to finally give me my $1500 back! I'll list the problem that i can remember the tv having.
1. the picture was tilted, but not the whole picture just from the center of the screen to the right, really annoying when you spend $1500

2. when watching a dvd, and sometimes when watching tv, there would be a green bar like 4 inchs wide scroll from left to right! wtf is that about?!?!?

3. the tv weighs like 150+lbs! its huge 32 inch, and has like no handles to carry it. and i live in the second floor of a house built in 1900 with a staircase in a U. and carrying those 3 tv in and out of my house to the store/repair shop sucked. in the middle of winter no matter. On one of the returns back to the shop, after we loaded it into the van. i took the first turn... and BAM! i thought the tube broke.... tv was now sitting flat (tube down) in the van (was upright ) but the case was just cracked they didn't even notice it was cracked, but it was pretty bad, we put a sticker over it .

Anyways, that my sony story. and i'm still looking for a tv. a buddy of mine is going to get that exact Toshiba tv. i like it alot!

http://www.bestbuy.com/detail.asp?e=11101060&m=1&cat=24&scat=1470

It's a bit more expensicve,
but you get quite a bit more tv for $200 extra

if $200 extra is a deal breaker, perhaps $50 extra is better for this:
http://www.bestbuy.com/detail.asp?e=11161137&m=1&cat=24&scat=27

It's same Sony you looked at only it has 2 tuner PIP and an extra set of AV inputs on the rear...
... definately worth the $50 upgrade IMHO

My parents have a 30" WEGA, and it's got such amazing quality. I really wish I had a TV like that.

Oliver, I'm not sure why you've had such bad experiences. I didn't quite understand you, did you say you've had the same malfunctions on 3 identical sets? That seems like a very odd thing to happen.

Yes, actually the first wega only had the screen tilted.


The Second tv had the tilted screen, and the green bar scroll from right to left all the time.

The Third had the tilted screen, green bar mostly on video 1 or 2, almost never in tv/tuner mode.

All of the tv's had a hard time showing true black, it was always grayish. I had the first one sent into a sony repair shop, 2 weeks later when i got it back, it was 10x worse than it was to begin with. I had probally about 5 different sony techs come to my house to mess with the hidden setup menu, each time they only made the problem worse!

Interesting. With all of those repeated faults on multiple TV's, I'd suspect environmental.

This was on different sources or always the same source? With the TV's installed into the same spot each time? And did other brands of TV installed into the same spot with the same source have zero problems?

Seems really strange to have that many egregious defects in three different TV sets.

Not to de-rail your search for a TV but what ever happened to front Projectors?The ones you mount on the ceiling and view on a screen?They seem to have lost popularity.

but what ever happened to front Projectors?

They are alive and well. The highest-end home theater systems are all done with front projectors.

A properly-done front projector system is more expensive and tougher to install/maintain than the new crop of rear-projectors, so for the midrange installations, rear-projectors have the biggest market share for highdef and widescreen DVD home theater systems.

yeah i suppose that is more accurate. But, the majority of the returns were for the 13" WEGA's; I don't really count those. I never got a return on any of the 24's or 27's. And i think i can remember one return on the 32", never on the 36's.

I tested the tv with my sony dvd player, a friends toshiba dvd player and my tv output card in my computer. I plugged it in 3 different spots in my house. I tried endless amounts of rca+video cables, s-video cables, the 3 video rca connection.

The repair shops hooked up many different video sources, and they all displayed the same problems.

www.projectorcentral.com

I notice neither are widescreen. Are you guys is the US still not buying widescreen, i.e. 16:9 ratio, screens ?

I just helped a friend hook up his widescreen. Beautiful picture. Unless you count the fact that everyone on the screen had gained 30-40 pounds. You COULD watch it in stretch mode, where everything was the right proportion, but then everything was missing the top and bottom 1/8 of the screen. So watching ANY sport was out of the question in that mode. Or you COULD use letterbox, which puts these big gray bars on either side of the screen, but the manual tells you not to do this, or you could burn in the bars fairly quickly. I think I'll wait till more things are broadcast in widescreen. And out of curiosity, WHY WOULDN'T THEY MAKE THE BARS BLACK?!?! There could be no burnin then. It just makes no sense to me.

Thankfully in the UK almost all new programming (including stuff produced in the US) is in widescreen now.

I have never seen a widescreen TV that adds grey bars when running in 4:3, that's just plain bizarre.

P.S. how can some people who have widescreens not tell when they have the apect ratio set wrong. I keep finding people who say "widescreen is crap". Then I take a look at their setup and they have:

- set their set top box or DVD player to output 4:3 instead of 16:9
- set their TV to stretch the 4:3 picture to 16:9

Mad as a box of frogs...

In reply to:

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I notice neither are widescreen. Are you guys is the US still not buying widescreen, i.e. 16:9 ratio, screens ?

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I noticed that most US TV programmes are 4:3 - eg. CSI, Buffy. I have heard a lot about HDTV - considering most effort is going into getting that in the marketplace the US is not going for 16:9 at all?

I made an impulse purchase of a Turkish made unbranded 16:9 from Sainsbury's a few weeks back - cost £229 and it is pretty good, certainly not Wega quality and the speakers are very bad but the screen is reasonably straight edged and flat. It could blow up in a few years and I won't be annoyed - it is a huge step up from a 14" 4:3!!

Gareth
(getting the thing home was fun - had to unbox it and strap it in the front seat of the Caprice!)


Gareth

And out of curiosity, WHY WOULDN'T THEY MAKE THE BARS BLACK?!?! There could be no burnin then. It just makes no sense to me.

if the bars were black, the phosphors in those regions would not be "exercised" while watching standard 4:3 video. you really want all of the phosphors across the screen to wear evenly, for those times when you do watch 16:9 sources. otherwise, over time, those areas where the black bars were would appear brighter than the rest of the screen.

--dan.

Well then make them a different shade of grey or something. They HAVE to be able to do SOMETHING.

In reply to:

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set their TV to stretch the 4:3 picture to 16:9

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A lot of people with w/s TV's are still using terrestrial signals and switching the 14:9 letterboxed picture to 16:9 mode - some TV's (like mine) don't have 14:9 zoomed mode so are pretty much useless without a decent source. There is/was a thing called "PALPlus" which made TV's switch to w/s automagically but I don't know if it's still used.

Gareth

Hmmm....well several votes for the WEGA, and one for the Toshiba.

dave costa, you are right in saying that for the extra $50 you do get some wort while stuff. But PiP does not appeal to me, I just don't watch that much TV.

But keep the advise rolling people. I still need a matching DVD player, and is there any point in getting a Progressive scan DVD player with either of thoes TV? Bear in mind this will be the main TV and I won't be jumping to get a HDTV set when they hit the shores. Granted the price differance between Progressive scan and thoes with out is pretty narrow...

Thanks guys.

I bought a 36" Wega when it first came out, had all kinds of problems with it - mostly with the geometry of the picture. After repeated visits by Sony and several hours of complaining and climbing their corporate ladder until I spoke with a VP, they replaced it with the next years model. I now have the KV-36XBR250 and I love it. Especially for the anamorphic squeeze mode, which hasn't yet been discussed here.

I'm now thinking, though, of upgrading to a 16x9 HD tube set...

- Jon

I notice neither are widescreen. Are you guys is the US still not buying widescreen, i.e. 16:9 ratio, screens ?

Widescreen TVs exist, but until very recently they were waaaay more expensive than 4:3 TVs.

I recently purchased a TV that supports HD (the 16:9 format in the US, which has some, but not much, usage), and I got one that has a 4:3 glass tube, but will switch to 16:9 if it sees an appropriate signal.

Just get a plasma display...then you don't have to worry about letterbox burn-in or exercising phosphors...

Funny. A company I used to work for had a plasma display that, when not in use, displayed our company logo, since it wouldn't burn in. Guess what? It burned in. Made for a nice watermark on presentations, though.

...or that pesky extra $3000 in your pocket.

-Zeke

ah...I speak as a fool then!

I've owned a 36" Sony Wega Flat Screen for 3 years now, and have had no problems with it - except for the fact that it weighs 2 trillion pounds (a rough estimate).

Well, not really. Everyone says they won't burn in. It's hard to fly in the face of that. But my first-hand experience says otherwise.

Plasma screens don't burn in the same way that CRTs do, but they do have an effect that is similar. Basicially if an area of the screen dosen't change over time, but the rest does, it causes uneven wear to some component. It can easially be undone by displaying the same color over the entire screen for a while.

This is all going off what I remember offhand from the Plasma FAQ on AVSForums.com.

Fair enough. Undoable burn-in, I suppose, is much preferable to permanent burn-in.

Aha, the exact FAQ link I needed is here

(Internet connection is being flakey lately)

I was considering getting a Plasma display at one point but dismissed it when I saw one that had the Fox News Channel logo "burned in." This was due to that channel being on 24/7 the week of 9-11. I just assumed that a $6000 display was now trashed. I'm glad you pointed out this FAQ that suggests otherwise. Can you say hello Gateway?

Anyone want to buy a 47" 16:9 1080i rear projection?

I'd find docs as to how to undo burn-in on it before I bought it, if I were you.

Advice taken.

I'd love to get a Plasma now, even a low end one like the Gateway one for DVD watching. One problem. They seem to enjoy buzzing when they get this high up above sea level. Talking to some sales people at a high end AV store, they recommended waiting till late next year, as almost every one they had was buzzing. The one at the Gateway country store was as well, though the sales person didn't know why.

The one at the Gateway country store was as well

You know, I didn't even think of going to the Gateway Country store. If I were to buy that TV, even though the chance is low, I would have bought it blindly. Now I can check it out in person (which may end up pushing me over the edge).

No, there is no point in getting a progressive scan DVD player for either of those TV's. There will be no difference. Hell, to tell you the truth, I could hardly tell the difference when we'd hook progressive scan's upto HD sets. Back then, Progressive Scans were pricey, $400 - $600. Now it might be worth it if you have an HD set, as you can get a pretty nice sony or mistubishi progressive scan for under $300.

Phoenix42 writes: But keep the advise rolling people. I still need a matching DVD player, and is there any point in getting a Progressive scan DVD player with either of thoes TV? Bear in mind this will be the main TV and I won't be jumping to get a HDTV set when they hit the shores. Granted the price differance between Progressive scan and thoes with out is pretty narrow...

My dad and I both got the Panasonic RP-56 (~$225). There's also an RP-82 that adds DVD-Audio support. At least as of last year, the RP-56 was one of the cheapest progressive DVD players that didn't have many of the common bugs that occur in these players. For more on this, you need to read HomeTheaterHiFi's report on the chroma bug. See also their progressive scan report. The only minus for the Panasonic is that it doesn't seem to appear on the lists of easy-to-mod systems. If you care about removing Macrovision or watching DVDs from outside your region, then you want something else.

27" tv tubes are cheap enough these days that you won't be too stressed if you toss it / sell it / give it to your kid sister in two years (versus buying a $6K plasma screen today and discovering that it doesn't have the DVI/Firewire/SonyMagicFoo connector that becomes standard in two years). Just make sure you've got an S-Video input jack. The difference you see going from composite to S-Video is massive. The difference you see going to progressive scanning isn't nearly as dramatic. Of course, by that same logic, you don't really need progressive scanning now, so you can save $100 and get something cheaper today, possibly one of the cheap Taiwanese Sampo players that are easily hacked for region-freedom.

I've had a 32" WEGA widescreen for three years. It was trouble free until a couple of months ago when the line output transformer blew - but I doubt that's a WEGA specific issue.

Overall it's a very nice TV. Sony make some good gear, although I prefer to catch new models early in the life cycle - the first generation are usually the best built, and then they gradually get cost reduced.

Rob

It can easially be undone by displaying the same color over the entire screen for a while.

Interesting - I went to the auction of stuff from the Greenwich Milennium Dome and was put off the "C" graded plasma screens because they had severe burn-in - they had been used for information and you could clearly read the words that had been on the screen and see various logos. I took a few flash photos and they showed it up very well.

In the end they weren't sold because they were kept back to be sold with the dome itself. As far as I know they are still in a container at the site - pity because they are now worth a heck of a lot less than 18 months ago (like half).

Gareth

I went to the auction of stuff from the Greenwich Milennium Dome and was put off the "C" graded plasma screens

I've tried bidding for a few times for plasmas in the various Enron and ITVDigital auctions. However, without fail, there is always a bunch of idiots fighting to bid 9,000UKP for screens that retail for 7,000UKP new...

Watch out for that cheapo plasma TV from Gateway. I use 'cheapo' in the "relative to other plasma tvs" sense here.

I have a Sampo 42" plasma (which AFAIK is what the Gateway is) which for the most part is really cool, but there are some drawbacks.
It has trouble with very dark scenes which causes patches of single colors to appear as it struggles to figure out what shade of grey/black/brown to display.

The fan is really noisy for quiet scenes.

It is only 480P and has to fit higher resolutions into that screen size.
All of this is not a problem if you are not worried about HDTV as 480P is fine for DVDs.

Since I could not afford the extra $2000 needed to buy a Panasonic or a Sony, I can live with these problems and enjoy my really nice wall mounted TV

Just been sorting through my photos and found some of the plasmas from the Dome:

[image][/image]

Gareth

Thanks all for the clear cut advice, I did end up getting the Wega on Friday night when it happened to be selling for an additional $27 less. Add that to the $50 coupon from the Best Buy flier it came down to quite a nice price.

I also had the pleasure of giving one of these coupons to some random person in the store who was looking at buying the same TV....the look on thier face was fantastic!

Also picked up a Toshiba SD-3800 DVD player, now all I need is my Series 2 DirecTV TiVo.
All this is a great step up from the 13" we used to squint at.