NOT Returning TV to Good Guys because I don't think picture is good enough

Ldavlap on 20/09/2014 - 10:33
Last edited 21/09/2014 - 07:45

I just bought a Sony KDL48600B TV from Good Guys Thomastown.

All reviews for this model are really good and looked OK in store (but that means nothing I know). However, I don't think the picture is as clear and sharp as our 6 year old HD Samsung.

I paid a bit more for the Sony because I just wanted a good picture. I didn't really trust the LGs, Hisense etc. But this is a lower priced priced Sony, not top of the range.

I am wondering how to approach Good Guys as I am sure they will find nothing wrong. It is OK and when just studio shots such as news looks ok. But other times colours are saturated and bleached. Not seriously so, but bad enough. It is subjective, so might be hard to prove or get anywhere.

I have tried lots of settings (there are many!). My feeling is the TV is too clever. So tried gaming mode as suggested on a web site, which turns most of the clever stuff off. But again, not consistent across all channels and programs. I know there will be differences, but again the Samsung seemed pretty good overall. Antenna, location in lounge etc are all the same.

Anybody any ideas? Should I go to the store (not my local), take the TV back, call head office.

I am just looking for the best way forward if anybody has done this or has practical suggestions.

Cheers

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Comments

  • itsdanthaman on 20/09/2014 - 10:53
    -2

    complain till you cant complain no more

    btw, shouldve got the hisense

    Hisense 50" 3D smart tv $939 or an extra $60 for the 55" although no 3D. Have seen these at least a couple hundred cheaper on sale so theres room to bargain….

  • cristobaljames on 20/09/2014 - 12:32

    I would check with a full HD Blu-Ray on your TV with different settings and see what your opinion is then..

    • tonyjzx on 20/09/2014 - 13:07
      +1

      yeah but this is the thing, i see many many tvs even cheap ones that are fantastic when driven at 1,080p via a pc or BR

      but they suck ass on normal SDTV because the tuner sucks and/or the scaler sucks

      but i expect many people will be watching tv mostly so having awesome BR performance doesnt mean much

      eg. i bought a tv to hook to console so thats all i care about but thats not most people

      • cristobaljames on 20/09/2014 - 15:38

        The OP may well have bought a larger TV than his previous and watching SD so that would effect the perceived performance. Best start by a check with the highest quality image possible which is generally a full HD blu-ray.

        • davlap on 20/09/2014 - 16:07

          Yes I did buy a bigger TV and did consider that blowing up SD/HD res might be the issue. Are you really saying that 50/55/60 inch TVs will turn your normal TV watching into something sub-standard. Why buy one then? I know most channels are SD, but is this what everybody experiences when upgrading?

          No doubt HD channels are better, but even they are not consistent when watching different scenes etc

          I don't have BlueRay, but I am looking at the calibration disks/images that I can download and will probably try the THX calibration that apparently comes on most DVDs that are THX certified

          http://www.avforums.com/PicturePerfect/ goes through the settings to use for better picture and I am trying these out. Set to Cinema and turn pretty much everything off is the basic advice.

        • cristobaljames on 20/09/2014 - 16:18
          +1

          Unfortunately I had the same experience back in the day (2007) when I bought my first big screen TV.

          I was really gutted to see how that the $5k I spent was not so well spent. It wasnt until I hooked it up to my PS3 with a HDMI cable and had the ability to use it at its highest settings did I really see its worth.

          SD will unfortunately look worse on a bigger screen as there simply isnt enough pixels to give it a sharp image.

          Your TV will only be as good as the source quality so you need not be surprised that the next TV you swap this one for will have a similar issue.

  • ilostnemo on 20/09/2014 - 14:48

    I will offer you the advice offered to me.
    Trust your eyes only.

    Go down to JB Hi Fi and your eyes should be drawn to one TV, get your partner to do the test and hopefully you'll both agree.

    I do the same with Beds as well.

    • davlap on 20/09/2014 - 16:09

      ilostnemo I did do this, but the images shown are designed to look good in store. My TV has a store mode which seems to over brighten things, which probably looks ok in store.

  • davlap on 20/09/2014 - 16:13

    There are some useful comment here, thanks.

    Am I being too critical going from 37 inch HD to 48 inch FHD for normal viewing?
    Never really noticed big TVs being poor quality - except for some cheaper ones.
    Need to get around a mates house, sit down and look again.

    • [Deactivated] on 20/09/2014 - 18:09

      There is a reason why they have cheaper models - and more expensive models.

      Another thing to note is: just because it is newer does not mean it will be better.

  • plmko on 20/09/2014 - 18:13

    " But again, not consistent across all channels and programs. "

    Why would you form your conclusion on Free to air TV? Our free to air broadcast is really bad. You need to whack on a blu-ray disc, games console, or just high bitrate video to really judge how it handles motion, colour accuracy and contrast.

    • davlap on 21/09/2014 - 07:45
      -1

      Why? My point is that watching normal TV has got worse. I'm not watching blue ray movies every night. tonyjzx has pretty much confirmed it for me.
      I know free to air is not up to much. I have a newer, bigger TV, but spending the extra bucks has just got me a worse viewing experience.

      Also Leecher, I am aware of this. For the same money I could have got 3D, 2-7 more inches, but chose the Sony because of the way it looked in store and also the almost endless good reviews. I don't use reviews as much more than a bit of help in choosing, but also I have hardly ever seen so many positives with hardly any negatives as I found for this TV. Good picture quality was my main driver at a reasonable price. I thought I had found it.

      I have long given up on the big brands like Sony being the obvious choice, because as has been pointed out, they are often now just resellers with a price premium. But, I do still pick 'reliable brands' if the price and review are good and the item is what I want. I would, for example, buy Samsung over LG, a few years ago Samsung were the cheap offering that maybe TCL (Hisense?)are now. I believe TCL and Hisense make their own panels and they probably get used in the expensive brands. There might be a few contradictions in what I have said here, but I guess that is brand power.

      Anyway, the title is redundant now - I'm keeping it. I could fight and argue with Good Guys, but if they offered a replacement it looks like I might end up in the same place. If they offered the choice of another TV I have no idea what I would choose

      • [Deactivated] on 21/09/2014 - 09:30

        Reinforcing tonyjzx's comments and adding a bit to the reality of what you may be looking at - quite literally…

        About three years ago, a much smaller-screen set than yours (a 27inch Samsung), bought for use in the kitchen. Brilliant picture at the screen's native 1080 resolution, but an appallingly soft SD broadcast picture. Contradicting somewhat the comment by hazzad, below, much worse than it should have appeared, factoring in the modest screen-size.

        The only way to improve the situation was to only view SD channels through one of the PVR's in the house that upscales everything in a decent fashion to 1080 resolution.
        It kind of - not just 'kind of', but actually - defeats the purpose of the Samsung's full complement of energy rating stars, but it works to make the viewing of standard definition channels at least tolerable.

        Incidentally, Choice magazine has tests of many sets in this month's issue. Yours isn't one of them, but there is a huge variation between brands (and within brands, specific models) as regards broadcast, DVD, and Blu-ray picture quality.

        A number of sets presented a very good Blu-ray picture but indeed offered only a very ordinary broadcast-teev performance. The Hisense model on test was just one case in point.

        Spare a thought for buyers of current Panasonic sets. Most of the Sony sets (and LG sets) did pretty well, but almost all of the several Panasonic TV's tested (including some expensive ones) did very poorly across the board.
        Panasonic (up until very recent years, anyway) had a deserved AND enviable reputation in the market, but they now appear intent on hurling that reputation down the toilet!

        OP, on a couple of occasions in the past, I have been unable to tolerate a couple of less-than-hoped-for, but not actually 'faulty' products. In those cases, I just offered to buy considerably more expensive units in exchange. The retailers in question seemed happy enough with that…

        I didn't neg you, by the way.

        • tonyjzx on 21/09/2014 - 12:54

          you will find the vast majority of high street retailers dont know shit… they happily demo HDTVs with composite switchers and whatever and they look at you odd if you complain about poor image quality

          i personally do not trust no name TVs and low end brand names for tuner performance

          they all just arent that good

          i have had good experiences with stbs set to output at 1,080p to pretty much any tv

          for some reason most stbs have good scaler and tuner performance

          a few years back CH10 used to broadcast F1 in high def and my stb 1,080p out to my Panasonic professional display would be the best quality tv i've ever seen and i've never seen its like since (CH10 do not do F1 in HD any more)

  • hazzad on 21/09/2014 - 08:20

    Alas all that's been said above regarding sd broadcast is bang on the money. Larger the screen the worse the sd broadcast will look. Some might deal with it slightly better but it Just has to be accepted. Revel in your bigger screen size, and enjoy the HD goodness on your bigger screen. At best you may be able to convince GG's to allow you to swap for something a bit bigger with 3d as you mentioned above. For what it's worth I got the LG 60" at Christmas and love it. i dont really notice the quality that much but to be honest dont watch a lot of sd broadcasts for this reason. Especially love the passive 3d if your into 3d. Dont be bothered the scanlines. You can't see them once your a few metres away from the screen. But check it out anyway and make up your own mind.

  • davlap on 21/09/2014 - 09:44

    Thanks to all for some useful comments. I feel a bit dim in not expecting the degrade in normal TV viewing. I had a full HD 22 inch TV when working and lodging in Sydney. It was el cheapo and I was amazed at the picture quality. Our 37 inch Samsung HD was pretty good and I just expected better from full HD.

    I find it hard to understand why the mainstream channels have moved their 1080 offerings to the more 'obscure' channels eg ABC News 24, 7 mate, Gem ,one HD (no need to tell me the mainstreams are cr*p !!)

    Also, big brands seem to be taking the p*ss and selling on their name, which is often going down the pan. A big fall in grace is JVC which seems to sell real junk now. I was surprised to see the same comment about Panasonic, as I was tempted by a couple of their TVs.

    • [Deactivated] on 21/09/2014 - 11:57

      JVC don't even make their own televisions anymore. They are mass-market badge-engineered jobs and have been for years. Even when Panasonic made consistently excellent TV's (and also owned JVC), JVC did make some nice and reliable gear across a few categories, but their TV's always had comparatively poor contrast as compared to the best. Otherwise, nice enough. My brother liked his.

  • ozzie freddo on 21/09/2014 - 21:25

    Don't put up with it. Your eyes are telling you it is not up to scratch and you don't expect to go backwards when you upgrade. Sure, SD is not all that great (but can be very good on occasions, it also depends on the source material as well as the data rate and encoding quality the TV stations use), but a new TV should not degrade the picture and if you are not happy, return it (or have ongoing regrets).
    Assessing them before you buy is difficult. Ideally you need to take along your own PVR (or USB stick) with known recorded material on it and ask to see your signal on their demo TVs (connected via the interface that you are most likely to use, ideally HDMI). Credits at the end of a show, or the fine print at the bottom of some ads are very useful for comparison of picture clarity.
    Don't be intimidated by the fact that you can't give them empirical evidence (although a PVR may help if they are reluctant to accept your opinion). You are the customer and you are entitled to be satisfied.
    BTW, years ago I went through a similar process (Sony-JVC-Panasonic) and it is worth sticking to your guns to get what you want.

  • tonyjzx on 22/09/2014 - 01:12

    to be fair though does anyone really care about TV performance?

    i personally dont watch much TV and since 10 dont even do F1 in HD I dont care

    i dont watch movies on tv and tv shows suck ass (like redfoo, xfactor, bondi vet, mkr? wtf is this shit?)

    i get most of my stuff at 720p minimum so… bleh to tv?

    i run consoles, laptops mainly.

    • JimB on 23/09/2014 - 15:04

      Nope, still 'watch' plenty to FTA.

      Actually don't have much time to sit down and watch TV, so FTV is on the background.

  • cristobaljames on 22/09/2014 - 09:03

    If you have done your research before buying the TV via reputable sites (eg. CNET) then you should feel comfortable with your decision for the time of purchase.

    Most if not all technology is obsolete by the time it’s released (or shortly after) so one gets the best deal on price and specs at the time.

    I’ve recently bought the full HD 70" Sony and to my surprise not long after that the same sized model was released with a UHD screen. It’s obviously is a more expensive model but the price for mine has since crashed and I didn’t quite get the killer deal as I had originally thought.

    Keep your chin up and see if you can find a way to obtain better source quality from your TV reception so you can get the most out of your larger screen.

  • Philbyj5 on 22/09/2014 - 23:34

    The comments about the quality of Aus SD broadcasts are spot on. I wish we had some decent HD content here.

    A few years ago, I bought a 55" Sony TV. As ilostnemo said, I would stand in JB and look at the wall of tellies. EVERY single time, the Sony jumped out at me over all the other tvs. Primarily it was due to the 200Hz refresh rate since it was a 3D tv. I don't use 3D but the high refresh rate meant that there was very little "judder" when watching panning scenes. The picture on the TV in stunning and to this day kicks ass on most tv's I see.

    About a year ago, I decided to get a TV for the kids room upstairs. I didn't think the kids need the quality (and cost) of a name brand TV so I grabbed a Soniq 40" from JB. Took it home, plugged it in and was horribly disappointed! The quality of every channel and input device didn't meet my expectations. I did a side by side test with my larger Sony to try and work out why I felt there was such a difference. Ultimately in came down to rubbish "scaling" in the cheaper TV. There were lots of artifacts that were visible and the whole picture was quite poor. It was definitely better when displaying high def content, but I did like the SD results. Ultimately, I retrurned the Soniq to JB and bought another Sony for some extra dollars. It looks great and I couldnt be happier.

    The moral of the story is, if you're not happy, return it. Find one that you love watching so you can enjoy it for the next few years.

    • JimB on 23/09/2014 - 15:03
      +1

      Actually, many stores (rightly) so won't allow you to return an used electrical item just because you're not happy with it, especially as the shown working.

      Buyer beware.

  • JimB on 23/09/2014 - 15:01

    I find LED/LCDs pretty rubbish when watching SD content on TV.

    I'll stick with my 65inch Panasonic Plasma.

  • hotstuff on 26/09/2014 - 09:18

    I use to work at The Good Guys not that long ago. What I suggest first check with a blue ray connected with a HDMI and check how the quality is first. If you are still not impressed. I'd call or Visit the store and speak to them explain the situation. Ask them if there are an setting that you can change that it will suit you. If still doesn't work. Then ask the politely if they can help you out….IF doesnt work. Broken power plug normally works.

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