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New tv

So the assumption being it's set up for darkness and will be acceptably good in all lighting conditions?
Basically yes. The idea is to calibrate the display to be as accurate as possible and although the ISF guy will adjust to suit your different sources, you've then got the huge variation in quality of video material to cope with. Some displays will give you separate bright and dark room settings.
 
Going for £300+ in the UK so holding price well.

250.- is pretty expensive in Swissieland, no one really likes buying 2nd hand so prices are normally lower. Don’t really care, 250.- is a bargain for this level of performance!

Tried it in daylight today, stunning compared to the 2009 reference I had before. Well happy :)
 
We had two of these until recently, now down to one, sold the other to a delighted new owner. 13 years old and still superb.
ISF calibrated.
https://www.goodgearguide.com.au/review/pioneer/pdp-5000ex/220257/

Stepson's 65 inch LG OLED 4K TV is under 2 years old and having problems....I will hang on!

Pioneer made wonderful plasma displays. Our 141FD monitor is now 15 years old and still looks beautiful. We had it ISF calibrated (two settings - night and day), and the service included a return trip in a year to check for drift. If it has drifted since then, I haven’t noticed.

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Home/Plasma/PRO-141FD

Today’s LG OLED screens are beautiful, and I know it is only a matter of time before our old Kuro dies. But other than being curious about 4k (which, when viewing a 65” display at 10’, probably isn’t that big a deal), I am in no rush to replace.
 
Pioneer made wonderful plasma displays. Our 141FD monitor is now 15 years old and still looks beautiful. We had it ISF calibrated (two settings - night and day), and the service included a return trip in a year to check for drift. If it has drifted since then, I haven’t noticed.

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Home/Plasma/PRO-141FD
I had the 43" version of that - cost me a fortune 13 years ago, but well worth it. But the lack of smartness (I had to plug in Chromecast, Firesticks etc) and just one HDMI input finally did it for me. That, and the fan getting noisier, and the leccy bills (I think it burnt 1kW IIRC).

But it was tough to beat, but the LG OLED has been a good replacement. The Pioneer went to a happy gamer for 50 quid
 
One thing I picked up from reading around is to try turning the sharpness setting right down, even to zero.

Worth noting that on recent Sonys, e.g. the one I just bought, the ‘zero/off’ point for sharpening is actually 50%, going below that adds blurring/defocus which gives a kind of soft look. Confused me for a while until I googled it. Definitely looks best at 50%.

PS More than any other TV or set top box I’ve ever owned this thing really is a computer with a TV tuner. It is running Android 8 Oreo and there are a bewildering array of options, even a full developer menu that can be activated. I’m not sure I like this ‘depth’ to a basic TV set, e.g. I’ve noticed one has to remember to hoof recently used apps out of the task-manager or it starts to slow down (e.g. glitches on Prime etc). I’d have far preferred backing out of an app to properly terminate that process and free up resources as I imagine this would confuse the hell out of non-computer literate users.
 
This is my first „smart tv“ - not really investigated fully yet, but just started watching a downloaded movie direct via media player app on TV connecting to Twonky on my NAS. Seems to make my Pi OSMC Box redundant, pretty impressed where I wasn’t expected to be. Also means no more excuses to convert the Pi into an audio streaming device to replace my Pioneer N50 currently doing that.
 
I had the 43" version of that - cost me a fortune 13 years ago, but well worth it. But the lack of smartness (I had to plug in Chromecast, Firesticks etc) and just one HDMI input finally did it for me. That, and the fan getting noisier, and the leccy bills (I think it burnt 1kW IIRC).

But it was tough to beat, but the LG OLED has been a good replacement. The Pioneer went to a happy gamer for 50 quid

Agreed. The purchase cost was high many years ago, but luckily, have been able to amortize that over quite a few years. And yes, the electricity draw while viewing is way too high (about 300W) compared to modern sets. But I do like the idea of keeping the monitor out of a landfill for as long as possible. Will keep an ear out for fan noise, but so far, it is silent.

I still use an old Denon 3808ci receiver (same age as TV), so have multiple HDMI inputs there. Am only using two: a cable TV box, and an Apple TV. Both give me lots of apps, way more than I need. I use the TV guide, recorder and on-demand service of the cable box, and Netflix, Prime Video and Youtube via the Apple TV.
 
I dread to think of all the impenetrable technological gizmos which will confuse me when I need to replace my trusty Sony and I believe RCA sockets (for audio) are no longer standard. Not sure what the (simple) answer is there.
 
I dread to think of all the impenetrable technological gizmos which will confuse me when I need to replace my trusty Sony and I believe RCA sockets (for audio) are no longer standard. Not sure what the (simple) answer is there.

The current range of Sony TVs still have an analogue headphone out that works fine as a line out. It’s a stereo 3.5mm mini-jack and seems to sound fine driving a 2 metre cable and my Audio Synthesis passive preamp (into Quad 303 and La Scalas). I have a feeling quite a few modern TVs have dropped even this functionality, e.g. I couldn’t see any audio out of any description on a Samsung spec I was looking at a couple of days ago.
 
Agreed. The purchase cost was high many years ago, but luckily, have been able to amortize that over quite a few years.
Same here. The original one cost £6K but the second one was via an auction and cost around £100, including a pro AV stand which I flogged for £100 so I got it free !
 
The current range of Sony TVs still have an analogue headphone out that works fine as a line out.

Thanks for that; must visit John Lewis to catch up on what's what on Saturday (always a nice browse anyway). On my Sony the h/ph out shuts off the internal speakers, as I've become used to on anything over the years. Because of this it's not line out but through the internal amp. Maybe this has changed, but mini jacks are awful anyway; nearly impossible for long Chord I/C to be properly soldered (I've tried but eyesight not up to this mullarky nowadays).
 
The current range of Sony TVs still have an analogue headphone out that works fine as a line out. It’s a stereo 3.5mm mini-jack and seems to sound fine driving a 2 metre cable and my Audio Synthesis passive preamp (into Quad 303 and La Scalas). I have a feeling quite a few modern TVs have dropped even this functionality, e.g. I couldn’t see any audio out of any description on a Samsung spec I was looking at a couple of days ago.
Samsung 4K TVs have only digital outputs though I’m sure you could purchase a device to convert to analog. What model Sony did you end up with?
 
A KD-49XG8396. I just instinctively buy Sony. I have done since I bought my first TV back in the early ‘80s, which is irrational as it is not the company they once were and certainly don’t have the advance the Trinitrons had over their competitors. This decision was rushed as the last one broke, but basically I just went for the Sony that would fit in the space, and as the shop had two I bought the more expensive one in the hope it was better!
 
Sony TVs are nice, last one I had was a 32 inch WEGA. I’m still running a 42 inch 720p LG plasma. No room for anything bigger. Not sure what the US equivalent to your model might be, perhaps 750G. Enjoy!
 
The current crop of Sony TVs are great. I saw a technology demonstration of the X1 image engine and was very impressed with it's dynamic range and mpeg colour block smoothing ability. I have to turn all the extra features like X reality off though as it can make motion a little too fluid - you end up losing the 'film look' you're conditioned to.

Now if only Sony could do something about their own standard-definition TV channels in the UK...
 
Not sure what the US equivalent to your model might be, perhaps 750G. Enjoy!

Most detailed spec I’ve found so far is here. The supplied documentation is pretty terrible to be honest, I guess somewhat inevitable as its really just a big Android tablet without a touch-screen so really one has to research that independently in the same way one would W10 or whatever with a new PC.
 
I’m becoming increasingly irritated by Android/Oreo! I tried registering a 500GB SSD in a USB caddy as a recording device and it is having none of it. It sees it fine, can format it, but only gives an option between ‘external storage’ or ‘register for App storage’. The ‘HDD recording’ option detailed on the scant Sony documentation simply doesn’t exist in the menu tree, and neither does anything remotely similar. I guess this is what you get when the TV hardware and operating system are from different companies. I’m finding it all a bit buggy too, the Amazon Prime app has crashed a few times and only seems to work properly if one uses the task manager and kills all open apps including Prime itself and then restarts it. I love the picture now I’ve got it dialled in, definitely a step up from its predecessor, but I’m really not enjoying Android much so far. There just seems to be a distinct lack of joined-up thinking between the software and hardware here, e.g. it wouldn’t surprise me if the stuff was there when Sony wrote the manual, but has been removed/broken in a recent Android update.
 
My £400 LG is working perfectly. Even found a couple of “ISF Expert“ settings that work nicely in my room.

Watching Killing Eve on iPlayer at HD, looks great. The Expanse at 4K on Amazon is stunning.

Need to get hold of a biggish usb stick to enable the pause and record functionality and tomorrow I’ll hopefully get round to wall mounting it.
 


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