Good Brand of New Television Set ?

[MrAl]

Hi Ron,

Well i dont think so as that name does not ring a bell at all. Why do they have some good TV's there?
BTW i like Home Depot but i just wish the hardware stores could have stayed around too.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hi Ron,

Well i dont think so as that name does not ring a bell at all. Why do they have some good TV's there?
BTW i like Home Depot but i just wish the hardware stores could have stayed around too.

Where I work we have no large hardware stores, we used to have a really nice old little shop known as 'Tinker Wrights'

Tinker's used to have everything, but it closed a few years back, and was converted into housing

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

The closest to you is probably Lawrenceville:
3371 US Hwy 1 Space 34
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
609-512-4064

Too bad these guys https://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=4717 aren't closer to you. It's a very low overhead store.

 

[Reloadron]

KISS got one. I know they are in NJ and they carry a wide, wide selection and very reasonable prices. I like being able to look at things like a TV before I buy so I use HHGregg here in Ohio. You may want to try a Google of HHGREGG.

Ron

 

[killivolt]

I've had a 32" Samsung for 5 years now. One pixel is out; I think this year it will have a power supply related problem. Unless they used better made Caps than in their small Computer Monitors. My Samsung was priced well and I paid almost the same amount as an old CRT 32" which as I remember to be around $11 an inch. I told my wife; until they sell the flat screens at that price; I refused to purchase one. I thought I would be in trouble with this set but, it seems to be ok for now.

At the University in our Classrooms we build which are used daily 8 to 10 hrs; I first installed Commercial Grade Sharps and NEC's. However as an experiment I recently purchased some 70" Sharp "Consumer Grade" within the last 3 years; I'll keep you posted but, as yet no problems.

We used to have some LG's on a Mobile Cart system for Video Teleconferencing which performed very well also.

 

[MrAl]

Hi again,

Lawrenceville is still a little far from me and i would not want to go that far for a purchase like this.

I saw a "Sceptre" on sale for a very good price. Ever hear of that make/brand?

BTW if you have read my other thread about fixing a TV, i have found the problem and replaced some caps and have more caps on order to complete the repair, and it's already working now, but i am still looking around for another one that is more modern for one thing and probably bigger screen. The one i have is 5 years old, but that's 50 years old in LCD television years

 

[killivolt]

Hi again,

Lawrenceville is still a little far from me and i would not want to go that far for a purchase like this.

I saw a "Sceptre" on sale for a very good price. Ever hear of that make/brand?

BTW if you have read my other thread about fixing a TV, i have found the problem and replaced some caps and have more caps on order to complete the repair, and it's already working now, but i am still looking around for another one that is more modern for one thing and probably bigger screen. The one i have is 5 years old, but that's 50 years old in LCD television years

We have "Sceptre" hear in Utah. It's like my "Acer" 21" Monitor more cheap Chinese stuff. However, my cheap 21" monitor it's still going strong for 5 years now; I guess I have my money back.

You just never know what your gonna get?

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Yeah i guess you are right about that. I had a Sony monitor (CRT) that only lasted 1 year. I have a cheap AOC TV that lasted 5 years before the caps blew out.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hi,

Yeah i guess you are right about that. I had a Sony monitor (CRT) that only lasted 1 year. I have a cheap AOC TV that lasted 5 years before the caps blew out.

Much too small a sample size to have any significance

 

[MrAl]

Hi Nigel,

Yes i agree, for a casual analysis. But for me it was very significant because the Sony was quite expensive
The Sony was one of those CRT's with the 'line' or "lines" across the screen, which was a very thin wire internal to the CRT.
I liked it while it lasted though.

 

[ramuna]

I thought that this would interest followers of this thread:

**broken link removed**

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Wow, what a coincidence, that's the one i just bought

Hey, maybe this will bring back those drive in theaters.
You could have one in your back yard

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Yes i agree, for a casual analysis. But for me it was very significant because the Sony was quite expensive
The Sony was one of those CRT's with the 'line' or "lines" across the screen, which was a very thin wire internal to the CRT.

That's a 'feature' of the Trinitron tube, instead of a shadow mask it uses an array of vertical wires, and the two horizontal wires are there to provide support for those.

 

[tvtech]

That's a 'feature' of the Trinitron tube, instead of a shadow mask it uses an array of vertical wires, and the two horizontal wires are there to provide support for those.

Nigel knows his Sony stuff in abundance. And is always at the top of his game.

Awesome stuff. Sadly, not many Sony CRT's left here.....just Ching junk.

When a Trinitron tube is working properly (and the chassis driving it).....no better CRT picture is possible. Black is pitch black in all the right places and white is absolutely white.....contrast and picture quality are awesome. Heck, even the 191 did it way back in the late Seventies here....

The 191/2 was a set that was "nervous" to watch though...you never knew if and when GTO's would get cross and that famous humming sound "hmmmmm"....dead set. PSU and Line stage blown...dead set....tube fine.

Brings back memories...

Regards,
tvtech

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Nigel knows his Sony stuff in abundance. And is always at the top of his game.

Awesome stuff. Sadly, not many Sony CRT's left here.....just Ching junk.

When a Trinitron tube is working properly (and the chassis driving it).....no better CRT picture is possible. Black is pitch black in all the right places and white is absolutely white.....contrast and picture quality are awesome. Heck, even the 191 did it way back in the late Seventies here....

The 191/2 was a set that was "nervous" to watch though...you never knew if and when GTO's would get cross and that famous humming sound "hmmmmm"....dead set. PSU and Line stage blown...dead set....tube fine.

I presume you're referring to the KV1810 (in Europe) which used the infamous SG613 in both PSU and LOPT - pretty well a disaster for Sony

The later version, the KV1820 only used one, as LOPT, and those were superbly reliable.

The now defunct UK magazine Practical Television did a project on the 1810, showing how to redesign the PSU to use a convention transistor, and improve the sets reliability - but I never had occasion to try it, and it was pretty complicated.

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Some interesting stuff here. I read up on the Trinitron tube years back when i had that model where i found out the larger sets had two horizontal wires and the smaller ones one horizontal wire, like mine.

The thing that was strange was that the wire(s) are not visible normally when watching a TV set with those wires, but for close up computer monitor work (like mine was) you could see the wire. I had to adjust to that by incorporating that wire into my desktop where i would put certain icons above the wire and certain other ones below the wire. The wire on that model was about (roughly) 75 percent up from the bottom (25 percent down from the top) so it divided the screen up into two regions. I got very used to having it there.

And i guess i found at least one other person that appreciates the beauty of a display that can accurately display whites and blacks, especially the deep blacks. I had a hard time explaining this to people a long time ago. On my cheap AOC TV set, the blacks are grey, and when there is a dark scene the dynamic range is very limited so the blacks get mixed in with the greys (as they appear to be the same color) and you can not make out faces and other detailed objects. That's the worst thing about the TV, and i am hoping that the newer models have better dark level contrast. I am hoping that the LED backlighting has helped this problem.

I also read about dynamic LED backlighting where different regions of the screen can change the backlighting independently, so if you have a darker picture on the left and lighter on the right the LEDs on the left will be dimmed more than the ones on the right. Perhaps one of you knows if this feature has been used in any TV sets already.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hi,

Some interesting stuff here. I read up on the Trinitron tube years back when i had that model where i found out the larger sets had two horizontal wires and the smaller ones one horizontal wire, like mine.

The thing that was strange was that the wire(s) are not visible normally when watching a TV set with those wires, but for close up computer monitor work (like mine was) you could see the wire. I had to adjust to that by incorporating that wire into my desktop where i would put certain icons above the wire and certain other ones below the wire. The wire on that model was about (roughly) 75 percent up from the bottom (25 percent down from the top) so it divided the screen up into two regions. I got very used to having it there.

Nothing 'strange' about it, you simply watch TV from too far away to be able to see them - but you watch computer moniotrs from much closer, so they are visible - I too had a Sony monitor at one time

And i guess i found at least one other person that appreciates the beauty of a display that can accurately display whites and blacks, especially the deep blacks. I had a hard time explaining this to people a long time ago. On my cheap AOC TV set, the blacks are grey, and when there is a dark scene the dynamic range is very limited so the blacks get mixed in with the greys (as they appear to be the same color) and you can not make out faces and other detailed objects. That's the worst thing about the TV, and i am hoping that the newer models have better dark level contrast. I am hoping that the LED backlighting has helped this problem.

I also read about dynamic LED backlighting where different regions of the screen can change the backlighting independently, so if you have a darker picture on the left and lighter on the right the LEDs on the left will be dimmed more than the ones on the right. Perhaps one of you knows if this feature has been used in any TV sets already.

The better CCFL ones also did dynamic backlighting, although it obviously affected the entire screen - but it improved contrast considerably.

They have been a number of LED sets that used individual 'area' backlighting, which supposedly gave better control - but I've never been able to see any particular improvement, and most sets now use simple edgelighting instead (as it's cheaper, and enables thinner screens). Incidentally, some of the smaller CCFL sets used edgelighting as well, with the CCFL's mounted at top and bottom.

 

[MrAl]

Hi again,

Yeah i read that the pixel mask (a proprietary design with Sony) would physically vibrate and cause the screen to be a little more blurry so they added the wires as an afterthought to damp that out. The larger screens were more of a problem (bigger masks) so they needed two wires instead of one.

I had suspected that the more recent ones were edge lit to save space. I like that too though, less space and lighter weight. I have a 24 inch LED backlit monitor that i can pick up with two fingers...i was lucky if i could pick up my 15 inch Sony Trinitron monitor with both arms.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I had suspected that the more recent ones were edge lit to save space. I like that too though, less space and lighter weight. I have a 24 inch LED backlit monitor that i can pick up with two fingers...i was lucky if i could pick up my 15 inch Sony Trinitron monitor with both arms.

I used a 20 or 21 inch Sony monitor (that I was given), it was incredibly heavy - and I'm used to carrying far bigger TV's

As far as I'm aware, the heaviest TV's were some of the 36 inch (widescreen) Sony ones, they weighed 120kg

Grundig also made a huge 4:3 set, 37 inches perhaps? - they came with metal bars that bolted on the sides, making it possible to carry it. Not as heavy as the Sony sets, but they were almost impossible to grip without the bars. In fact I instituted a rule at work that if the customer didn't have the bars we wouldn't even look at the set.

Incidentally, the boxes for the 36" Sony's said '4 man lift' on the box - but it's absolutely impossible to fit 4 people round a TV box and carry it

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Yeah those big CRT's are heavy. Many years back when LCD's did not have affordable big screens yet i helped a friend carry a 30 inch Toshiba up some stairs. Almost impossible to grip and that thing weighed a ton! Definitely a two man job moving the thing.

It's interesting that Sony came up with an idea for carry outs using removable bars, that makes it a little better at least. Never saw one myself though but if i had one i'd probably leave the bars on unless they interfere with the screen.