End-Of-Bed type telly recommendations

Myranda

Looking for recommendations on a screen for watching movies and Steam Big Picture-ing.

Got to be good for viewing from what 7' max. be capable of displaying a genuine 1920x1080 image (so there's no blurryness when using as a monitor. 2 HDMI inputs or more. Some form of decent audio output (either ports or decent speakers). 200mhz at least. 3D would be a plus. Wall mount is required.

Negative would be a tuner... Currently I don't consume media in a way that requires a TV license - if I had a TV tuner I'd need a license and am unclear if I'm covered by my flatmates license so potentially with a tuner the TV could end up costing a lot more than if it didn't... this might not be an option as I've seen a lot of tellys have built in tuners.

Want the best quality for less than £500

monquixote

If you don't want a tuner doesn't that make it a monitor?

For some reason Monitors over 27" seem to get very expensive although there are a few 29" ones about for not insane amounts of money.

http://www.ebuyer.com/411047-lg-29ea93-p-29-led-lcd-ips-hdmi-monitor-29ea93

It's a real bitch if you want a big screen, but don't want a TV licence. 

The other way you can go is projector, but you are looking at probably £700+ for a projector that can do what you want. 

strumjoughlamps

I don't think the tv lics is based on the equipment you own just what you do with it..? Do you and flat mate have separate tenancy agreements?

Myranda

29" monitors are not what I'm after from a screen. The aspect ration while aimed at film fans doesn't match what blurays are outputting so it ends up doing scaling that isn't ideal when relatively close to the viewer.

Monitors would be ideal but for two things - monitors over 27" are 60hz (or 30hz if you go really big) and expensive. Sticking to 27" there are 120hz screens but they're close to £400.... for a little more I could get a 200hz 40" telly.

Currently have a 24" monitor at the end of my bed and it's a little small for watching films, but very small for any kind of computer gaming...

Sporky

For that distance and resolution I'd suggest a 28.4" monitor. Which doesn't exist, so 27-30 would seem sensible.

The lower cost 29" monitors aren't aimed at film though - they offer the same size and pixel count as two 19" 4:3 monitors side by side, and are aimed at the trade desk applications.

As MQ says, actual monitors over 27" tend to be expensive and usually QWHD or similar - they also tend to have somewhat restricted inputs, typically an RGB, an HDMI, a DVI-D and a Displayport. There are plenty of 32" full HD tellies from the likes of Samsung that'd give you loads of inputs, onboard streaming stuff and more.

Myranda

There any 32" tellies without TV tuners?

monquixote

Sporky said:

The lower cost 29" monitors aren't aimed at film though - they offer the same size and pixel count as two 19" 4:3 monitors side by side, and are aimed at the trade desk applications.

Ahh that makes sense. I was about to say that 27" monitors were as big as you were going to get and then I thought I'd have a look to make sure I wasn't talking shite and spotted the 29s I thought they looked a bit of a weird aspect ratio.

bertie

we have a 19"  Panasonic, about 9' away,  perfect. Anything bigger makes for uncomfortable viewing ............dont like overly big screens

Myranda

Trouble is I've used a 17" laptop for film viewing for too long... 17" screen on your lap equates to making a 24" screen at the end of the bed look tiny... I'd do the maths to work out what would look the same at the foot of  the bed, but I'd guess such a screen would need to be massive.

Projector makes sense - potentially I could even adjust to make things look the size needed - but a good projector vs good screen in my price range is hardly going to be subjectively good...

hmm. Maybe I could get a box, some midgets and get them to re-enact films scene by scene...

Sporky

Decent full HD projectors aren't cheap - the budget ones are all single DLP which means poor brightness, poor contrast, appalling colour and the rainbow effect, particularly if you watch anything black and white and/or grainy.

If I was going to get a projector for film type stuff I'd have a budget of about three grand minimum. Plus money for the screen.

viz

Why can't you just not have bbc channels tuned in?

monquixote

Sporky said:

Decent full HD projectors aren't cheap - the budget ones are all single DLP which means poor brightness, poor contrast, appalling colour and the rainbow effect, particularly if you watch anything black and white and/or grainy.

If I was going to get a projector for film type stuff I'd have a budget of about three grand minimum. Plus money for the screen.

A chap I work with who doesn't watch TV, but does sometimes watch films with his family spent about £800 on a projector and was quite pleased. It it's probably not what you'd call high fidelity, but for his intended goal of making some popcorn and pretending he was in a cinema with his kids it was OK.

Myranda

£3000 makes sense for projectors... ones I was looking at on Amazon which seemed to have a decent feature set were around £2000 but of course there's no way to know how subjective a review on amazon is. And then there's the screen - making sure the curtains are thick enough to cut out light properly... too many money.

viz - do you actually tune channels in these days? Is that enough to convince a TV licensing person? The website says you only need one if you watch TV or record TV as it's broadcast - but if you have all the equipment sat there, it would seem hard to prove you don't use it...

monquixote - I've been spoilled for too long with high def screens of above average quality... ignorance is bliss with this sort of thing - being used to good quality means that spending money feels very difficult when the rewards aren't immediately evident.

monquixote

viz said:

Why can't you just not have bbc channels tuned in?

Because it's a TV licence not a watching the BBC licence. 

Sporky

monquixote said:

A chap I work with who doesn't watch TV, but does sometimes watch films with his family spent about £800 on a projector and was quite pleased. It it's probably not what you'd call high fidelity, but for his intended goal of making some popcorn and pretending he was in a cinema with his kids it was OK.

£800 would get you a very good WXGA (ie 720p) projector, which'd be more than sufficient for watching fillums.

Full HD is still much, much more expensive, and I've not liked any of the cheapo 1DLP ones I've seen (I see a lot of them!). I'd much rather spend £500 on a decent WXGA 3LCD jobby than £1000 on a single DLP full HD one.