Smoking deal on 32" lcd flat panel with built in tv tuner 4 u guys

[Negativecreep0]

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202787960&adid=17662


 never even saw a price get close to that and with a built in tv tuner its a smoking deal even if its a third party brand. check it out

it says 23" not 32" guess i have dislexia still pretty good deal

[CCM]

32" is $535

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202787993&adid=17662

[ChadTower]

Is that the type you can mount on a wall?

EDIT:  It is.  Just ordered one.  I was seriously thinking of doing the Best Buy Black Friday thing to get a 32" LCD.  This one actually looks better, is shipped free, and I got $15 off.

EDIT2:  Erm, it SAID free shipping, then charged me $200 for shipping.  But not until AFTER the review screen and AFTER I pressed confirm.

EDIT3:  No phone support.  The phone number told me to go to the website.  Apparently they only give support via email.  Wonderful.

EDIT4:  They seem to have just cancelled my order without telling me.  Now I can't seem to order another.

[CCM]

Well, it was posted on slickdeals this morning which will kill most deals within hours... probably why they cancelled, I bet they are out of stock already.

[ChadTower]

They won't confirm the cancellation, though.  And I have no desire to pay $200 shipping when the web listing said free.

[CCM]

that's odd, I've always had good luck with buy.com.

[Negativecreep0]

my sony 60" shipping wasnt even 200 so its prolly a mistake

[ChadTower]

Finally got confirmation, after a long time of trying.  It wasn't a mistake, they really wanted $200 to ship the thing.

[ChadTower]

That same TV.

Just bought it here for $540 shipped to MA.  I'll update when it arrives.  Now to search for a decently priced wall mount.

[ChadTower]

Shipped and tracking... FedEx has it in NJ.  Estimated delivery date of Monday.  Woo!

[ChadTower]

No love so far... and my wife agreed to go into work this afternoon.     I wonder if they would be dumb enough to leave it on our porch.

[shardian]

No love so far... and my wife agreed to go into work this afternoon.     I wonder if they would be dumb enough to leave it on our porch.

Yes, they will. AND with the bright color picture facing outwards for all to see.

[CCM]

No love so far... and my wife agreed to go into work this afternoon.     I wonder if they would be dumb enough to leave it on our porch.

Yes, they will. AND with the bright color picture facing outwards for all to see.

And if you're lucky, it will be raining or snowing when they leave it outside...

[AlanS17]

Not to sound like a downer, but with a 1600:1 contrast ratio you'll want some good blinds unless you only plan on watching it at night.

[ChadTower]

It's a dark room and actually is mostly watched at night.

EDIT:  wait, I didn't pay much attention to what dude said... 1600:1 is good.

And the monitor is here.  I came home a bit early to have the FedEx guy show up 5 minutes later.  I'm rearranging the bedroom to set it up now.

[ChadTower]

Okay, after hours of cleaning/arranging furniture, it's all set up.

Maybe I'm just old but this thing is dramatically inferior to the old 27" CRT in the other room.  Using S video the picture stretches all weird to fit the widescreen.  If I set it to 1:1 then it's no bigger than a 13" picture in the center of the screen.  Everything is all artifacted when at the best aspect ratio like a jpg blown up way too big.  That would make sense for a 50" screen but this is only a 32" tv.  They make CRTs at 32" that don't artifact stuff like this.  And anything with fast motion (like the MNF game right now) blurs all up when stuff gets quick...

...is all this common LCD stuff?  I know it's not a high end plasma but I figured it would at least be something like a CRT quality picture.

[TOK]

Its a ---smurfy--- TV, thats why its cheap. LCD's aren't great at showing analog images (like if you just plugged the cable straight into it). If you put a digital box on there (and your cable company is 100% digital and not digital/analog hybrid) it'll look decent.

[ChadTower]

Hrm.  It's coming from DirecTivo... so it's basically the analog converted digital signal. 

[shardian]

Plug a set of bunny ears into the digital coax input, sit back and enjoy. At this time, unless you want to pay eleventy bajillion dollars a month for pay hdtv channels, you really shouldn't waste your money on an hdtv as your primamry tv. Even with the major networks, they only broadcast in hdtv for the prime time shows. everything else will just be digital (standard) which means about 80 percent of your tv shows will STILL be 4:3 ratio. Personally, I don't watch much tv, and when I do, it is either movies, or major network tv shows (Lost, Jericho, Heroes), so an hdtv would fit me perfectly. If you watch ALOT of regular tv, then hd sets will mostly suck. 

As to the artifacts, that is what happens when you take a video source with 100,000 pixels of info and fit it to a display with 1,000,000 pixels (before nitpickers hit me up, these numbers are not accurate - just meant as example). Same reason high compression DIVX videos look like crap when blown up too big.

[ChadTower]

Well, I learned a couple of things last night.

1)  The set needed a couple of hours to acclimate itself.  It looked much better two hours after I posted. 

2)  I was standing way too close to make a quality judgment.  I was standing right in front of it.  It looks a lot better from ten feet away.

3)  As expected, it's not a $1200 quality TV.  For $540, though, once I got oriented on the best aspect mode and viewing distance, it's definitely worth that amount.  I haven't tried it as a computer monitor or for gaming yet but those are supposedly its actual strengths.

[somunny]

At this time, unless you want to pay eleventy bajillion dollars a month for pay hdtv channels, you really shouldn't waste your money on an hdtv as your primamry tv.

It's ten dollars extra a month.  Go on, splurge.

[Mr. Bubblehead]

1)  The set needed a couple of hours to acclimate itself.  It looked much better two hours after I posted. 

I'm just curious if you consumed any alcoholic beverages during that time period.  It has been my experience that a lot of things look better after a couple hours of drinking

[CCM]

At this time, unless you want to pay eleventy bajillion dollars a month for pay hdtv channels, you really shouldn't waste your money on an hdtv as your primamry tv.

Comcast HD is free as long as you already have their digital package, it's $10 more a month if you want the DVR, and I have friends that have satellite, and they aren't living the in the streets due to excessive HD bills, so eleventy bajillion dollars may be a bit of an over-statement.

[ChadTower]

I'm just curious if you consumed any alcoholic beverages during that time period.  It has been my experience that a lot of things look better after a couple hours of drinking

Nope.  Haven't had a drink in months.

For me, moving to HD would take a good amount of effort.  I'd have to replace the DirecTV receivers as well as move away from Tivo altogether since DirecTV no longer offers Tivo.  They still support the DirecTivos out there but you can only get DirecTV DVRs now.  We like our upgraded/customized DirecTivos.  I'd have to upgrade our dish, too, since that one isn't going to pick up the transponders that carry the HD channels.

Plus the only thing I watch that is broadcast in HD is the NFL.  The Sunday Ticket (which we have) HD addon is $100.  Hell no.

[CCM]

I'm just curious if you consumed any alcoholic beverages during that time period.  It has been my experience that a lot of things look better after a couple hours of drinking

Nope.  Haven't had a drink in months.

For me, moving to HD would take a good amount of effort.  I'd have to replace the DirecTV receivers as well as move away from Tivo altogether since DirecTV no longer offers Tivo.  They still support the DirecTivos out there but you can only get DirecTV DVRs now.  We like our upgraded/customized DirecTivos.  I'd have to upgrade our dish, too, since that one isn't going to pick up the transponders that carry the HD channels.

Plus the only thing I watch that is broadcast in HD is the NFL.  The Sunday Ticket (which we have) HD addon is $100.  Hell no.

WOW!  What a pain... another reason not to have satellite.  When I got my HD tv, I called comcast and said,  'hey, I now have and HD tv', they said 'here's a new cable box free of charge, and you now get all of the HD channels we offer'.  Couldn't have been easier. 

[ChadTower]

The offering difference between cable and Satellite used to be a lot more skewed in the direction of satellite (DirecTV specifically).  Cable has caught up a lot in the last couple of years with their broadband capabilities.  Still, satellite is less expensive and is the only place I can get the Sunday Ticket, which is why I got satellite in the first place.  I get more channels for less money from DirecTV than I could ever get from Comcast and Comcast never offered Tivo.

[Hoopz]

The offering difference between cable and Satellite used to be a lot more skewed in the direction of satellite (DirecTV specifically).  Cable has caught up a lot in the last couple of years with their broadband capabilities.  Still, satellite is less expensive and is the only place I can get the Sunday Ticket, which is why I got satellite in the first place.  I get more channels for less money from DirecTV than I could ever get from Comcast and Comcast never offered Tivo.

Amen.  10 years of Sunday Ticket and never going back to cable.

[ChadTower]

Sunday Ticket and four Tivo tuners = NFL all damn week.

[CCM]

The offering difference between cable and Satellite used to be a lot more skewed in the direction of satellite (DirecTV specifically).  Cable has caught up a lot in the last couple of years with their broadband capabilities.  Still, satellite is less expensive and is the only place I can get the Sunday Ticket, which is why I got satellite in the first place.  I get more channels for less money from DirecTV than I could ever get from Comcast and Comcast never offered Tivo.

Well, if Sunday ticket is that importantm then satellite is definitely for you.  FWIW, Comcast has a DVR box, same thing as tivo.

[ChadTower]

Performs some of the same functions... the software itself is, from what I hear, not nearly as good as Tivo.  Tivo makes its money with the power of its software.  DVR is probably equivalent but the difference is season passes, searching and categorizing, sharing between units (though DirecTivo doesn't do that without "help", standalone Tivo does), etc.

[MikeDeuce]

the software itself is, from what I hear, not nearly as good as Tivo.

You hear correctly... We're *dying* for the series 3 tivos to lower in price so we can have a proper HD DVR. For the time being we're using the RCN-provided dual tuner DVR (motorola POS), and as loyal tivo owners (directivo and s1, both upgraded), it is criminal what cable companies try to pass off as DVRs. It's not only the software, it's all around usability. I'm convinced the remote was designed by a sadist. I never realized just how perfect the tivo peanut remote was until I tried to use something else regularly. Now if they could just get the s3 in the $500 (or even $600, sigh) range.

[ChadTower]

Hrm... just hooked up an Xbox via component.  Regular works fine, but 480p came up all garbled.

EDIT:

480p doesn't work with Fable... works with Knights of the Old Republic.  Anyone know anything about Xbox games having issues with some games with bad 480p?

[divemaster127]

Hey guys, I get my TV's free thru the military(part of the bonus program) anyway I have HD thru dish & its ok, the channels are limited, the other day dish was offering the gay wedding(just what I wanted to watch) kidding, so i would wait on sinking a lot of money in hd equipment for now...& as far as best picture
I have all toshiba, thats what the military offers
1 52 dlp.
1 37" lcd
1 26" lcd
& 1 30" hd tube,
the lcd's have the best picture & the xbox 360 looks awesome
dm

[shmokes]

It will be terrible as a computer monitor.  1366x768 might be fine for a 15" laptop LCD.   It isn't nearly high enough to display crisp fonts and such on a 30+" screen.

[ChadTower]

Well, it looks pretty damn crisp to me at 800x600.  That's all I've tried so far.  DivX played via VGA looked better than the Svideo standard def signal does.

[shmokes]

Using it to play movies and TV etc. will be fine.  I'm talking about Word Processing and stuff like that, i.e., actually using it as a computer monitor rather than a media center monitor.

[ChadTower]

As I said, 800x600 desktop looked pretty much the same on the TV as it did on the laptop monitor.  Just bigger.  I was actually surprised at how good it looked.

[Nannuu]

Hrm... just hooked up an Xbox via component.  Regular works fine, but 480p came up all garbled.

EDIT:

480p doesn't work with Fable... works with Knights of the Old Republic.  Anyone know anything about Xbox games having issues with some games with bad 480p?

Nope, played tons of Xbox games on my HD and never had a problem with any 480p.  I have a rear projection HDTV however, may have different issues.  Did you set your Xbox up for widescreen and tell it that the TV accepts the higher resolutions?  If not, that could be it.

[shmokes]

Yeah . . . I've never had a problem with any games and 480p.  In fact, I even have one Xbox game (Syberia) that runs 1080i.  That has absolutely nothing to do with our discussion, but I just thought I'd point it out cos it's a little bit funny, what with Xbox 360 and PS3 ushering in the era of High Definition gaming.

[boykster]

There are even some PS2 games that output 1080i via component.....

[Xiaou2]

 Chas,

  Try running it at its naitive resolution as your computer monitor.

  I got a  Sceptre 37"  Lcd  with  1920*1024  res  (1080p)...  and first
hooked it up to the pc at lower resolutions cause my ancient card wouldnt
pump out the full res.


 It looked 'ok'.   But colors were off, and things were a bit blurry.   I was
pretty dissapointed.


 Then I read the reports, and followed them.   Used a new vid card,
a DVI to HDMI cable (provided),  and upped the res to the full
capability.... 

 WOW!  What a difference.  It was like night and day.  Now
all the colors are perfect.   The text is crisp and clean.  It
looks just about as good as my 17" pc monitor in terms of
clarity and color...  which blew me away.   

 DVDs look a bit bad using the pc player..  cause  they are
not enough definition for this tv.  Need Hi-Def  players,
or an upconvert player.  Someday Ill get one..  but
most are still at 1080i  and not  1080p...
 
 The pic seemed fine for fast motion on dvd. 

Tho on the highest res, you can see a small amount of blur
when moving something very quickly on desktop.   Ive not done
enough gameing lately to test it out fully.  I really
bought it for doing graphical and possibly 3d work.
Ohh, and cause Im tired of moving and flipping things
arround on a small monitor. 

 Best purchase ever! 


 Anyway, I suspect a simular case with your tv.    Also, if theres a connection
for DVI and Svga..  make sure to use the DVI instead.  Svga strangly doesnt
match the signal clarity of the DVI cable.  The details and colors will
suffer on the Svga cable.

  Using res lower than its naitive, means the pic will be downconverted...
and thus again be 'off'.   A slight blur, and maybe even colors off too. 
Depends on the internal converter I guess.  This converter doesnt seem
very good..  but naitive res is great.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11042448&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=&s=1

[ChadTower]

Yeah . . . I've never had a problem with any games and 480p.  In fact, I even have one Xbox game (Syberia) that runs 1080i.  That has absolutely nothing to do with our discussion, but I just thought I'd point it out cos it's a little bit funny, what with Xbox 360 and PS3 ushering in the era of High Definition gaming.

Fable and 480p.

I have a copy of Syberia, actually, but won't be able to try it any time soon.  I have to keep the Xbox hidden until Xmas.