Upgrade Dilemma - which would you choose?
fat controller
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Our desktop PC is currently little more than a glorified TV & DVD player for our daughter, and very rarely is getting used as a PC - this is far from ideal, as Mrs C wants to work on her photography on it, and where it is, it is a pain to get at or even use the printer when our wee one is asleep. So, I have decided that it needs to be moved, whilst still providing something for the wee one - and I have essentially narrowed it down to a couple of ideas.
- First idea is to buy a 26 or 32" LCD TV, and wall mount it on the wall (I have a nice flat chimney breast wall in the perfect location in the bedroom), and hook up a DVD player to this for the wee one to use (we've got one spare now, and will have two when we get the Blu-Ray player that we have talked ourselves into
)
- Second idea (and I prefer this idea, Mrs C is less sure), is to put our existing Toshiba 37WLT66 into the bedroom on a wall bracket, connected to one of the spare DVD players, and then buy a new TV for the living room (a Full HD one to go with the Blu-Ray?).
Which idea seems the best, and which models (if any) should I be considering?
- First idea is to buy a 26 or 32" LCD TV, and wall mount it on the wall (I have a nice flat chimney breast wall in the perfect location in the bedroom), and hook up a DVD player to this for the wee one to use (we've got one spare now, and will have two when we get the Blu-Ray player that we have talked ourselves into
)- Second idea (and I prefer this idea, Mrs C is less sure), is to put our existing Toshiba 37WLT66 into the bedroom on a wall bracket, connected to one of the spare DVD players, and then buy a new TV for the living room (a Full HD one to go with the Blu-Ray?).
Which idea seems the best, and which models (if any) should I be considering?
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Comments
Hadn't really considered it
I had a notion to go back to either a Sony or a Panasonic (not that I'm unhappy with the Tosh, I just feel that the others give superior performance now)
For tv's, I am very happy with our new Sony LCD - its a smaller one that you want, but I find it to be very good with normal (SD) tv (freeview) and DVD's - played back via the combi Hard disc/dvd recorder/Freeview/HDMI.
Other stuff I have seen running is a 42inch Sharp - I know people with one and that looks great, even on SD (digital Cable). Saw a "full HD-1080p" 37inch Sharp in a demo room, and I was blown away by that on a HD feed - but that was around £1,200.
Neighbour has a 32inch Philips, and I have seen several similar Philips LCD's, and the picture is good - maybe a tad up on the Sony's, but I bought the Sony anyway in the hope it might last longer than a year, which seems quite common these days. Our neighbour also showed me the tv's upside down scart sockets, which as she said are useless - the scart plugs keep falling out.
Dave
Have a look at this. Its a Sony 40" 1080p LCD and Bluray player for £1048. This would leave plenty of the £2000 for a DVD recorder (I would recomend a Panasonic DVD/HDD but thats just my personal choice). I have seen this TV in action and the picture is excellent from a HD source and as its a Sony, it sould be reliable.
This is a superb TV which is very highly rated unfortunately they have paired it up with just about the worst BD player available! whilst the BD picture quality will be excellent the machine itself is incredably slow loading (I believe the slowest there is) some java heavy discs can take up to 5 minutes to start playing from turning the player on!
It is a profile one machine which in itself is not a problem but firmware can only be done via downloading to a PC & burning to disc as it does not have Ethernet.
I would look at the TV seriously but go for a Samsung BD P1500 player which is profile 1.1 currently but will be upgraded in the autumn to profile 2. The player is getting excellent reviews from buyers (check AVForum) it is very quiet as it does not have a fan & if connected to an older AV Amp. will reencode the new sound formats to Max bitrate DTS or if connected to a HDMI 1.3 Amp. will give True HD & a later update will give DTS HD Master audio, all for £185.
If for some reason you feel Samsung is not for you, then you can go for the less well specified profile 1.1 Panasonic BD30, not anything like the SamsunG spec. but costs another £100 (£299) which tends to make some people feel better:D
Yes, BD does tend to be slow!
What I can't understand is that Sony produce what is supposed to be the best BD player i.e. PS3 which has ultra fast loading & is profile 2, yet there standalone players (well at least the 300) are franky pants! I guess it must be down to the heavy subsidy sony give to the PS3.
I don't have a problem with waiting a while for a disct to load; I have a Samsung BD P1400 which I initially bought as a stop gap until the profiles were sorted but I would not now swap it despite it being profile 1. The wrost disc I have takes 2 mins 15 secs. from boot but most are on in less than a minute.
Can't beat a VCR, chuck the tape in, press play - job done!
As for DVD Recorders, I had been looking at the Sony RDRGX870, purely because the price was right, and I thought it would be enough to cope with our (fairly minimal) usage. Are the Panasonic DVD recorders generally better then?
The Sony 870 has been a great success, reliability has been exceptionally good - according to reports here (and elsewhere) they are made by Pioneer.
Panasonic have a pretty poor reputation for DVD/HDD recorders, with massive reliability problems with the PSU's. Hopefully they 'might' have sorted them out by now, but they were still making duff PSU's at least three years or so after they knew of the design problems.
In my experience, the Panasonics are as reliable as the Sony's in the past few years. I have had recorders from other makes but the Panasonics seem to be more user friendly, have better recorder drives, support more DVD formats and give better picture and sound quality from recordings.
The BD30 Panasonic blu ray is not a bad player but it is well over piced at £299 compared to the Samsung BD P1500 which can be had for £185 or a little over £200 from main stores. The Samsung is far superior technicaly in terms of what it can do & is a higher profile player by future upgrade. Sound wise it's way ahead, Picture Quality is as good as any BD Player, it does not have a fan so it's quiet & is Ethernet updateable. If you try over at AVforum you will see it's very highly rated & in front of the Panny.
I cant believe you said that, you luddite!:rolleyes:
For a blu-ray player, why the hell not just get a PS3? It's one of the best blu-ray players on the market and if you can hook it up to the net you've got future-proofing - how many existing blu ray players are already obsolete because their firmware can't be updated? You can get a remote control for the PS3 in Game for about £8 (or a proper Sony one for about £20), bung the controller in a drawer and forget about it.
I agree about the TV (I have a LE40M86) but you are so wrong about BD players! all BD players can have their Firmware Updated by either disc or some via Ethernet.
I think what you mean is BD Profile, i.e. 1. 1.1 or 2
Profile 1 & 1.1 are certainly not obsolete, I use a profile 1 Samsung BD P1400 every day without any hitches, it simply means I cant view PIP or Interactive stuff (which I never would anyway & some studios will not be supporting for some time anyway).
There is as I have said in an earlier post now a real alternative to the PS3 for people like me who dont want the look of a Games machine in their kit & will not work with a Harmony Remote; The Samsung BD P1500, profile 1.1 with Autumn update to profile 2 (Same as PS3) for a fraction of the cost, looks good & is Silent compared to a PS3;)
That's fair enough! To be honest we wanted the convenience of a games machine/BD player in one, so it was a bit of a no-brainer and we did virtually no research into standalone players. Having said that, with a little on in the house a PS3 is a good choice; you can download games from the PSN for a fiver, and a lot of them are pretty good.
Our current TV's the LE37A557, and we really love it. Would have had a 6 series if funds would have permitted!
Yes, makes sense in your case & I'm sure for lots of others, to be honest I like the versatility of the PS3 but would never have one simply due to it looking like a Games console.
Yes very good TV's, I usually change my TV's ever 1-2 Years but to be honest unless this one goes wrong I will not bother as the Picture quality is stunning. It cost me £1050 about 14 months ago but was worth every penny!