Non-motoring > New tv Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Crankcase Replies: 53

 New tv - Crankcase
TV gave up this afternoon. New one needed.

Do I want a Sony, something like this one:

smile.amazon.co.uk/Sony-BRAVIA-KD43X80JU-Google-YouView

or a Panasonic, something like this one:

smile.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-43Inch-JX600BZ-Control-Compatible/

Need a minimum of three HDMI, might as well go for the 4K/UHD thing, needs optical out for my surround system, otherwise - no idea what I'm doing. Not spending more than £500 if I can jolly well help it.

Any clues from the wise?
 New tv - sooty123
Neither link works for me.

When ours broke i got this
www.argos.co.uk/product/4355555?clickPR=plp:2:3

Does the job for me.
 New tv - Crankcase
How annoying.

Sony:

smile.amazon.co.uk/Sony-BRAVIA-KD43X80JU-Google-YouView/dp/B094YK79Z5/

Panasonic:

smile.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-43Inch-JX600BZ-Control-Compatible/dp/B09LCTR15Y/

I just said to Mrs C, I've asked on the forum. I bet someone says "neither of those, get a Toshiba..."

I'll look at that one too then, thanks sooty.
 New tv - smokie
You should've been looking yesterday, Amazon prime day. Plenty of discounts of 20% + on TVs.

I got this one for £299.99, I know people will say Phillips is not the best but for the money it seemed best value with a lot of features. Because of where we have it, my choice is limited by the stand too - has to be the style of this TV rather than the far apart feet

tinyurl.com/2p8jdus2

Now £592.49 (usually £649).

I do as a result have a 42" LG (less) Smart TV which is still working fine which I need to find a home for :-)
 New tv - Zero
Yeah go with the panny.
 New tv - Crankcase
Well, thanks chaps. Suggestions taken on board.

I was on the Amazon Prime Day site much of yesterday. Nothing I wanted. In other news, I expect to win the reverse lottery this week. Apparently if my numbers don't come up I have to pay them 192 million.
 New tv - zippy
Miss Z has a Panny that she recons is good.

Buy from Richer Sounds if you can, they offer a 6 year warranty for VIP members and if I recall, it's free to join.

If I were buying again, I would be going for a NEOQLED from Samsung. Reviews say that these are excellent and the higher end models put out a great deal of light so work well in bright rooms (we have an 4m set of bifold doors right next to the TV and it's never washed out by glare).
One warning though, in this current environment of high energy prices, they may be costly to run. Mine is astonishingly heavy at about 50kg for a 75inch set.
 New tv - Bromptonaut
Some cheaper Panasonics are manufactured in Turkey by Vesta.

My experience as recorded elsewhere on this site was not good for either Panasonic or the supplier (John Lewis via Waitrose).

An LG set was much more fit for purpose.
 New tv - Stuartli
Richer Sounds, as suggested, offer great value and long warranties - even better if you are a VIP member.

They recently offered a Panasonic 75in TV for £449 (4K etc), currently a Philips 43PUS7906 43 inch 4K Ultra HD HDR Smart LED TV Freeview Play is £299.
Last edited by: Stuartli on Fri 15 Jul 22 at 00:38
 New tv - martin aston
Yet another satisfied Richer Sounds customer. I got a demo of the exact TV I was buying (Panasonic). I once had to return a faulty TV which had a manufacturing fault and they just opened the box to visually check and gave me new one right away. It took only a few minutes.

I just wonder why the relatively small screen? If you are replacing an older model and space is tight the latest models have much slimmer frames and you can maybe jump up a screen size while keeping the overall dimensions the same.
 New tv - Falkirk Bairn
There are still some 2021 models around.

All manufacturers have different ranges - you can often get a "better deal/better specification" if you but the 2021 model of a higher spec model than the 2022 model of a lower spec range.

A few weeks back LG offers a 2021 48" OLED C models (C = Higher spec processor) for the same / less than the 2022 48" Model with an A spec processor.

Worth digging around as some may still be available.
 New tv - Crankcase
Well, thank you all. I took on board the "last year's model" concept. I bought a Samsung that ticks all the boxes on paper. It was a full £150 cheaper for a 2021 rather than 2022 model. I looked at the differences and they weren't significant for me. But it has HDR10+, so I'm sure that's useful. I vaguely remembered that the BBC use that for the iplayer, but I might be wrong.

As it was "only" about £350, if it's a disaster I can take it as a stopgap. But I hardly watch TV at all anyway, and Mrs C only watches the occasional half hour thing like Landward or some such, so it's probably only on for about three hours a week. If I DO have to buy another, lots of great info on this thread now.

As to the 43" question, it took a LOT of discussion. Our existing Panasonic is 26" and Mrs C was never really happy with that. Too big already!

I showed her the rough size the 43 is going to take and she went all tight lipped and grumpy, so no way was anything bigger going to work. She doesn't want the room "dominated" by a tv. Fair enough.

For me, though, I struggle to see things like the snooker scores on the 26. Programme makers, I guess, assume everyone is using 80" screens. Anyway, I might be able to see if Eddie Charlton is beating Ray Reardon now.
 New tv - zippy
>>Screen size...

My lounge is 19'4" so our 75" TV looks fine in it. If anything, if the room is arranged so that one sits at the far end, from the TV, it seems a bit on the small side.
 New tv - Dog
Lounge here is 21ft and recently gorn up to 48" telly from 43" but, we view from 10ft away.

Funny lea enuff the 48" TV is the same dimensions as the old 43 incher.
 New tv - CGNorwich
There’s only one rule with TVs. Get the biggest one you can fit in Never heard anyone say that they wish they had bought a smaller one. How many people do you see in John Lewis watching the 23inch screen models?
 New tv - martin aston
Recommended viewing distances online are very much less than most of us would use. That’s why screens in showrooms often seem better, it’s because you are closer than in your living room.
 New tv - Stuartli
>> Recommended viewing distances online are very much less than most of us would use. That’s why screens in showrooms often seem better, it’s because you are closer than in your living room.>>

You can sit much closer to large screen TVs these days because of the very considerable advances in screen resolutions and technology.
 New tv - Crankcase
Never
>> heard anyone say that they wish they had bought a smaller one.

Mrs C didn't like the 26", up from a 24", in 2011 when we got it, and has often sighed over the last decade about "that tv is too big", so now you have.

I really think there will be conniptions when the new one arrives.
 New tv - CGNorwich
Try substituting a smaller screen. I rather think that there might be complaints. :-)
 New tv - sooty123
s it was "only" about £350, if it's a disaster I can take it as
>> a stopgap. But I hardly watch TV at all anyway, and Mrs C only watches
>> the occasional half hour thing like Landward or some such, so it's probably only on
>> for about three hours a week.

If you only watch tv a couple of hours a week on a small tv, you could have picked one up for next to nothing (20/30 quid) second hand.

Last edited by: sooty123 on Fri 15 Jul 22 at 19:21
 New tv - Crankcase

>> If you only watch tv a couple of hours a week on a small tv,
>> you could have picked one up for next to nothing (20/30 quid) second hand.

Fails the "yeah but shiny" test.
 New tv - Runfer D'Hills
I quite like the TV, but I don’t watch it every day, or even every week come to think. I like having one I suppose, but I wouldn’t want one that dominated a room.
I didn’t actually own one until I met Mrs D’H in my early 30s. Never really thought about buying one until she decided she wanted one.
Not all that good at sitting around doing naff all I suppose. Much prefer fettling things or doing something that keeps me active.
Quite like QI and Have I got News for you, indeed the real news and stuff, but murder mysteries and so on (my wife likes those) leave me yawning.
 New tv - Crankcase
Well, for completeness - mini review.

My new TV finally turned up today, after much delay with Amazon. It's a Samsung AU8000, 43 inch. It's very good so far.

I didn't want to connect to my network, and it was fine and easy not to do that out of the box.

But I then discovered my Firestick 4K won't actually produce 4k via the Samsung. This was a setback, due to the Firestick needing HDMI 2.2 socketry, and the Samsung has 2.1 socketry. I clearly didn't research well enough.

So I then connected the Samsung to my network after all, wired. Turns out the built in Amazon app (and a whole bunch of others) work as fast as my Firestick, and when viewing that way, DO offer 4k UHD. The Firestick is now sitting unplugged and forlorn.

The optical sound out connected to my existing Yamaha amp (which is ancient). As soon as it connected, the TV surprised me by saying, "hang on...just a minute...yep, that's a Yamaha amp, you can control that with the Samsung remote now". Impressive.

It comes with two remotes. I have no idea why. One has far fewer buttons - just on/off, sound and channels up and down, a "home" button and a three for direct access to the Amazon, iPlayer and Netflix apps. So I've shown Mrs C how to use that one. All she actually needs is on and off. Everything else she does with the Virgin remote she is familiar with. Win.

The other remote has all the stuff like choosing source, going to settings, the usual teletext stuff, and on and on. You can still DO all that with the other simplified remote, but you have to go to the bazillion menus on the TV with it to do so.

I think I can also now use Alexa to control it some way, but not tried that.

And finally for the nerds, my pi-hole lets me see what it's accessing over the internet. As expected, there's a massive list of sites it's talking to ALL the time. For the minute I'm letting it do it, but I might see if some or all can be blocked, or I might just shrug and say "who cares".

Anyway, great picture (after some tweaks that were mostly "turn all the processing off") feeble sound, smart stuff works fast and cleanly (until they drop it all in order to sell me another tv of course).

You really do need a soundbar or some other external sound thing though.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 26 Jul 22 at 20:25
 New tv - Stuartli
The Samsung AU8000 only has HDMI 2.0 ports.

I have a Samsung 50in UE7400 with the same Crystal Colour panel - cracking displays as it's a set just short of the company's top 4K offerings. Bargain at £440.

Picked up an LG SK6 soundbar and sub-woofer at half-price on e-Bay (£150), which are linked to the ARC HDMI port.
 New tv - smokie
Well done CC. I suppose I should do the same so here goes...

TV as easy to set up and when connected it did itself an upgrade, which didn't surprise me.

Picture was a bit too colourful (heavy on the red) for SWMBOs taste so instead of doing what I usually do, I gave her the remote and showed her how to adjust it. It is an incredibly sharp pic compared to the LG HDMI telly it is replacing, which I suppose could be my cost justification. Not much 4K to look at but things on the Virgin channel (999) do look extraordinary

There seem to be more built-in functions than you can shake a stick at. I can't even list them all but it has built in Freesat and Freeview (internet based? - either of which may eventually pave the way for freedom from Virgin), and Google Home (and I think Alexa?), you can attach a USB drive and record to it (encrypted so not portable though)

I like the two remotes idea, we could then have one each - I'd get the simple one and SWMBO could have the Expert one :-) . The 4K Firestick is now redundant but I do have the v 2.2 (in fact v 2.3) HDCP required ports you mention.

My old (but at the time quite expensive ) 300W wireless sub LG sound bar works fine on the optical cable but I've not managed yet to work out how to alter the soundbar volume using the TiVo (or TV) remote, which we used to do with the old telly. I think the LG sound bar technology pre-dates the required ARC standard, so maybe a new compliant sound bar will be required eventually. **

I've moved on from PiHole through AdGuard (and I'm now evaluating NextDNS) but the stats in AdGuard show the continual chatter between the TV and it's master, somewhere out in the cloud.

Certainly happy with the TV, even though I doubt I can get anything for the old telly even though it's still working fine, so that'll probably go on Freegle once I've asked friends and family if anyone is interested.


** I gave away a fairly expensive but old programmable MX-850 remote control not so long ago. SWMBO never liked it. However I bought a Broadcom wireless device as a result of a thread here (about changing channel remotely for an aged person IIRC) and the Home Assistant knows about it so I'm going to try it out at last!
Last edited by: smokie on Wed 27 Jul 22 at 00:31
 New tv - Dave_
>> Turns out the built in Amazon app (and a whole bunch of others) ... DO offer 4k UHD

We have a Samsung 4K UHD 55" box, and a Sky Q thing underneath it. Both offer BBC, Amazon and Netflix apps but the versions on the telly automatically up/downscale the resolution on the fly if the wifi's a bit slow. The Sky box insists on showing 4K and buffering/pausing until enough data has been downloaded. Handy to know.

Also, we sit about 7 feet from it, with a cheep Richer Sounds AV receiver and some speakers the overall viewing experience rivals the cinema. Except a clean toilet's only 20 feet and a fridge full of paid-for snacks not much further.
 New tv - Crankcase

>> Also, we sit about 7 feet from it, with a cheep Richer Sounds AV receiver
>> and some speakers the overall viewing experience rivals the cinema. Except a clean toilet's only
>> 20 feet and a fridge full of paid-for snacks not much further.


Our local cinema was broken into last week and reported £6500 worth of damage. The thieves took three bags of popcorn and a Kia-Ora.
 New tv - Dog
>> and a Kia-Ora

Automatic or manual?
 New tv - Crankcase
Manual. But it was orange.
 New tv - Crankcase
There's always something that surprises you. Maybe I'm too long since buying tech, but I discovered this Samsung doesn't have a power button. So they expect you to ALWAYS leave it standby, or turn it off at the wall. Feels like they cheaped out there.

So I setup a smart plug I had lying about, taking ages to get it working as that was also old, and got it so I can ask Alexa to turn OFF the tv, as in power off.*

And now I'm thinking the smart plug might be drawing more power to do that than the tv would be in standby anyway. So I need to dig out that info.

Never simple, is it.

*Allegedly you can get Alexa to turn on and off the tv - as in take it in and out of standby. No. No you can't. I have an Echo dot that sees it. "Turn off the tv" -fine. "Turn on the tv" - nope, doesn't work. Yes, i have tried all the "fixes" Google offers. Doesn't work. Sigh.

 New tv - smokie
Good point re the smart plug, someone on another forum raised about the cost of smart bulbs and plugs being quite a lot but it was unsubstantiated and ISTR finding it wasn't a lot.

I'd be interested in what you find. And I may do my own test with a smart plug today.

For some years I've had a smart plug which feeds a four way gang which controls the TV, soundbar and DVD (which is hardly ever switched on these days, but turns off anyway just in case) - it was one of my first, and it's on a Google routine along with the lounge light bulbs so at bedtime you just say Goodnight Lounge and the lot goes off ( - also the bedroom light used to go on, but for some reason she got grumpy about being woken up by the light coming on when she'd gone to bed earlier than me :-) )).
 New tv - Crankcase

>> I'd be interested in what you find. And I may do my own test with
>> a smart plug today.

Used my power meter I'd forgotten I'd got.

TV in smart plug, smart plug off. 0.5w.
Smart plug turned on, so TV is now in standby. 16w for a few moments, then settles to permanent 8w.

So clearly in this case, the smart plug overnight is a good thing. Assuming I save 7w for at least 15 hours a day, why bless me, that's nearly eight quid a year at my rates. For everyone not on a fix, that's probably nudging £20 a year. There's probably something helpful here do to with emitting CO2 as well, who knows.

Finally, for completeness.

TV turned on watching ordinary HD. 55w.
Watching Amazon Prime video, 75w.
Watching UHD in iPlayer, 95w.

So an evening's telly is probably less than ten pence. Not bad for an evening's amusement.

 New tv - Dog
>>Smart plug turned on, so TV is now in standby. 16w for a few moments, then settles to permanent 8w.


Interesting. My new Sony doesn't have an on orf switch. I'd like to turn it orf at the wall socket, but I can't really get tuit.

Annoying really cos I don't like burning Shekels unnecessarily needlessly.
 New tv - Crankcase
I use the cheap Tapo plugs, Dog. Work fine.

Payback in about a year or less, depending, plus the convenience of course. Ideal for those things where you can't easily reach or get to a socket. Either turn stuff on/off via your phone, or if you have some sort of voice assistant, use that.

Also works if you are on holiday and suddenly think "did I leave the light on?"
 New tv - Dog
Thanks Cc, I'll check them out. I had no idea what a smart plug was :)
 New tv - Clk Sec

>> Interesting. My new Sony doesn't have an on orf switch. I'd like to turn it orf at the wall socket, but I can't really get tuit.

Pretty much the same with the newish wall mounted Panasonic we have in our kitchen/diner. I've just managed to access the wall socket by moving some of the surplus aerial cable out of the way, so no more leaving that on standby for 23 hours a day!

Nice one, Cc.




 New tv - smokie
I prefer measuring stuff over time as that smooths out any bumps and dips. So in two hours my smart plug, with nothing plugged into it, has consumed 0.001kWh, i.e. naff all really. (It is, however, in my less reliable monitoring plug, couldn't find the better one, just off to hunt for it now).

However given I have something over 30 live smart switches and bulbs and a few not plugged in right now I suppose cumulatively they would add up.

But tbh, and within reason, I am prepared to spend a few bob on this stuff - it is a hobby as much as anything. And it does make some energy saving measures easier (like shutting stuff down at 02:00 in case someone has forgotten to turn something off, or remembering to switch on the dishwasher/car charger when my cheap electricity window starts at 21:30, and switch off the car charger at 01:30 when it ends).
 New tv - Crankcase
It might be a hobby for you, but we do need to think about the little stuff I guess.

Quickest of quick Googles - about 85000 hotel and B&B rooms in the UK. I'll guess pretty well all of them have a tv, and pretty well all of them are on standby for about 22.5 hours a day, I'll be bound.

Adds up to some whopping annual electricity usage and, although across individual establishments, nationally a whopping cost as well.

I did the sums but got confused with my KwM per hour pence versus CO2 tonne gigajoules conversion, so best if I leave that to others.
 New tv - Dog
Just add that to all the other money wa$ted in this country, and indeed the world these days.

Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.
 New tv - smokie
"It might be a hobby for you, but we do need to think about the little stuff I guess."

Absolutely we do, I only really put that in because there's a tendency towards implications of nerdiness or laziness for having simple stuff smartly switched and remotely controllable.

Just out of interest, the earliest bill I have to hand is 2010 where we used 13981 kWh (how!!). The 12 months to June this year was 5103, which included some car charging - but on the other hand I got about 2500kWh from the solar panels* - but that's significant savings for anyone who can be bothered.

*but didn't use it all by quite a long chalk

(Also interestingly, in 2010 electricity was 22.37p for the first 900 kWh and 9.53 thereafter. Gas was 6.214p for first 2680 kWh then 3.008. We've obviously been through a period of nice cheap electricity in the interim.

But it does put a slightly different perspective on today's prices.)


EDIT: Since getting smart meters in late 2018 my electricity has gone down as follows

2019 5110
2020 5079
2021 4810 < this being the year I really got going with Smart stuff
Last edited by: smokie on Thu 28 Jul 22 at 17:02
 New tv - sooty123
Quickest of quick Googles - about 85000 hotel and B&B rooms in the UK. I'll
>> guess pretty well all of them have a tv, and pretty well all of them
>> are on standby for about 22.5 hours a day, I'll be bound.
>>

I think the last couple of hotels I've stopped in, when you take the plastic key out of a holder on the wall it switches off the lights and the TV. I suppose a few use that system?
 New tv - Kevin
Yup, and in some hotels it switches the aircon off as well so I stick a hotel rewards card in there.
 New tv - smokie
A folded bit of fag packet used to work sometimes too
 New tv - tyrednemotional
>>
>> I think the last couple of hotels I've stopped in, when you take the plastic
>> key out of a holder on the wall it switches off the lights and the TV.

...well, I guess it beats the old tried and tested method of throwing the TV out of the hotel window.....
 New tv - Crankcase
Does the tv actually go off, though, or just sit in standby?
 New tv - smokie
In the hotel rooms? I think the whole room is turned off except the fridge. So not foolproof - I used to carry an extension so I could leave phone on charge and suchlike - but sometimes the fridge was hardwired in, not on a plug.
 New tv - Stuartli
Just for interest for those not aware, the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony is currently being transmitted in 4K UHD on BBC iPlayer.
 New tv - Biggles
My iPlayer was somewhat less than HD but I only managed a couple of minutes. As a proud Brummie, it was dire.
 New tv - martin aston
The power consumption on my relatively old SKY + HD box is 30w. It was set up to be on all the time as we put the TV on standby, not the SKY box. That’s £75 on the current capped tariff. I have found an auto standby setting in the SKY menu and have set it to “on”. I don’t know what it will now run at but hopefully not 30w.
 New tv - smokie
The TiVo is set to not turn off, just in case it wants to grab a recoding overnight. Not sure what would happen if it did. But I also meant to have a look at consumption, thanks for the reminder.
 New tv - martin aston
Smokie, Googling brings up how to use the Tivo standby setting. However there seem to be contradictory views on whether it still records. There are a few searches too about how to stop it going into standby.
Maybe best to try it out when there is nothing vital due to be recorded.
 New tv - Crankcase
We have a Tivo - the pre-Tivo 6 version. You can put it into standby and it will still record, no problem.

They did keep offering a paid update, then a free update, but so far I have declined. We know how to work ours; can't see the value in changing it for a whole new set of menus and buttons that don't quite behave the same way, just to record and watch some tv.

Also it has recordings we haven't yet seen, some of which are four or five years old. We will get there in the end, honest.
 New tv - smokie
Thanks Martin, I'll have a scout round and give it a go.

CC I was the same, resistant to change, then my old one broke and I had no choice. VM are hopeless in not being able to transfer your saved recordings. I used to do it quite easily on my pre-VM TiVo 1. And their tool for transferring your settings and preferences (and series links, of which I have nearly 200) doesn't work - and when you call them about it they've no idea what you are talking about!

I lost the SCART connection which was connected to an underfloor (tledf) cable to feed my kitchen TV too - that's now on a Firestick.

The remote is much better and you can record 6 things at once (but the most I ever do is two). The interface isn't much changed, if at all.

Between catch-up, the Firestick and the new telly (which can also record onto a disk), I now think my TiVo's days are numbered.
Last edited by: smokie on Fri 29 Jul 22 at 10:51
 New tv - Stuartli
>> My iPlayer was somewhat less than HD but I only managed a couple of minutes. As a proud Brummie, it was dire.>>

The display quality or the opening ceremony?

I enjoyed a splendid 4K UHD transmission on iPlayer on Freesat throughout the event...
Latest Forum Posts