HDTV?

TV guru’s – I have questions about HDTV’s. I hate looking at buying something I know little about. How big a deal is it with the refresh rates, say 60hz vs 120hz? I see you can get some great deals on 60hz, I know the 120hz will be faster…. Does anyone have a 60hz and what do you think?

Thanks, Mike

I know, I am thinking hunting and fishing right now and soon there will be no time to watch television.

I have a Samsung 120 refresh on that and I will get a little blur from time to time but it may even be in the filming. I am not sure on the 60 but I can’t imagine it is that bad. If they were that bad the market would have demanded that they would be gone. Good luck with the new TV.

I bought a top of the line Sony last Christmas and when I watched all the TV’s next to each other in the store I could tell between the 60hz and the 120hz. Maybe in the living room by itself you may not notice a difference. I went all out since if I am spending that much already, might as well spend another thousand or so and get the best.

I agree that there IS a difference in refresh rates and yes if you look at them side-by-side you can detect a difference. But the technology changes so fast that your top of the line unit this year will be crap next year. I took the approach of buying what looked best to me for the money knowing that I’ll keep the unit for 5 years and it will be old technology for at least 4 of those years. My advice is to find the best deal on what looks good to you.
Watch out for 1 thing on LCD/Plasma tvs – Look at your chosen model at an angle from left, right, top and bottom before buying. If the picture darkens as your viewing angle decreases from 90 degrees to 10 degrees, I would avoid it. There is a term that I heard for this and I think it as Darken Ratio – but I’m not sure.
Consumer Reports has good info on tvs too.

A lot of it depends on what you will be watching. If you watch a lot of programming with fast movement (football, basketball, etc) you will notice blurring much more with the 60 vs the 120. The 120 will produce a much better picture for you in that scenario. If you watch programming that doesn’t have a lot of fast movement, you may not notice much difference. Especially if you are not comparing side by side.

I compared two of the same 42″ models side-by-side. One was 60 and the other 120. While watching the same images, the 60 was rough around the edges while there was motion and the 120 was noticeably smoother. This was a nature show – the difference was even more noticeable watching sports. Spend the $ on the 120, IMHO.

you won’t be watching 2 tv’s side by side at home. I’d bet you’d never notice the difference. The best now will be obsolete in 6 months anyway.

save the $$ on the TV and get a better sound system. The tv’s are so flat that they can’t prodoce very good sound at all. An amp/speakers is almost a necessity.

Absolutely agree about the sound vs spending $ on the refresh rate. Step back to your viewing distance and the refresh rate difference is null. I bought a Bose Sound Dock for my LCD in the bedroom just last night and cannot believe the difference in sound quality.

BTW, the only time the human eye can detect the difference between 1080p and 720p is something like under 8 or 9 feet away. Thats why Worst Buy sets up their viewing couch 6 feet in front of thier high quality 1080p display model. How many people sit within 6 feet of their tv?

Something to consider. If you sit 10-15 feet away (go measure tonight), the 1080p will basically be wasting your $$.

You can get a 50″ 720 pretty cheap right now, probably half price vs 1 year ago when I bought mine.

Thanks for the input… We might go take a look again this weekend.

I just got done reading a TV buying article.. one it said that you wont save money by buying a 720 set over a 1000..because the prices have dropped so much.. two it said that the first week of December has the lowest prices of the year..

some food for thought.