blonde poker forum

TV?

Left school 8 years ago and had one year in a shared house with a TV, but never owned one, or even used one for most of my adult life so far.

It's time.

Choose me a good one please blonde. 4k and curved are the buzz words about town these days I hear. Doesn't need to be too big (but I don't know how big 50" is for example), but happy to spend some wedge - around £1k but if thats excessive then say so.

Want it for Sport mainly, but linking it to Netflix, youtube, iplayer etc etc would be neat.

"But I don't know how big 50 inches is"

Yeah I'm stumped as well.

I'm sure if you ask Verndog he'll claim he could show you.

Fwiw I've never owned a tv either, my mrs does but I never use it. She doesn't much either, unless she hooks the laptop up to it for netflix or whatever.

Probably best to go to a Currys/PCWorld megastore, choose the tv you like the most and then go and buy it online, got my last 50" tv £400 cheaper doing it this way and I had the benefit of seeing it first.

In other news I needed a HDMI cable on Boxing Day to connect a gaming chair to the Xbox for my son, found this

http://www.futureshop.co.uk/audioquest-diamond-hdmi-cable-16m-p-5290.html#.Vn-DA3rfWrU

 ;carlocitrone;

I order half a dozen

I'm in the same boat at the moment as I'm seriously considering an upgrade for my tired old screen.

The best place to look is here: http://www.whathifi.com/news/boxing-day-sales-best-tv-deals-smart-hd-4k-tv

There's loads of reviews on what hi-fi and I've always found them to be really good. If you're not in a rush then buy the magazine for a few months until you get comfortable with what's out there. If you need one now then the reviews in that link will have to do.

Regarding screen size 50" is pretty big but if you've got room then go for it. To give you an idea this is what a 50" screen looks like on a 4m wide wall:

(http://i576.photobucket.com/albums/ss205/evilpie1/TV_zpsdhsdesye.jpg) (http://s576.photobucket.com/user/evilpie1/media/TV_zpsdhsdesye.jpg.html)

Bear in mind that new screens have hardly any trim around the edge so a modern 55" screen would probably appear about the same overall panel size and a 50" would just be the bit within the black trim.

There's no real need for 4k at the moment as there's hardly any content to play through it. Most of what is available is on Netflix or youtube though so in your case it may be worth it. If you're not getting a 50"+ screen then you're not going to need that many pixels anyway.

Curved seems to be a gimmick. There doesn't appear to be any real use for it other than to look cool. I might have to get one myself though because they really do look cool.

A smart TV will do lots of cool online stuff although not all smart TVs do Netflix so look out for that. I think Samsung and LG both have Netflix within their OS but not many of the others. There's other ways of getting Netflix such as hooking up your laptop but you're much better off keeping it separate in my opinion. Many have wifi for streaming but you may suffer from jitter if your wireless connection isn't great. Better to have a wired connection if you can and also you'll need 30Mb/s to stream 4K from what I understand.

It's a huge minefield out there so very best of luck. Whatever you buy be happy with your choice and don't look at TVs again after you've made your purchase. It won't be long before you see the same TV at half the price so you'll just upset yourself........

TV manufacturers change models around March. IMO either grab a sale bargain now or wait until then. A few years ago I got a 3D smart TV. The new model was coming out in April and the old one was all singing/dancing enough for me. Paid £799 for it, original price £1899. 

Does anyone else remember when tellys had just the two channels and you had to get out of your chair, walk across the room and turn a big knob to switch between them?

Yes I've read about them somewhere.

If you wanted to watch something at 8pm you had to switch on at 7:55 to let it warm up.

No I'm far too young.  :kiss: ;hide;

Two channels?  We used to dream of two channels.

I loved watching snooker in b&w tom

samsung curved b+w, 52 inch, not sure exact model number i have, will post in week or so when I'm back home. massively recommend.

Presumably you'll need to buy a home cinema or sound bar set-up along side. Whats the difference in all those hundreds of options for those?

If you want to record stuff then does the TV have that in built or do you need a DVD player with recording capabilities?

At least you didn't need a big knob.

This is where the problems start and it begins to get expensive. You'll get a good TV and half decent sound bar and think that it couldn't possibly sound better. Then you'll spend a couple of hundred on an amp and some half decent speakers and think it can't get any better. Then you'll spend a few grand and think it can't get better......

You'll end up with thousands of pounds worth of AV kit when all you really wanted was a TV.

Sound bars are going to sound better than the TVs own speakers. A dedicated amp + 5 or 7 speaker surround sound and a bass speaker will smash all but the very best sound bars to pieces but they obviously take up a lot more space and have wires everywhere.

Start with a TV and then buy what hifi for a few months to get an idea of what sort of set up you want. You'll save yourself from buying things that you realise after a few months aren't what you really want. There are so many choices it's impossible to go through them on here but you can't go wrong with a £400 40" TV for now and develop your kit from there.

For recording you might be best just getting Sky or Virgin (Sky >>>>>>> Virgin from what I understand). It'll handle all your sport requirements as well as giving you loads of catch up stuff, movies etc. depending on how much you want to spend each month on your subscription.

Big knob?  We used to...

errr maybe not

You were lucky. We had to walk three miles to our Great-Aunt Nellie's house, who, before we could watch her television, would beat us with a wet kipper. It was only recently that we realised the television was actually a picture of an owl drawn on a cardboard box.

I just bought a house and wanted to treat myself to a new TV, walked into currys like the TV fish I was and walked out with a 55" curved OLED telly... Isn't the 4k model as hardly any 4k content out and I wouldn't pay for them anyway for now. I couldn't recommend it enough, it's unreal for football and movies. Everyone that comes around comments on the picture

Go have a look in store and compare some

I've technically never owned a TV either. I have just never bothered watching it, or if there was something I really wanted to see, I would just get it online after it had been on.

Ive had this Samsung 65" with a Sonos sound bar for about two years now, would recommend both.

Although any branded TV such as Sony, Panasonic etc would be just as good.

If you are into streaming music around your house then Sonos is great, works perfectly.

I purchased the TV from John Lewis, they price match and give a free 5 year guarantee.

Thanks all

Deffo agree with the John Lewis bit
Just go n have a look and pick something you like the look of
There's not much need for recording now with i player but a basic sky package offers the chance to record and series link programmes

Do not buy 4k, there is no benefit unless you sit extremely close to the screen:

(http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2013/01/27/resolution_chart.jpg)

If you want a good TV for sports (that's what i was after as well) then make sure you get something with a high refresh rate (i have a sony with 800hz) as it deals with the fast panning shots much better.

You can only watch a curved tv when sat directly in front, they don't work at angles at all. Make sure your living room layout allows for this and maybe think about any company you might expect too. 

Refresh rates are a bit of a myth. Anything between 200-1000 hertz will give you the same thing. A rate higher than that may show you a difference but i wouldn't worry about this too much. 

Would also strongly recommend buying from John Lewis for their 5 year guarantee.

And their price match if you see it cheaper from somewhere else (Excluding on-line only retailers)

Just ordered a Samsung 48" curved smart tv- £539 with 5 year warranty. Getting a stand, DVD player, sound bar and sky and bt sports bundle will still have some change from a bag so happy with that. Thanks for advice all.

So next step...Sky and BT. Gone for Skybox basic + Sky sports for £45/month. Now looking at BT sport, looks like £19.99/month as a stand alone add-on - seems like a lot.

Or could get with BT broadband (38mb) for £7.50 + £17.50/month but shutdown our existing broadband (100mb £35) and save a tenner a month, get BT sport but have worse internet (love our internet atm).

Anyone know about any deals?

actually even worse its 17mb max in my building and limited data of 40gb or something at that price.

Can you get Virgin? They do Bt sport with their TVs package.  I don't think BT do that good deals, they offered do £1.50 per month off for 3 months when it was renewal time - they sent me several letters says to call for a better price but still wanted about £60 pm so I left, 

I'd stick with the better broadband.

Android boxes seem to be very popular if you are not worried about the legal side of things

And if you choose the right stream, no Micky Owen either :D

I'd implore anyone considering getting Virgin Media not too. The menus are so slow and very tilting.

I've got Virgin with a Tivo box and can confirm it's shit.

I only really use it for the broadband though and that's fantastic so the TV quality doesn't matter to me.