help Tracer buy a TV

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i have never bought a TV before, and i am a MESS figuring it out! i had no idea there were so many different viewing needs. (not wants, needs.) i may have said some of this before.

have any of you bought a TV recently? how did you do it, just walk in and choose something that was on sale or with years of diligent research?

it would be incredible, i think, if somebody could even just TELL me what to buy. i don't have much money and probably want a widescreen CRT television with a, er, 28" screen or so. or something. am not interested in HD or digital receiver (latter is what my cheapo freeview box is for innit)

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:53 (seventeen years ago) link

now that i think about it, the most awesome thing would be to buy some kind of heavy, good-quality TV MONITOR with zero features, and just plug a freeview box into that??

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:54 (seventeen years ago) link

OK i'm going to get coffee; solutions on my desk in 10 minutes

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:55 (seventeen years ago) link

do you already have the digibox?

― benrique (Enrique), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:56 (seventeen years ago) link

we went to CA$H CONVERTERS

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:58 (seventeen years ago) link

i looked in the Argos catalogue and saw they had a 20" widescreen for £300 and just thought 'that'll do'. 20" widescreens are pretty suck but the real problem is this TV has a ridiclously big ASS and if you have to carry it upstairs it may just break your back. i'd probably go for a flatscreen and compromise on screen size just cos of space advantages now.

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Thursday, 4 January 2007 15:58 (seventeen years ago) link

i have no idea how wide my screen is -- wide ENOUGH i think, so much so i was offered an bigger one for free and said no, just cos of the aforementioned ass issue. it's lasted five years and probably cost about £300. now i would possibly take rjg's route and effectively participate in housebreaking.

― benrique (Enrique), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:00 (seventeen years ago) link

RJG's method sounds good. esp. as we know Comrade Hand already believes there to be too many types of TV in the world if not also TVs themselves so he may want to buy recent but used for a pony or two.

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:00 (seventeen years ago) link

I just bought my first TV a couple years ago. I have to admit my decision was based mostly on a combination of how the TV itself looked to me (turned off) and submitting to a somewhat hard-sell salesperson. (I didn't mind the latter so much since I wanted to get it over with.) Actualy, at the moment I can't even remember what brand it is.

― R_S (RSLaRue), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:01 (seventeen years ago) link

'used'

crosspost

― benrique (Enrique), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:01 (seventeen years ago) link

what do you mean?

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Cash Converters appears to be a gussied-up pawn shop?

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Or maybe strike the "gussied up" part

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link

yes. i don't know of one round our way tho (but it may well exist or something similar will).

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes

By the cheapest 14" alba argos does, job done.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link

start here and scroll down until you find one you like?

Ally & I just went to Best Buy up the street, looked at the models on display, looked at the prices, and picked the best combination of picture/size/price according to our own brains. I knew that I wanted these things:

1 - 720p, no more
2 - liquid crystal, not plasma
3 - a brand name other than Sony or Sharp
4 - 32" or very close.

That narrowed it down to a Philips model in very short order and that was that. I probably took a lot longer than necessary pretending to understand the contrast ratios printed on the price/spec tags under each model; in the end there's no standard for measuring that statistic so really who gives a fuck.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Samsung do good monitors with things like component and other video inputs.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link

i want a new tv now but i'm going to feel like a chump if i don't go for a HD flatscreen widescreen thing. but that seems like such a commitment

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:15 (seventeen years ago) link

1. Click on link in spam e-mail from "customercenter.net.info"
2. Enter credit information
3. Immediately order TV from most hated online retailer
4. Call bank in panic

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Hasn't Glasgow's Cash Convertors shop been turned into some kind of money-lending operation, in a terrible modern day reworking of Jesus's table-turning appearance at the temple?

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:24 (seventeen years ago) link

I still have the TV I've always had - it's more like a 7". I think Stevem's telly is awesome huge, 28" seems extremely massive to me, but then again I refer you to the size of my own box. It also serves my needs seeing as I keep moving flat...

However, I would like a lovely larger flat-screen if I were going to get another one, but it's nowhere NEAR at the top of my priority list I'm afraid, other tv kit such as dvd recorder would top that, if anything. I suppose it depends on how many boxes you mind hanging around your tv whether you get digital recievers and so on? Although I have no clue so rather you than me :)

Good luck Tracey!

xpost: coo, cash converters... it was discovered a friend of mine at college bought her ear-rings from there, how we mocked...

― Bhumibol Adulyadej (Lucretia My Reflection), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, the coop online electrical store is a really great place to buy stuff like this.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Cash Converters has always had a money-lending element to it. It is next door to a loan place too. The loan place used to be a Tandy electrical shop where my husband worked, and people used to just nick stuff out of Tandy then run next door and try and flog it to Cash Converters. It tended not to work, since both parties were kind of wise to it.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:34 (seventeen years ago) link

(both parties being CC and Tandy - the thieves weren't really that wise)

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:35 (seventeen years ago) link

this is what i'm talking about!

― benrique (Enrique), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:35 (seventeen years ago) link

I still have the same tv I had when I was 14. I can't break the damn thing because I really want a wall mounted one to take up less space. I am anti large tvs because they tend to be the focal point of any room and that is just sad.

― ian johnson's mom + jack bauer 2gether 4evah (Carey), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I think Stevem's telly is awesome huge

stop leering at my TV's arse, you cad

it is practically a cube in dimensional terms (umm...)

i would trade it for an authentic jukebox which i could fill with my brother's collection of 80s 7" singles (inc. Taffy).

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Cash Converters = household appliances and children's Christmas presents sold for crack money.

In my last flat but one, we bought our TV second-hand off someone who advertised in a shop window. We went round to his flat and the guy opened wearing a pair of shorts and a string vest while smoking and looking exceedingly dodgy. After we were satisfied the TV worked we went home, turned it on and, during a particularly dark bit of the programme we were watching, noticed the words 'William Hill' burned into the top of the screen in Teletext writing. The thing had been either nicked from, or thrown out by, a bookies.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link

tracer i have a 27" SONY WEGA (flat screen CRT) that i want to get rid of (i wanty HDTV)

u want

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

Or else he just spent all day every day sitting in his shorts and vest looking at the racing results on Teletext?

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Don't we all?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:44 (seventeen years ago) link

cutty! can u put it on bote to british-land?

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 16:45 (seventeen years ago) link

No, but I thought (on a cursory glance from the bus) like they had dispensed with the pawnshop element entirely, and that the unsecured loans thing had taken over. Something about eBay.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 4 January 2007 17:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I hate this. I keep going to websites and pasting model numbers into other websites. I get my hopes up with reviews like "stonking picture and connectors r sweet - this is the one!!!!!!" and then someone says "actually, no LCD can match a CRT which can be had for half the price."

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 17:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Thanks everyone for your encouragement and bons mots.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 17:22 (seventeen years ago) link

dont do it eli, dont do it

― -- (688), Thursday, 4 January 2007 17:25 (seventeen years ago) link

when did you move to uk?! i thought we could have a nice brooklyn transaction.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 4 January 2007 17:28 (seventeen years ago) link

i AM going to cash converters and no one can stop me

bye bye wedding ring

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 17:38 (seventeen years ago) link

cutty is that like a bronx kiss?

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 17:39 (seventeen years ago) link

it's like a bronx cheer

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 4 January 2007 17:44 (seventeen years ago) link

woops, i was thinking of a glasgow kiss. I HAVE NO ROOTS

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 4 January 2007 17:52 (seventeen years ago) link

I got a cheap jvc 28 inch CRT from the electrical department Co Op department store in brighton, weighs about the same as a small whale, but it cost well under 200 and the pictures a treat

― secondhandnews (secondhandnews), Thursday, 4 January 2007 19:48 (seventeen years ago) link

why DON'T they sell cheap TV monitors that don't receive channels? simply because the receiver portion is cheap to make while the delivery portion (the actual tube or plasma screen or LCD) is the expensive part?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 5 January 2007 06:23 (seventeen years ago) link

i hate tube TVs, they're so...huge. you can't hide them easily without getting a specialized piece of furniture. but the flat-screen TVs are still so damned expensive. i've been told "they're about to drop in price" every year for five or six years running now.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 5 January 2007 06:24 (seventeen years ago) link

i won't replace my 1988 tube TV until flat-screens come way down in price, though.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 5 January 2007 06:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I am interested in this monitor business. Sounds like the way forward. I am also interested in the coop online electrical store.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 5 January 2007 08:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Yay!

http://www.coopelectricalshop.co.uk/products/ProductDetail.asp?ProductCode=PHI-STV-21PT5409-W

Now I want to find one with a sticky-out bendy screen instead of this new-fangled flat screen palaver.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 5 January 2007 08:42 (seventeen years ago) link

I still trust the old-school (Luddite, sorry) advice I got when I bought my first TV a few years ago, which is essentially to know where you want to put the TV and what your budget is, and then just walk through the store until you decide which picture looks best. If you want a TV but all the technological nuances don't mean anything to you, then they're probably ultimately not important (to you). Good old low-tech, old-economy things like warranties, how big/heavy it is, etc. matter more.

― i'll mitya halfway (mitya), Friday, 5 January 2007 08:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Problem solved:

http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=HANN-ELEPHANT-LCD-TV

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 5 January 2007 09:06 (seventeen years ago) link

why DON'T they sell cheap TV monitors that don't receive channels?

They, do, don't they. You can get Dell ones with the right inputs. But they're not that all that cheap, for the reason you surmised.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 5 January 2007 10:49 (seventeen years ago) link

What I want is one of those nice CRT monitors that you see in TV studios, possibly what Michael Jones is talking about, that are incredibly LONG front-to-back, like:

connectors back here
___
¦ ¦
¦ ¦
¦ ¦
---
^ screen

and incredibly heavy.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Friday, 5 January 2007 11:49 (seventeen years ago) link

With places around the side of the metal case for you to screw things in.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Friday, 5 January 2007 12:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Steady now.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 5 January 2007 12:20 (seventeen years ago) link

I'll ask AV where they get them from and how much they cost. I don't think we'll like either answer, though.

(Part of the reason I work here is the vain hope that one day there'll be an email saying they're chucking stuff out and would anyone who fancies a Blu-ray player or CRT monitor come round to the parking garage...)

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Friday, 5 January 2007 12:24 (seventeen years ago) link

We were once offered a knackered printer the size of a house. I don't know if you'd left by then or not.

Have you got a Blu-Ray player? Cor blimey, etc.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 5 January 2007 12:28 (seventeen years ago) link

I haven't personally, no. We've got quite a few HD-DVD and Blu-ray machines at work (and recorders and hi-res tape decks, etc). We've even got some kind of sensurround chair in the main emulation suite upstairs! I've never had a go on it though.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Friday, 5 January 2007 12:30 (seventeen years ago) link

"The main emulation suite"? It's like tomorrow's world today.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 5 January 2007 12:35 (seventeen years ago) link

I meant "you" as in "work". Because "we" as in "work" have no such thing. Is "main emulation suite" what you call your "bubble room"?

Ah, this reminds me of the heady days of posting from different ends of the same table.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 5 January 2007 13:27 (seventeen years ago) link

We author Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs here, hence the proliferation of machines capable of playing dubious niche formats with no real future (opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer).

Emulation suite is big room with massive f-off telly and multi-channel audio and funny wobbling chair (we have several such rooms but only one with funny wobbling chair); enables clients to watch pre-master stuff off our network and then moan about the shape of Rodney Bewes' face on the menu screen. Leave Rodney alone, I say.

Our "bubble room" also has a massive f-off telly in it and various electronics and a projector, but no funny wobbling chair. It is for meetings and showing really big important clients (who are far too elevated to be concerning themselves with the emulation suite) just how bloody marvellous we are by running the credits to the last-ever Bad Girls on a loop with the volume CRANKED.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Friday, 5 January 2007 14:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I think Stevem's telly is awesome huge, 28" seems extremely massive to me, but then again I refer you to the size of my own box.

Without the word "telly" this would have been a shoo-in for best out-of-context post :(

― === temporary username === (Mark C), Friday, 5 January 2007 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link

if i have a PVR with 1x (one) built-in Freeview tuner, and a TV with one (1x) built-in Freeview tuner, can i record a show and watch another one at the same time?

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 11 January 2007 13:35 (seventeen years ago) link

i will be juggling at the same time, FWIW

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 11 January 2007 13:46 (seventeen years ago) link

yes

Also if you do fancy a 14" broadcast monitor we are about to flog a few on eBay.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 11 January 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

record on the recorder, watch tv on the tv?

― My Koogy Weighs A Ton (koogs), Thursday, 11 January 2007 13:49 (seventeen years ago) link

R U serious Ed? Is it one of those heavy rackmountable thingie I sketched above??

koogs that sounds very reasonable

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 11 January 2007 13:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, no rack ears though.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 11 January 2007 13:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Uh I would really really like one!

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 11 January 2007 13:56 (seventeen years ago) link

How does £0 sound?

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 11 January 2007 14:01 (seventeen years ago) link

hmm

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 11 January 2007 14:01 (seventeen years ago) link

OK OK, I'll even come and pick it up

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 11 January 2007 14:03 (seventeen years ago) link

This is a good a place as any to ask this question. I want to link my laptop up to my telly so I can watch stuff I've downloaded without being crowded round my laptop screen.. It's quite an old telly, but has scart. My laptop has a normal vga output. What do I need to buy to make this work? The internet doesn't know.

― Johnney B English (stigoftdump), Thursday, 11 January 2007 14:24 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.beststuff.co.uk/images/hama_scart_to_vga.jpg ?

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Thursday, 11 January 2007 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link

I've seen a cable, but don't I need a converter or something? And if it's a normal telly, doesn't the signal need to be re-synced or something before it gets there?

― Johnney B English (stigoftdump), Thursday, 11 January 2007 14:43 (seventeen years ago) link

And I bought one that was just a lead, didn't work or anything. It was only a fiver so I didn't push it, but I don't want to buy another just-a-lead and get stung again.

― Johnney B English (stigoftdump), Thursday, 11 January 2007 14:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Depends if your TV can can handle RGB or not.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 11 January 2007 14:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Is it likely to? (it's not a very posh telly)

― Johnney B English (stigoftdump), Thursday, 11 January 2007 15:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Mine can, and it's not very posh and about six years old. If it can, there'll probably be an option to change to RGB input in the AV settings.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 11 January 2007 15:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Mine is a cheap arsed Alba and it does. YOu may need to make sure you set the VGA output on your computer to 720x576 (or 720x625) and 50Hz interlaced.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 11 January 2007 15:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh wow, cheers guys. I'll have a look when I get home and report back.

― Johnney B English (stigoftdump), Thursday, 11 January 2007 15:54 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm hoping I'll be able to do all this when I buy a MacBook, too. Then Apple TV can go spin.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 11 January 2007 15:58 (seventeen years ago) link

The breakout dubery for the macbook has composite and s-video, there's a picture of one upthread.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 11 January 2007 15:59 (seventeen years ago) link

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