no tv- get by with iplayer on my laptop for an occasional program
Triggers broom for me. The TV itself is a now ancient Pioneer which at the time was lauded for its ‘true black’ capabilities. It is still sharper than many current products. The tuner and sound however is supplied by the satellite box and the AV system so have been updated and ‘improved’ at various stages. It was probably 2+1 originally and now runs 6+1, all components having been replaced.
I know… have a 50 inch pioneer plasma, it is still going strong and like you not a dead pixel. So it is staying.
2 Likes
I’m interested in all the people that dont have a TV. I think I can understand the why, but possibly questions around what you might be missing out on, especially if you have kids - no judgement, just interested. Looks like an excuse for another topic in the Padded Cell possibly rather than here.
1 Like
Currently paying about £800 a year for Sky hd and movies. Have been for 12 years now.
So roughly 1:1.
We haven’t bought a new TV in 7 or 8 years and that was a bog standard 32" LG that cost less than £500.
We’re not huge TV fans perhaps 3-4 hours a week max and whilst my other half is at work during the evening I’ll perhaps watch an hour a night of sport, TV dramas and documentaries.
We subscribe to Netflix and I get BT Sport and Amazon Prime Video free in my EE package and Apple have just given me years free Apple TV so we’re pretty much covered I do use pay per view Sky Sports via Now TV if Arsenal are playing and pay an extra £5 per month so that I can stream BT Sports App to our TV.
So all in with Netflix and my sport I’d say we spend less the £30 a month on TV subs.
I actually think the oldest TV we have is actually the best, its a Panasonic (circa 11 years old) and has wide viewing angle tech, which actually works and you get a good view no matter where you are. I have another much newer Panasonic that is 4K UHD, and yes if viewed straight on the picture is very good but colour drains the more off angle you are.
Most recent “award winning” Samsung is the same, can produce excellent results but all has to be going its way.
What’s most frustrating with new TV’s is the lockouts that some manufacturers experience, like Panasonic, which don’t have in anyway the support from apps that Samsung do and it feels like a cartel that only Samsung and LG can dine at the top table.
Also drives me nuts the random incompatibilities between Samsung and Sky with their HDCP errors and failing handshakes, each blames the other and just have to go through a whole reset sequence when they randomly appear.
I’ve added a Roku stick on my Sony TV. It does mean you have another remote, but the app performance is so much better, plus covers AppleTV
I’m lucky enough to have the 4th bedroom in use as a hifi room and the dining room as a cinema room. The cinema kit incorporates a 7.2.4 surround system and QLED TV, but still only constitutes 40% or so of the spend on the hifi kit. That said, I find playing music blurays in surround to be a hopeless experience and I’m immediately switching back to two channels for music. Thus I treat them (music and movies) as two completely different passtimes. Also perhaps should be factored in is that stereo music systems have been in existence far longer than home cinema systems, thus the upgrade path is much further along for many of us in the hifi field I’d assume.
1 Like
ah, I can’t compete in the hair shirt for tv competition 
I like my tv and well, especially for sport and some drama, and movies. And to that end I have a separate 7.2.4 AV system that also has had a decent sum of money spent on it - I’m not into the hifi or tv camp that others are - both are good, and a decent film with good surround sound is excellent. None of my naim kit does av duties, however.
This is probably just me, but when every I hear a sound away from the speaker, e.g. a siren coming from behind me, it takes me out of the film experience and I loose focus when that happens. I like to be immersed in a funnel from me to the TV (inc 2 channel speakers), and any sound outside that is a distraction
Less than 3%, I rarely watch it
Not just you, the whole concept of surround sound is flawed in my opinion, or at least in how it is applied most of the time.
Most the time the effects bear no resemblance to the positioning or trajectory of the path of travel or relative position.
However, if piping Star Wars through a good hifi then you tend to get the sound and the picture in unison, with sounds in front of you where the picture is, but with stereo depth.
Again, just an opinion but I find the same at the cinema.
Audio pyrotechnics for the sake of it…
2 Likes
I spend very little on tellys use them till they fault (10+ years hopefully) then look at Richer Sounds bargain basement for a replacement.
5 Likes
Nice Sony OLED 48 there. Could be my might last telly!
About 5%.
Time spent on listening to music versus watching movies is about 50/50.
But a decent TV is dead cheap compared to high end audio stuff. Just bought a new 55" OLED from Panasonic,according tests 1 of the best available. New for just €2500. Have to say,watching e.g. LOTR in 4K UHD DolbyVision on it is absolute magic!
1 Like
For Xmas I bought a Sony A8H 65” OLED it was on Black Friday sale for $1000.off ($1800.) with 2 years no interest
1 Like
Only one make in my opinion!
Use to be Loewe until they went pop…
now LG… Get an OLED and do 2k plus…
the difference in picture quality is amazing !
I’m with you on this point. Our last telly was a Sony CRT that must have been 20 years old. Only replaced because it was turning out to be too much of a chore coping with modern technology: HD, iTV, etc…
Current telly is c. 5 or 6 years old and does everything we want. In fact it looks like it will be our main music player in our new house. At least until SWMBO gets the living room decorated; I’m not getting the HiFi out in the presence of a paint roller!
1 Like
Our Panasonic struggles with blacks… you can see the graduations in the ‘black’. Never got this with our old crt - imho you couldn’t beat a crt for colour. When we got our latest telly it was our first new fangled flat screen led set and I was immediately struck by how bad it was at showing colours. Then I went into the local telly superstore and ALL the tellys had the same issues with colour and especially blacks. I assume things have come on and a modern TV would be better.
Oh and digital content also seems to suffer with strange ghosting and blurring, sometimes, around the edges of moving objects. I suppose youngsters don’t notice these things because, as far as they’re concerned, it’s always looked like that. A bit like mobile phones calls. No matter what you say you can’t beat the quality of a true land-line to land-line phone call. Mobile calls are never as good and frequently worse but whenever I suggest this to youngsters (and oldsters with poor memory or a tendency to ignore what they don’t want to be told) they always refute it.