New TV.

[PlaneMan]

Mum’s old Sony Bravia 47″ TV is slowly dying. The power button only works about 50% of the time and the IR receiver  is getting flaky, it’s not the remote as I bought a new one and it’s the same.  One HDMI is also slowly failing. It’s lasted a good 7 years so they’re not complaining.

TV I’m currently considering for them is this one. It has everything they need (and more) and with the 6 year guarantee is worth the £20 or so more than it costs at Amazon.  It would also mean they could ditch the Talk Talk freeview box and probably the Fire TV box as well.

Any thoughts?

T.I.A.

[Dave Rice]

I wouldn’t ditch the Fire TV. TV manufacturers have a habit of not updating their apps, there’s plenty of older “smart” TVs that no longer have iPlayer.

With consumer goods you have no long term relationship with the manufacturer, once they’ve sold a widget to you they have to sell the next widget to you to get any more income so all the effort goes into that, not support. I’ll bet the warranty doesn’t cover this aspect.

Apart from that looks a good TV.

[PlaneMan]

Sorry Dave, I didn’t mean get rid of the Fire TV, just retire it while the TV does everything needed.

It would go in the ‘drawer of tech’ in their garage until it was needed again.

Thanks for the reply.

[blacklion1725]

Looks like a nice TV. Regards the STB, not sure with Freeview Play, but my Sony Android TV has YouView (similar) and you can’t record (to a usb stick or drive) if YouView is enabled. YouView is great though.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I considered that LG TV a few months ago but I ended up buying the Samsung 49MU6400 mostly because my narrow TV table needs the stand to be in the middle. The two TV’s seem much the same apart from that and I am very happy with mine. There have been 3 software feature updates since I got the telly with the last one two weeks ago giving me an improved picture in picture EPG. I have also got used to talking to the smart remote, very startrek ?

[PlaneMan]

Been over to mum’s to check a few things about a new tv. Measured the screen size of their Bravia and it’s a 40″ screen, looks like a 47″ from a distance as the bezel is HUGE.

Mum has now ordered this one, from John Lewis at the same price as the Richer Sounds site wouldn’t take payment. It arrives Monday afternoon so I’ll get the ‘pleasure’ of setting it all up at some stage.

[blacklion1725]

I think the LG “smart” side of things is good – looks like a good choice to me. Most of mine have been Samsungs and all great once you de-bloat them. My main TV is now Android – great in many ways as many video-based apps work, but some annoyingly don’t (NowTV being a main one). UI is also sluggish compared to others.

I think LGs are right up there in Smart TV land, and probably the easiest to navigate which will hopefully be good for your Mum. Let us know how it goes and good luck.

[PlaneMan]

Thanks BL, I’ll report back once it’s all sorted.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Nothing I can see to fault it on. Hope Mum enjoys it for years to come ?

[PlaneMan]

Set the TV up earlier and it was a doddle. Stand went on in a few minutes, wifi setup and scanning for freeview channels all stupidly easy. Updated Netflix and Amazon Prime, signed in to both accounts with no issues. Also installed YouTube and set my phone up as a remote which works very well.

It’s pretty fast, way faster than the Fire TV box. Yet to try USB playback or recording but I’ll probably do that on Sunday. Dedicated Netflix and Amazon Prime buttons on the remote is a nice touch. The tuner detected a ton of TV and radio stations, way more than the clunky You View box found but at some stage the ariel is getting replaced with a new one it’s very old.

There is now a DVD player, Chrome Cast, Fire TV and You View box in the gadget draw, plus a massive bezeled 40″ Sony getting in the way.

At some stage I’ll set up the favourite channels tweak the screen settings a bit, it’s fine for me out of the box but mum likes things bright. It’s on Vivid now and so far that’s been bright enough.

Well worth the money IMO, all that needs to be bought at some stage is either a HDMI or USB DVD player or a Blue-Ray drive.

 

[blacklion1725]

Glad to hear that PM – shame just given an HDMI DVD player to charity as couldn’t find a taker – could have posted it – never mind – lack of takers suggests you will get one cheap enough 2nd hand/new. The dedicated buttons are a great idea – especially for new users. Have you tried Freeview Play yet – its a great feature.

[PlaneMan]

Only tried Freeview Play very quickly, need to spend more time on that so I can show mum how it works. By then I was sore and exhausted.

[PlaneMan]

Just realized that my LITEON external DVD for my X220 has a function called Link2TV, means you can hook it up to the USB port of a TV. I’ll try that on Sunday and if that works I’ll get one, cost me £20 odd.

[blacklion1725]

On the USB DVD – you’d get a “normal” DVD Player for£20 PM – maybe be easier for your mum?

[PlaneMan]

Nice one, might go down that route.

TBH I’m ruined today, last thing I wanted to do was assemble and set up a TV. A promise is a promise so until I can’t, I will.

[blacklion1725]

Mums is Mums-you gotta look after ’em – least we can do!

[PlaneMan]

Ain’t that the truth!

[Ed P]

blacklion1725 wrote:

On the USB DVD – you’d get a “normal” DVD Player for£20 PM – maybe be easier for your mum?

‘I’d check that ou before spending cash. Some usb connections will not do anything except play media which is actually on the  on the USB. It should give that info in the manual.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

And speaking of RTFM I got a 32GB USB stick so I could pause and record live TV on my Samsung telly but it was having none of it. Kept offering to format the device and failing. A quick read of the manual told me that although the TV is happy to play back almost anything from a USB stick it will only record on a genuine SATA device in a USB enclosure. The drive also gets formatted as NTFS which I haven’t seen before. Teach me to look before I leap next time ?

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

What thread has the bit about a cheap chrome or something stick with 2 months free content ? My mate is interested and I cant find it.

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