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Opinion on TV!

tiredretired

tiredretired

The Old Salt
Narrowed it down to two COSTCO TV's:

Vizio 47" E Series $539.99 Low End Basic
Vizio 47" M Series $689.99 Smart TV with built in wifi and apps

I am thinking other than Pandora I have no use for a Smart TV. Besides I am sure the NSA just loves smart TV's that are always tied into the internet. That kind of turns me off on that feature as well.

Anyone own a Vizio or a so called smart TV in general? Impressions? :biggrin:
 
I have a smart TV and have grown to like it. Makes it easy to switch between inputs and you can even watch youtube videos on it or visit FF via your TV. If you want to change or back down your cable service you can pick up the stuff with just your smart TV, no Ruku box needed as far as I know. You can get Amazon Prime, NetFlix, Hulu or any of the streaming services, plus anything on the internet. If it were me I'd go smart TV.
 
I have a Vizio TV in the guest room, also have a Vizio DVD player.

Vizio is a good TV set but I tend to like Samsung better. Not sure why, maybe its the ease of using the remote? User interface, etc. As far as the picture, its plenty good enough.

Don't have any of the "smart tv" sets. Can't help with that.
 
I bought a couple Vizio TV's last Christmas.

Before you buy the basic TV, make sure it has adequate input jacks. The basic models I have don't accept much of anything (including XBox, Wii and a sound bar/system).
 
I have 5 Vizio's, like them all. I'm going to get a smart TV for the new house as I like the idea of getting the Internet stuff.
 
+1 on Visio. They're not a Samsung by any comparison in cost/quality, but hey, I do believe they are manufactured by Dell.


TR, if you look around, I bet you can find a big ass 51" for $500-600.
 
Thumbs up on Visio. I bought five of them several years ago for grandkids and my dad. All work well.

As for the Smart version, prolly worth it. Forget about the NSA crap. They got yu six ways to Sunday with or without the Smart additions.

By this time next year, the dollar will be so bad you won't be able to buy a decent TV so do it now.
 
When I saw the thread title I thought you were thinking of tv as a media rather than the set itself.

This quote from 1961 came to mind. Are things any better?



from "Television and the Public Interest" an address to the National Association of Broadcasters, May 9, 1961

Newton N. Minnow FCC Chairman

""When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it."
 
I have a question: Do all these new fangled TV's still have a tuner for over-the-air broadcasts?

I just have a big antenna in the attic - no cable or dish. It would be nice to have the internet features though. Not that I'm going to pay for them. ;)
 
jim slagle said:
When I saw the thread title I thought you were thinking of tv as a media rather than the set itself.

This quote from 1961 came to mind. Are things any better?



from "Television and the Public Interest" an address to the National Association of Broadcasters, May 9, 1961

Newton N. Minnow FCC Chairman

""When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it."
Click to expand...

Jim, TV is like a Popular Mechanics Magazine. Mostly crap and advertisments with an occasional morsel of interest.
 
PBinWA said:
I have a question: Do all these new fangled TV's still have a tuner for over-the-air broadcasts?

I just have a big antenna in the attic - no cable or dish. It would be nice to have the internet features though. Not that I'm going to pay for them. ;)
Click to expand...


I thought they digitized all broadcasts a few years ago, so that you needed a converter even if you received the signal over the air. If that is the case then all new TV's can read that kind of signal. I doubt the new TV's have the old analog type tuner.
 
At the end of last year I bought a big screen LG smart TV. It can do most things and you can plug almost anything into it except the coffee maker.

Here are my thoughts on the subject.

3-D : complete waste of time. Very few channels show 3-D programming and they're mostly ones I never watch. NFL on Sunday is often shown on 3-D and it's OK but you have to wear those silly glasses.

Internet : Seldom if ever use it. I found that moving around the internet to be too slow and clumbersome using the remote. For me it's much easier to sit in my recliner, put my web book in my lap and use the internet that way, Besides I can be on the internet and watch satellite TV at the same time.

Movies : Never watch Netflix or Hulu. We seldom watch DVDs. Our internet connection is Wi-Fi and it's not very fast. At times it's dowright slow. Often I can't watch You-tube videos with it stopping and buffering so I'm pretty sure I couldn't stream movies.

So the TV has all the features and I very seldom use any of them. I'd be happy with a basic TV with a satellite box.

As you can tell, I'm not really in to all this high tech distraction. :biggrin:
 
Doc said:
I thought they digitized all broadcasts a few years ago, so that you needed a converter even if you received the signal over the air. If that is the case then all new TV's can read that kind of signal. I doubt the new TV's have the old analog type tuner.
Click to expand...

My current CRT TV supports digital over-the-air broadcasts. It actually works well. I was just curious if the newer "smart" TV's still support it.

From the specs on the TV's it appears they have RF inputs but then they qualify them like this:

RF In (Terrestrial/Cable Input)
Click to expand...
:unsure:
 
Lot's of good opinions. Thanx one and all.

A Vast Wasteland. Newton Minnow. I had forgotten that comment from years ago. This TV is 99% for my wife as I still feel the vast wasteland comment applies today.
 
Check Sams club for some deals as well. They have our 55" Samsung for $899 right now. I bought our 42" Sony for $499 a year or so ago. Both are great and I only watch TV and the occasional dvd. The Samsung will do internet and all kinds of crap but I don't bother with it. That would be one more thing to constantly fix for the wife.:hammer:
 
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