Help me buy a TV please.

[Elvish]

I could really do with some TV advice please.

We currently have a 15yo Sony TV, 31" screen. It's very old school, takes 2 men to lift it and doesn't have a digital tuner.

I've been waiting for it to die so I can replace, but this weekend I can get 20% off at Argos so I'm thinking I'll buy DH myself an early Christmas present.

We have a bedroom TV with a roku stick so we watch Netflix and iPlayer on that. The kids watch DVDs and we sometimes use the record function on the digibox/DVD recorder thingi.

So, is it worth even thinking about 4K? We don't have any blueray disks and we don't buy DVDs other than kids films.

Is 55" stupidly big? I don't want the TV to completely dominate the room which is about 5m x 4m...

Does the Hz matter? Some are 50Hz and some are 800 - how can the difference be so much?

I have no idea what I'm looking at really, please help me!

[MTWTFSS]

www.which.co.uk/reviews/televisions/article/what-size-tv-should-i-buy

Scroll down and you will find the "TV screen size calculator" to determine which size TV screen to buy.

Sorry, I do not know about 4K.

[Fluffy40]

Just bought a 40 inch 4K tv. It's perfect for our lounge . The picture is great especially on wildlife programmes, and was under 400.

[Ferguson]

NO! 4K is a con, and under normal circumstances will give you virtually no benefit at all. But you do need FULL HD, and not HD Ready.

The screen size depends on how far you sit away from the screen.

The Hz is more important, and the higher the better, as it gives better motion control without blur.

Also put it on a stand, not on the wall.

I'll try and come back tomorrow with more info, as no time now; the Which article should help as well. There are many on-line sites with technical info.

Personally, I favour Panasonic over other brands.

[madmother1]

I thought 4k was the price !

[Ferguson]

4K has been bandied about for several years now, and refers to the Four Thousand pixels on the screen; roughly double that of HD I think.

www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/viera-televisions/led/tx-40cs620b.html

www.panasonicstore.ie/glossary-of-terms/

www.cnet.com/uk/news/why-ultra-hd-4k-tvs-are-still-stupid/

I'll come back after Christmas, see how you getting on.

Meanwhile - HAPPY CHRISTMAS

[WMittens]

Ferguson

4K has been bandied about for several years now, and refers to the Four Thousand pixels on the screen; roughly double that of HD I think.

Four thousand refers to the number of pixels in the horizontal line of a screen, not pixels on the screen; 4096 x 2160 pixels at an aspect ratio of 1.9:1, giving 8,847,360 pixels on screen.

1080 refers to the number of pixels in a vertical line, e.g. 1920 x 1080 pixels for a total of 2,073,600, so 4K is over 4 times the pixel count (and density, for a given screen size).

[Ferguson]

WMittens

I bow to your superior knowledge!

Our 32" HD-ready Panasonic is eight or more years old now, and I'm considering upgrading, to a bit larger and Full HD (but don't want 3-D or 'smart'.) Prompted by this thread, I've been looking up about OLED from LG, but 55" seems to be the smallest at the moment.

I guess it might be better to wait a year or two, for the technology to settle down - do you happen to have any experience or strong views on OLED?

[WMittens]

I have very little knowledge on the subject beyond pixel count!

I'm not clued up on the latest tech, I tend to be a late adopter.

My usual approach is to have a look at screens in a shop side by side (somewhere a bit more specialist where the staff have a modicum of knowledge, think Richer Sounds and up, rather than Currys/Dixons) and see which looks better to your eye.

It's never ideal because lighting, viewing distances and angles are going to be different to when it's in your home, but at least there's a comparison. You should get a decent idea of comparative picture sharpness, smoothness, colour reproduction, saturation (although the last two are somewhat dependent on lighting).