Does anyone have any experience of this?

Does anybody have any inside information as ex employees?

Thought this might help people save money without compromising on quality

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...768.1418280995

No experience, but I thought it wasn't so much about the components inside, but more the fact to do with who actually makes the screen....and that is what makes the quality.

Quite the opposite - and has been discussed here MANY, MANY times.

Many of the 'supposed' top brand names just buy cheap Vestel (or other) sets and have their own badges put on them - so names such as Toshiba, Sharp, Luxor, JVC, Hitachi etc. are mostly identical sets to other names you've never heard of.

Essentially now we're pretty well down to:

Top makes: Sony and Panasonic.

Middling makes: Samsung and LG.

Crap makes; Everything else.

There 'may' be a few exceptions - but not many.

So your 'idea' isn't at all useful, as you've got it backwards.

Not so much - biggest difference is the quality of the processing used, particularity in the scaling circuits - which is why even cheap crappy sets look pretty good from a decent HD source.

As far as panels go though, the cheaper makes are usually two or three generations behind the better makes - but while I'd like to think later panels are going to be 'better', they might just be cheaper to make

Does it really matter if you are only buying a cheap set? I've seen really good cheap unbranded 32" sets at 150 quid, and you can buy a panasonic 50" set for £330-350.
If you want a set with all the bells and whistles then yes- but I still think you are buying better generally as the price goes up to a certain point, from philips samsung etc. Lg I wouldn't bother with personally-all their sets look as flat as a pancake to me after a year or two.. You pay for the features, better screen,processing,better menu, nicer remote etc and Ive noticed, better sound on many flat sets now with actually some bass response- but there are exceptions- my aunt bought a bush tv for 150 quid a couple of years back and it's bloody good for the money!

Google Vestel city to see where most of the cheap tvs are made.

It's probably escaped your notice, but the TV industry is in the toilet. The manufacturers are cutting each other's and their own throats to sell tellies. The supermarkets have been pouring gasoline on the fire by buying cheap crappy product from Turkey and China for the last 10 years. They're now counting the cost of this. They've had their fingers burned because of the high failure rates. The upshot is that pretty much everything 32" and below is a graveyard for the major manufacturers. Those are the products where it's uneconomical to maintain production lines in Japan or Europe. But that doesn't mean that a 32" Panasonic or Sony is the exact same product as a 32" Techwood.

Gosh, let's hope the media doesn't find out that many different brand of cars are often very similar, sharing chassis, engines etc

This might have been news 15 years ago

Yipee, I bought a Panasonic 42 '' plasma for the 2010 world cup with a Sky HD box , I was a bit worried how some mentioned having to get your 'gas' replenished after a few years.
Anyway its the same now as when bought, great picture.
I've looked at some same size screens using LED and though they are very good and certainly use a lot less power ... I prefer my own.

Sounds no different to when a lot of analog satellite receivers were just rebadged Pace models

Makes you wonder where these ridiculous myths get started?

Why is it every time I have ever looked on this board I see the same tiresome propaganda of Sony and Panasonic are still the best getting pedaled?

Even if they still did make the best (which they really don't), Sony's TV wing are practically dead. Over 10 years worth of MASSIVE losses, very, very strong rumours the TV division will be either sold off or axed completely.

Panasonic might have had the claim they were the best...several years ago. Now they have pulled the plug on their Plasma division there is nothing that sets them apart at all. Their LCD sets are totally unremarkable and inferior to the competition.

Indeed I say Plasma like it was still the best. The last generation of Panasonic Plasma were not so much a case of if they developed a reliability problem but when. Why they have not developed a Philips like reputation for appalling reliability and indeed by all accounts customer service on report of those faults is beyond me. Along with the massive loses they were taking its no wonder they dropped the tech.

Oh and where do both Sony and Panasonic get most of their LCD panels from? They certainly don't make them in house and could be argued to be "re-badges" too. "Middling" Samsung & LG is it? Oh no, come again, I've heard they now even use jippo cheap Chinese panels these days to cut costs further. Such is how far both Sony and Panasonic have fallen.

The best TV panel in the world today is LG OLED technology. Which funnily enough is the one both Sony and Panasonic desperately want to license for use in their top end TV's. The fact that "middling" LG are the world leaders with this tech and Sony + Panasonic are playing catch up sums up how far both have fallen in irrelevance really.

Real league table of best to worst 2015 (not 2005):
LG OLED
Samsung
Chinese TV industry- that is growing more and more powerful
Vestel & co.
Sony & Panasonic.

How come Samsung are still selling Freeview-HD TV's that are not capable of seamless transitions from 1080P25 to 1080i. Mandated by the Freeview-HD spec and Samsung don't appear to care ?

https://www.avforums.com/threads/tv-...1080p.1851137/

I have just replaced my Sony (despite it's age it had no issues with the Freeview-HD mixed GOPS) with an advanced Panasonic, the spec and picture is great (Twin Freesat (freeview) and twin Freeview-HD (tuners). Of course a Samsung would have been cheaper. As to LG OLED it's far too early to have any idea as to reliability.

I certainley wouldn't touch a Sony TV again, Panasonic maybe, but only their new 4k range, just wish I'd bought one of their ZT model plasmas before they were discontinued, now that was a reference tv, even LG's OLED struggles in some areas to keep up with it.

I'm waiting for LG's 4k quantum dot tv to be released, a colleague of mine saw it at the CES this year and was bowled over by the quality, now this could tempt me to replace my nearly 10 yr old LG plasma.

In Sony's defence I must say their 4k pj's are awesome....

Why 4K ?. What size TV do you have and how far away do you sit from it ? I looked at the same series Panny TV I have (top of the range), comparing the picture quality from The 50" 4K model compared to the 47" Full-HD model. TBH the picture quality on 1920 x 1080 Blu-ray looked worse on the 4K TV at normal viewing distances. Not surprising really upscaling by that level is bound to introduce visible artefacts unless you move further away. As for SD - yuck.

I agree 4K can look pretty awesome, but in a demo situation you are very close to the TV. Try moving away to the sort of distance most of us need to watch from.

Of course using a projector and the very large picture compared to a normal TV you are going to see the advantage, but where do you get true 4K content from, apart from low bitrate streaming services. ?

I'm not bothered over that sort of resolution on a TV. What are people watching on it anyway? Coronation street? The news? The odd film? I watch freeview and freeview hd and normal dvds. My set, incidentally, is a philips 50" and the pictures sharp as anything. My last set was a philips and I had that for 15 years till I bought this one a couple of years back.
My brothers set is the same, and my mums is a philips she bought about 8 years ago. No problems. Where do you guys get all these sets going wrong? ( cue gnashing of teeth 'philips unreliable no good hahhaa lol!).

i suppose the ultimate will be 4k oled then

but even then surely the 4k part is wasted on anything smaller than 40inch etc.




ive a samsung 58inch (about 3-4yrs old) ,,,,for the whole flat to share , and a brand new samsung 22 in my bedroom , absolutely love it ,,,,,,,,, but in a cpl of years hopefully lg will be producing 22-26 oleds and i'll swap my bedroom in a heartbeat , (i can dream lol )

The prediction from CES is that 4K TV will become the new mainstream resolution for larger sets. It's a repeat of what happened in the transition from 720/768 to 1080p for 42" and 50" TVs. That then spread to smaller sets where image size/viewing distance ratio negates the benefits of 1080p resolution. Yet here we are in a world where even small kitchen TVs are full HD. For the average Joe the mantra of "bigger numbers are better" outweighs any debate about resolution and viewing distance.

even phones have full hd screens ,,,,,,,,, but can we really see em ?

Yes you can, you watch a phone/tablet from a few inches away. Much the same as a laptop screen.

We have a 50" in the front room which is nearly 10yr old and really needs replacing, 4k isn't as important in this room as we only use it for casual viewing, but I still want to take advantage of 4k when it becomes more readily available, so couldn't see the point of buying full HD only having to replace it in the short term. We are looking at 65", this will give us better resolution at the 8' we watch at than staying with 50".

Of all the reviews I've seen your remark on bluray upscaling to 4k is the first negative one I've read. All the demos I've been to the upscaling has been remarkable, even bluray upscaled to 120". Are you sure it was a bluray and not a DVD in a bluray player? The scaling is actually easier technically than SD/720 to full HD.

Our main viewing is on the PJ in the other room which will be 4k by the end of the summer, hopefully ready for UHD bluray.

not a viewpoint that everyone shares ,,,,,,,, some say the naked eye cant see x resolution at y viewing distance etc etc

im no techie/scientist whatever ,,,,,,,, if it looks great to me etc

My Dad cant tell the difference between HD and SD on a big TV in the front room - doesnt mean that many people can tell.

Everyone has different levels of eyesight. Plenty out there, including me can tell the difference on phones, plenty cant. There is no perfect formula using "x" and "y" unless you have another variable that relates to the eyesight of the individual

but i agree that if it loo OK to you then thats whats important if you are the main user of the item

fully agree with you stuart

It's a double edged sword I always thought Michelle Collins was beautiful til I saw her in Hd 😞