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Bought a new tv......

Had to buy a new tv yesterday.

The vizeo 50 inch that we bought 13+ years ago finally decided it would no longer read the input signal from the ethernet connection. We tried everything to get it working again, new cable, called service provider and vizeo and same answer, your tv is done!

So looked online and found the prices have dropped quite a bit since 13+ years ago, think we paid over $500 for that old 50 inch. Found a vizeo 55 inch and a 65 inch for half of what we paid for the 50. Of course you must buy it online to get these prices, which to us makes no sense to us but ok. Wife decided on the 65 inch, so with that we needed a tv stand and of course a new sound bar. Ordered it all online from our local target store and picked it up 2 hours later with a grand total of just over $500. Pretty good compared to 13 years ago.

Installation? Well the tv stand had to be assembled, no biggy but I believe the last time I assembled a store bought piece of furniture (20+ years ago) it was a few screws and nails to assemble and once done it was still wobbly and not very stable.
This stand took a good hour + to assemble, screws anchors and nails, kind of a pain but wow! Rock solid once assembled.

Tv setup, well this was different, hooks to cable via wi-fi , wife turned the tv on once we had it on the stand, set up a few things on its menu and bang instant cable channels. She had to sign into the streaming services again but all went well and easy for the most part. I only had to hook up two cables, one for the soundbar and one for the dvd player.

The old tv needed 5 different cords to get anything working and the wiring looked like a spiderweb that was having a bad day! This new setup, nice and clean. Made my life a bit easier.

Not real keen on a lot of this new tech but as far as the tv is concerned I'll be ok with it!
 
Some years ago my mom had her living room remodeled and put me in charge of getting her a new entertainment system. A little less than a year before, I had purchased a TV for myself, and I decided to get her exactly the same model. Hers was almost 50% less than I had paid for mine.
 
We will never have a TV again without a soundbar and rear speakers. We bought a Roku soundbar that includes streaming and the front speaker system, it was much better than the TV alone but we still had some sound issues. I decided to upgrade and add rear speakers, for us it’s a game changer. The rear speakers fill our room with sound and it makes everything more enjoyable.
 
Never thought I'd own a surround sound until I finally broke down and got one. Now I will never be without one.

My next TV will be 75"+


It’s a different experience with surround sound. When our TV goes out we will be going to a larger screen also. I might even add front speakers that are identical to the rear. We added a mesh system and have a gig of fiber service for streaming. We never lag and we can run everything seamlessly. I know people enjoy the stadium game experience, but I can watch everything without leaving my home.
 
Great buy and story. My brother's house has 2 tvs. A 65" i believe in their living room and a 30"-40" in their garage. They are mainly connected to a laptop type thing (i forget what it's called) if my brother and his family are usually watching football. The laptop goes into their garage on thurs because if it's not too cold and the gas heater in the car hole was put on at a good time we go in there to throw darts and watch half the game.

The main tv sometimes a movie gets played on and now that my nephew has all the proper connectors the older 20+ years ago video game consoles he owns can be played on the newer tv. 2 were my consoles.

Also because of cool tech changes and upgrades surround sound is kind of anywhere you want to go. They use a portable speaker system that has wifi, bluetooth and sound that is clearer and can be louder than a lot of other things.

Thank you tech inventors and developers money can be used on more uses electronics than even a few years ago.
 

cleanshaved

I’m stumped
Wow that's a good deal.
I don't mind the click and collect system. In fact, I have come to prefer it for some things.
The goods are ready for me to collect when I turn up and I don't have to search the store to find stuff.

I went to a full-on surround system. The downfall is it more complicated to set up but once in place it's worth the efforts.


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A TV repairman told me that the only TV sets that he would buy are Sony, LG and Panasonic, in that order. Had little or no regard for any other make, his view was that the repair bills will soon outweigh any saving in the initial price. He also said that modern and fancy TVs are nowhere near as good as 10 year old sets and almost impossible to repair if a part goes.

I have a large Panasonic, must be 12 years old or more, never had a problem.
 

EclipseRedRing

I smell like a Christmas pudding
I suspect that modern TV sets, and electronic items in general, are not designed to be repaired should they fail, as due to their price it would be uneconomical to do so. Also, by the time most sets are out of warranty and need repair they are obsolete. As such I would be surprised if anyone paid repair bills or if TV repair men still exist. Obviously almost any set, regardless of age, can display an image, which is after all its primary function but I replaced a decade old set recently and noticed a huge improvement in image quality and also in functionality. In my youth a basic TV cost a month's wages so most people rented them and they lasted for many years, now, for good or bad, they are disposable items.
 
We had a Vizio tv 20-odd years ago. It only lasted a few years before pixels started to die. That put us off Vizio, although it would take several Vizio to equal cost of a Sony. Currently we have a 65" Sony 4k, but my hearing is wack and stereo/surround sound drives me nuts, so I bought a Polk soundbar, but had to leave the subwoofer disconnected. We like the Sony, but at least once a year our FireTV will begin freezing up and rebooting, or the TV starts announcing vol & channel changes. Unplugging all HDMI connections in back of the tv, and the power cables, for a short time usually resolves the problem. I now do it about once a year when I change batteries in all remotes.

Longest lasting tv my wife and I ever owned was a 24" Sears color tv (60% tube), bought in 1972 to replace the 1950s 14" metal, b&w tv we used our first 3 years of marriage. I replaced a Sears tube now and then, but when it died around 1984, I took it into Sears for repair and was told it would cost more to replace the tubes than buying a new, tube-less TV. The new and improved one we bought lasted 3 years, but one of our fondest memories was our kids reaction when I temporarily hooked up our 1950s b&w TV while the other was in the shop. We wish we had video of our "poor" children's reaction to the old b&w. "It's so small, AND there's no color." Oh, the humanity.
 
I never watched much television even as a child because I loved reading books and being outside.

When I was a teenager all I had was a 1960's Sony black and white 11 inch battery/mains tv which lasted over fifty years.

At the time I had a half decent British Hi-Fi and a tenor saxophone, plus thousands of books so I didn't need a fancy TV because I never watched it.

Then in the late nineties I got a Toshiba 28" inch widescreen which I used for videos and DVD's and it is still working fine now with a digital tv box after nearly thirty years - it looked huge compared to the 11" inch Sony and a 14" Sony colour TV which was my first colour TV when I was 36.

With failing eyesight I needed a vision aid so got a Hisense QLED 4K - 50 inch which got broken accidentally so got another Hisense 4K but a 55" which I use as a computer monitor only - do not watch television or any mainstream media.

The old televisions lasted - it is such a waste of resources with the built-in obsolescence of modern TV's - such a shame.

My TV sounds okay because I have it plugged into three Hi-Fi's with three subwoofers and three sets of speakers - I have no room for an AV receiver, surround speakers or rears so it is a 7.3 system but stereo only.

I have to use my two foot high subwoofer as a table for my cassette deck and turntable - not ideal.
 
TELLY AND STEREO JAN 2025.jpg

I have no room for anything in my downstairs living room.
I have an upstairs living room but it needs tidying and reconfiguring.
 
Wow that's a good deal.
I don't mind the click and collect system. In fact, I have come to prefer it for some things.
The goods are ready for me to collect when I turn up and I don't have to search the store to find stuff.

I went to a full-on surround system. The downfall is it more complicated to set up but once in place it's worth the efforts.


View attachment 1968718
Thumb's up for having tower speakers.
 
Wow that's a good deal.
I don't mind the click and collect system. In fact, I have come to prefer it for some things.
The goods are ready for me to collect when I turn up and I don't have to search the store to find stuff.

I went to a full-on surround system. The downfall is it more complicated to set up but once in place it's worth the efforts.


View attachment 1968718
This is the way. Yamaha head unit klipsch sub, definitive tech speakers. I also maintain a Panasonic 4K disc player. Makes a huge difference when watching movies having an uncompressed signal. Better picture and WAY better sound. Problem is, only two companies still make players.
 
The snow movie at the end of the night was always black and white regardless of the set.
When i was a kid we only had a tiny black and white with a snowy picture using an indoor aerial but we didnt need it because we were either playing out, reading or playing piano sax or guitar.
 
In the early '80s I got a 19" Proton CRT monitor (a slightly less expensive competitor to the Sony Profeel monitor). At the time, they were among the sharpest CRT monitors.
Although I rarely use it, it still works.
 
TV. oh yeah, that. Was there something to watch on TV recently? My BIL said he liked looking at it sometimes for certain spectator sports events.
 
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