After three days of working well, we tried to turn on the old Toshiba last night and got the dreaded 3-red flashes of death.The nearest BestBuy is about two miles away and, after dinner, we went there. There're not too many people out shopping on a Monday night, I noticed. I had done a little homework last week when I thought the old LCD had bitten the dust at that point. So, I knew pretty much what I wanted. We got an LG 47LK520.
The new screen takes up about the same amount of room. Although the old one was 42", it had a rather large bezel. We had to attach the stand as it will just sit on the same old component stand that was originally the base of an even older Hitachi tube set. This device is pretty basic compared to some of the televisions out there now. I don't need a smart TV as I keep an old server right behind it in a pile of dusty wires. In this way, I can VPN out for geo-restricted content.
At first, I was not very impressed with the picture quality. Why do manufacturers ship with such horrible default settings? Even after tweaking and adjusting, I sort of miss the picture of the old LCD. With that one everything looked okay in HD. Now, this model is perhaps more sensitive or something. I'm saying this because when watching the news, I can see the actual quality of the various sources of clips and accompanying video. Yikes, often news sources still come to the newsroom in standard definition. Even more frightening are those things pulled from YouTube and then rebroadcast. On the new screen the studio shots appear great, but the other content often looks like crap.
Oh well, I think a new TV is a little like getting a new pair of glasses. It often takes a bit of time to make the adjustment. I just hope this device lasts longer than previous TV. Not even 5 1/2 years? Didn't old tube televisions last decades?