Author Topic: Scrapping a $3500 TV  (Read 13753 times)

alanB

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 220
  • Age: 36
  • Location: PA, US
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #50 on: February 13, 2018, 12:50:52 PM »
In 2007 I bought a 46" plasma Panasonic.  Still works perfect. Could have bought a Vizio at the time but had never heard of them. The Panasonic was $100 more. I guess now that it's 11 years old I can cut it some slack. It was a butt load of money back then. The wife and I were just married and it was the only xmas present for bot of us that year. We only have one tv and it has been it. Newer bigger shiny ones are always singing their siren song at Sam's club but I refuse to give in!
Bold mine.  This is the part that is apparently still odd to many.  I thought last year when we finally bought a TV (almost two years after moving into our house) that we were joining the ranks of normal-dom on that front.  Turns out the average US household has 2.3 TVs now (down from 2.6 in 2009 apparently).  It's madness.
I, too, don't get this.  My parents (empty nesters) have 4 TVs in their house.  My sister (family of 3) has just as many.  I get that they are cheap and normal consumers don't find the price to be a deterrent, but why you'd want a TV in every room, or want more TVs than people is madness to me. The biggest culture shock anytime we visit is the mind-numbing hours the TV (or TVs) are on each day.

We've got one, and we haven't had cable or hooked it up to get broadcast channels in probably 8 years. We'll watch some Netflix a couple times per week, but it stays off more days than its on.

Whenever someone tells me they own multiple TVs I always imagine them watching them all at once, like Fahrenheit 451 or our president.

GuitarStv

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 23128
  • Age: 42
  • Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #51 on: February 13, 2018, 02:10:59 PM »

Bought our current TV just over a year ago.  43" fancypants 1080p Sharp with built-in Roku for $229.  It weighs like 22lbs.  TVs are crazy cheap now.

I don't understand how they can even make money selling TVs anymore.  This isn't an item people buy multiple times/year, and I'm constantly finding large(ish) TVs for under $200. How much profit can there be at that price-point?

People upgrade all the time, and the stores make a killing selling extended warranties and accessories
Be that as it may, the tech is moving a lot slower than say, 10-15 years ago.  In 2005 maybe you bought that hotshot 34" HD CRT.  Then in 2010, you bought a sweet 42" 720p plasma.  Then in 2014, you bought a 50" 1080p LCD.  Not much has changed since then.  4K is a thing, sure, and maybe worth getting if you're buying anyway past a certain size, but there's not much 4K content out there yet.  3D came and went.  Smart TVs are a joke (mine is pretty stupid, and it's apparently one of the least-bad).  HDR? Not yet for a reasonable price, and most people don't care.  Few people that bought a TV in the last 5-7 years have a reason to replace it anytime soon.

I can tell you why.

I currently work in the broadcast industry.  The reason that technological advancement hasn't really continued getting better is that the majority of the broadcast industry in North America (and much of Europe) doesn't have the capability to take advantage of the new stuff.  Few cable or satellite broadcasters are able to even offer 1080p, let alone 4k . . . and 1080p has been around forever.  Which means 8K is a pipe dream.  Some newer technologies (like HDR) are more likely to make it into near future broadcasts because they're not too demanding, but signal quality step ups are expensive all around.  Expensive for film equipment, expensive to store, expensive to route in the broadcast booth, expensive to transport to customers,  and all this change is happening at a time when competition from on demand (netflix, youtube) video services is eating away big chunks of the broadcast industries pie.

The best use case for a 4K TV that I've found is as a computer monitor.  :P

jinga nation

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2696
  • Age: 247
  • Location: 'Murica's Dong
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #52 on: February 13, 2018, 02:45:06 PM »

Anyone venture a guess which year sine wave crosses neutral?
My guess is 2025-2030, 4K will be on broadcast and cable, will be embarrassing again not to have a TV.

Just Joe

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 6720
  • Location: In the middle....
  • Teach me something.
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #53 on: February 13, 2018, 03:08:03 PM »
Nah, automation will have eliminated so many jobs that we'll all be on some sort of universal income and unable to afford 4K or 8K cable TV. And the millennials will just be crawling out from under their loans and mortgages. ;)

ketchup

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4323
  • Age: 33
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #54 on: February 13, 2018, 03:08:41 PM »

Bought our current TV just over a year ago.  43" fancypants 1080p Sharp with built-in Roku for $229.  It weighs like 22lbs.  TVs are crazy cheap now.

I don't understand how they can even make money selling TVs anymore.  This isn't an item people buy multiple times/year, and I'm constantly finding large(ish) TVs for under $200. How much profit can there be at that price-point?

People upgrade all the time, and the stores make a killing selling extended warranties and accessories
Be that as it may, the tech is moving a lot slower than say, 10-15 years ago.  In 2005 maybe you bought that hotshot 34" HD CRT.  Then in 2010, you bought a sweet 42" 720p plasma.  Then in 2014, you bought a 50" 1080p LCD.  Not much has changed since then.  4K is a thing, sure, and maybe worth getting if you're buying anyway past a certain size, but there's not much 4K content out there yet.  3D came and went.  Smart TVs are a joke (mine is pretty stupid, and it's apparently one of the least-bad).  HDR? Not yet for a reasonable price, and most people don't care.  Few people that bought a TV in the last 5-7 years have a reason to replace it anytime soon.

I can tell you why.

I currently work in the broadcast industry.  The reason that technological advancement hasn't really continued getting better is that the majority of the broadcast industry in North America (and much of Europe) doesn't have the capability to take advantage of the new stuff.  Few cable or satellite broadcasters are able to even offer 1080p, let alone 4k . . . and 1080p has been around forever.  Which means 8K is a pipe dream.  Some newer technologies (like HDR) are more likely to make it into near future broadcasts because they're not too demanding, but signal quality step ups are expensive all around.  Expensive for film equipment, expensive to store, expensive to route in the broadcast booth, expensive to transport to customers,  and all this change is happening at a time when competition from on demand (netflix, youtube) video services is eating away big chunks of the broadcast industries pie.

The best use case for a 4K TV that I've found is as a computer monitor.  :P
That makes sense.  Netflix and the like have started streaming in 4K, but it's hardly all content (and it requires a decent connection to actually deliver it).  It's also much easier for them to do it, and gradually, as they can just update their software/infrastructure as they go - they're not trapped in 90s MPEG2 ATSC land like broadcasters.  The main real source of 4K content so far seems to be 4K Blu-ray discs, and nobody buys discs anymore.

And yes, despite our TV being "only" 1080p, my (pro photographer) girlfriend's desktop and laptop computers both have 4K displays (15" and 24" respectively) and they sure are pretty.

BDWW

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 733
  • Location: MT
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #55 on: February 13, 2018, 07:46:57 PM »
Man that must be huge laptop.

JLee

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7512
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #56 on: February 13, 2018, 07:57:44 PM »
Man that must be huge laptop.

...how so?

alsoknownasDean

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2843
  • Age: 39
  • Location: Melbourne, Australia
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #57 on: February 13, 2018, 08:30:44 PM »
I have a 32" JVC 1080p TV I picked up secondhand from Gumtree (made in about 2009). Aside from a handful of channels that have switched to MPEG4 transmission, it still works OK.

Free to air TV is mostly only in SD here (and looks terrible on a large screen), and even Foxtel requires you to pay extra for HD channels (probably only 720p anyway). Kinda makes spending thousands on a giant 4K TV pointless, especially if one's internet would struggle with 4K Netflix.

These days one might as well just get a cheap TV for $300 and be done with it.

VaCPA

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 270
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #58 on: February 13, 2018, 08:51:52 PM »
I had a 42 inch CRT once. It was mind blowing how heavy that thing was. I was so happy to see it go bye bye.

dragoncar

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 9922
  • Registered member
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #59 on: February 14, 2018, 01:42:01 AM »
Honestly if I had one of those things it would NOT be worth the power consumption, space, and low resolution.  I'd rather just watch a movie on my laptop than one of these monstrosities:


nereo

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 17496
  • Location: Just south of Canada
    • Here's how you can support science today:
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #60 on: February 14, 2018, 05:35:27 AM »
I had a 42 inch CRT once. It was mind blowing how heavy that thing was. I was so happy to see it go bye bye.
When I was in college i had a 36" CRT, and I moved into a 3rd floor apartment built in 1911 with a straight staircase (building codes ewre more lax then.  It took every ounce of strength my roomates and I had to get it up those stairs.  When I moved out two years later the TV stayed.  A couple years ago the last remaining roommate moved out when the place was sold, and chose to let gravity do all the work, dropping it from the 3rd story balcony to the parking lot below. :-) IIRC it was something like 216 lbs.  A few people came to look at the 'free tv' listed on craigslist but no one dared try take it down.

ketchup

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4323
  • Age: 33
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #61 on: February 14, 2018, 07:37:48 AM »
Man that must be huge laptop.

...how so?
Haha, because I fucked up the order of my numbers.
desktop and laptop computers both have 4K displays (15" and 24" respectively) and they sure are pretty.

It is indeed a 15" laptop, not a 24" laptop; my mistake. :)

JLee

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7512
Re: Scrapping a $3500 TV
« Reply #62 on: February 19, 2018, 05:14:42 PM »
Man that must be huge laptop.

...how so?
Haha, because I fucked up the order of my numbers.
desktop and laptop computers both have 4K displays (15" and 24" respectively) and they sure are pretty.

It is indeed a 15" laptop, not a 24" laptop; my mistake. :)

LOL, I missed the 'respectively' bit.