[mythtvnz] Slightly OT - which new TV

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sat, 26 Mar 2011 10:07:38 +1300, you wrote:

>EQC/Insurance will have to replace our Sony 46" TV, which hit the
>floor and the centre speaker, rendering it munted (official ChCh
>term).
>
>I really liked the Sony, good picture, 3 or 4 HDMI inputs, does
>24/50/60 fps at 1080p, has a setting to get rid of overscan, has
>proper EDID info, sensible remote control, but was a generation before
>ethernet connectivity and DLNA.
>
>So what should I be looking for in a TV these days, besides the above
>things. Not sure I really need DLNA, but it might be useful. Is 3D
>ever going to be worth it?
>
>What other makes are any good?
>
>Tips, hints welcomed. Cheers. (On topic as will be attached to mythtv
>of course).
>
>Nick.

My mother and I both have Sony KDL-32V5500 TVs and they have been
excellent so far.  I moved from an older Panasonic "HD ready" model
that could not be persuaded not to do overscan and lied in its EDID
data, so I have a bias against Panasonic at the moment.  The Sony has
excellent EDID.

My Sony's DLNA support is very much restricted - my TV only plays old
.MPG files and files that support Sony's special video camera format,
and nothing else.  Maybe that is fixed in later models, but I suspect
not.  Other DLNA TVs do much better.  This is not a problem to me as
both my mother and I are really only using the TVs for MythTV, which
can play almost any video file format if I use a 32-bit version of
mplayer for the more esoteric formats.

I do not use the Sony's speakers, but Consumer rated them as barely
tolerable (and most of the other TVs from that year as even worse).
Quite a few of this year's TV models seem to have fixed that problem
somewhat, according to Consumer's latest tests.  Again, as both my
mother and I are using external hifi systems for sound, this is not a
problem.

Display of digital photos on the Sony is very slow, when they come
from my digital camera.  It looks like the TV has a slow
microprocessor and can not cope with the large files good cameras now
produce, like mine at 4023x3024.  Again, MythTV does this better
anyway, so not a problem.

The only real annoyance I have with the Sony is that when it turns on,
it displays onscreen information for far too long when I want to see
the picture from MythTV.  I have not found any settings to fix this,
so I normally push the "Options" button on the remote twice to clear
the onscreen data.  This also happens to a lesser extent when MythTV
changes the screen mode eg to 1080p24 for a film.

The best thing to do when buying a new TV is to load up MythTV on your
laptop and take it and an HDMI cable with you to test the TV in the
shop.  Presuming that you have a laptop and it will do accelerated
1080p output, of course.

What I would really like is for TVs to be available that do not bother
to have speakers, or even tuners, as both are really unnecessary when
you are using MythTV and I hate having to pay for them.