[m5james]

47" Vizio in my bedroom for 8yrs, never an issue
55" Vizio stayed with the ex GF, but it never had issues for the 4yrs we were together
47" Samsung in my living and another in my garage, both suffered from the underrated/blown capacitor issue that I was able to fix for $5 myself by resoldering in bigger resistors
65" Sharp Aquos in my movie room, bought it used and I've had it for 3yrs now, never an issue
50" Vizio plasma that my brother gave me after it stopped turning on, he had it for like 5yrs, I've had it apart for over a year sitting in my office, I've yet to diagnose if it's the mainboard or power supply before finally fixing it

I've heard Sony has gone downhill after reading some forums about their TV's not being able to keep up with the refresh rates of Xbox games. Point is these things never last forever, even brand names are hit and miss, so that mantra that "you get what you pay for" is dead since corporations are trying to get away with using the absolutely cheapest parts possble, all while hoping customers will keep buying based on name. By the time you've already spent the money and had it fail, they don't even care because they've gotten what they wanted...BMW is no exception, you can read stories of repeat customers here being told too bad when things fail prematurely. There's no money in building reliable products.

[zx10guy]

If anyone wants to get a perspective from an industry professional about what really matters in picture quality, why 120Hz and 240Hz are just another specmanship/marketing ploy, and other topics concerning plasma and LCD technologies, listen to this podcast:

https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks/episodes/13

The interview is with Josh Kairoff who used to work at Pioneer in their plasma TV division. The discussion about buying a premium brand doesn't matter in terms of quality may be the case now, but it certainly wasn't when Pioneer was still producing TVs. Pioneer worked on various technologies to fix issues with display technologies which Josh goes over in the podcast. This includes fabing their own display chips and not using available off the shelf chips. Pioneer also cared enough about the quality of their sets to issue a recall on some power supplies globally when they realized people's usage patterns in turning on and off a high number of times per day caused unexpected stress on the power supply. Josh talks about this in the podcast. When was the last time you've seen a TV manufacturer issue a voluntary recall on a problem they've identified? This is/was a mark of a quality TV brand.

The demise of Pioneer in the TV market was a fateful decision to follow everyone else into the mass market where price is king and the majority of buyers won't appreciate all the additional features/enhancements/quality Pioneer offered. Placing themselves into a race to the bottom with price was what did in Pioneer. Videophiles can only speculate what could have been if Pioneer was able to release a 10th gen panel. We got a glimpse of what we missed out on with the 9.5 gen panels in the KRP500M and the 101FD plasmas. It took several years for the other TV manufacturers to catch up to what Pioneer was able to accomplish. And I might add with Pioneer ceasing development and manufacturing of TVs.

Why anyone who cares about picture quality should mourn Pioneer leaving the market was that they did truly push the envelope in what is possible with a TV in producing a quality picture....reference quality picture. Now there is no incentive for any of the TV manufacturers to push the performance of their TVs with picture quality. It's all about gadgets and fake specs.

[BMW F22]

Pioneer plasma tvs were the best available at the time. Panasonic bought out that divisio I believe (or at least the technology) after they decided not to continue making plasma.

[jgoens]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

If anyone wants to get a perspective from an industry professional about what really matters in picture quality, why 120Hz and 240Hz are just another specmanship/marketing ploy, and other topics concerning plasma and LCD technologies, listen to this podcast:

https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks/episodes/13

The interview is with Josh Kairoff who used to work at Pioneer in their plasma TV division. The discussion about buying a premium brand doesn't matter in terms of quality may be the case now, but it certainly wasn't when Pioneer was still producing TVs. Pioneer worked on various technologies to fix issues with display technologies which Josh goes over in the podcast. This includes fabing their own display chips and not using available off the shelf chips. Pioneer also cared enough about the quality of their sets to issue a recall on some power supplies globally when they realized people's usage patterns in turning on and off a high number of times per day caused unexpected stress on the power supply. Josh talks about this in the podcast. When was the last time you've seen a TV manufacturer issue a voluntary recall on a problem they've identified? This is/was a mark of a quality TV brand.

The demise of Pioneer in the TV market was a fateful decision to follow everyone else into the mass market where price is king and the majority of buyers won't appreciate all the additional features/enhancements/quality Pioneer offered. Placing themselves into a race to the bottom with price was what did in Pioneer. Videophiles can only speculate what could have been if Pioneer was able to release a 10th gen panel. We got a glimpse of what we missed out on with the 9.5 gen panels in the KRP500M and the 101FD plasmas. It took several years for the other TV manufacturers to catch up to what Pioneer was able to accomplish. And I might add with Pioneer ceasing development and manufacturing of TVs.

Why anyone who cares about picture quality should mourn Pioneer leaving the market was that they did truly push the envelope in what is possible with a TV in producing a quality picture....reference quality picture. Now there is no incentive for any of the TV manufacturers to push the performance of their TVs with picture quality. It's all about gadgets and fake specs.

So true, man...it's all about gadgets and having what's in. That's why I got my Panasonic plasma before there was no turning back. Basically people and quality are a thing of the past
Too bad.

[Alfisti]

They are all as bad as each other, I had a very nice Samsung plasma that developed dead horizontal lines, it's ALL OVER THE INTERNET but they refused to help me out, should really have been recalled as it's just everywhere.

Replaced it with the last of the Panasonic plasmas, so far so good touch wood.

[EL Jeffe 5]

Originally Posted by jgoens

So true, man...it's all about gadgets and having what's in. That's why I got my Panasonic plasma before there was no turning back. Basically people and quality are a thing of the past
Too bad.

it shouldn't be like that I feel if I pay something more than $100 I like to see some quality not just come back next year and buy again.
Its bull shit they should be held accountable for poor product they're building.

[bmw1racer]

Originally Posted by m5james

50" Vizio plasma that my brother gave me after it stopped turning on, he had it for like 5yrs, I've had it apart for over a year sitting in my office, I've yet to diagnose if it's the mainboard or power supply before finally fixing it

Probably the power supply.

There are tons of electronics out there which have these mediocre Chinese-made electrolytic capacitors which fail over time: If you open up the TV, you'll most likely find several electrolytic capacitors that are bulging at the top... Replacing them usually fixes the problem.

I've replaced the caps in my PC and 9 or 10 different TVs/monitors over the years and it's always fixed the problem.

Check this site: http://badcaps.net/

[dzvero]

I bought my Samsung from eastcoasttv http://www.eastcoasttvs.com/ few years ago . I had to wait 3 weeks to be delivered from east coast to CAli but saved many $$$ . It was cheaper than price at costco before tax.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by BMW F22

Pioneer plasma tvs were the best available at the time. Panasonic bought out that divisio I believe (or at least the technology) after they decided not to continue making plasma.

Panasonic only bought the Pioneer intellectual property and before they decided to exit the plasma market. When I was keeping up with the things going on with flat panel TVs, there was some question/debate on how much of the Pioneer tech made it in to the Panny panels. I don't remember the timing, but this was around the time when Panny was dealing with the rising black levels debacle. From what I've seen the last gen of the Panny plasmas were very good sets. I debated about buying one but couldn't justify buying a TV for the sake of buying one. I have two Pioneer Elite TVs still working to this day a 1010HD and a 141FD.

Originally Posted by jgoens

So true, man...it's all about gadgets and having what's in. That's why I got my Panasonic plasma before there was no turning back. Basically people and quality are a thing of the past
Too bad.

Exactly right. All I see is emphasis on what is the next fad and never a discussion about picture quality. After HD (720P, 1080i, and 1080P) hit the market, it was 3D. Well, that didn't work out. Now it's 4k. I remember one of my friends telling me about the Sony 4k display at the local Best Buy/Magnolia. I went to check it out and walked away totally unimpressed. I didn't even notice any resolution benefits with the higher pixel density because I was too distracted by how poorly the TV was producing reds. The demo playing had a scene where there was a lot of red being displayed. The bleed over and red push was just plain awful.

[KingOfJericho]

I have a Panasonic GT20 (one of the later plasmas) which I love but at 50", it was too small for family room duty. It also isn't very bright and that room has a sky light. I went to Best Buy to scope out new TVs with the notion that LEDs and LCDs were still total garbage. I left with a Sony 930D which I'm extremely happy with. The picture quality is outstanding and it's plenty bright to compensate for the room light. We actually had to dial the brightness way down as most of our TV watching takes place in the evening.

My Panny wasn't exactly trouble-free either but when it did fail to turn on, it cost me something like $250 to have the board replaced by a local electronics shop. I wasn't upset by that one bit. Hell, we spend 20+ times more to purchase our cars and BMW wants $200+ for annual oil changes.

Very few things in this world are trouble-free. While at the shop I saw literally every brand of TV you can imagine. No real theme.

[ASAP]

I had a Sony led tv that somehow fell apart after about a year of usage. Power unit burnout and fixing it cost more than a new TV... trust me, quality is a thing of the past.

[m5james]

Originally Posted by bmw1racer

Probably the power supply.

There are tons of electronics out there which have these mediocre Chinese-made electrolytic capacitors which fail over time: If you open up the TV, you'll most likely find several electrolytic capacitors that are bulging at the top... Replacing them usually fixes the problem.

I've replaced the caps in my PC and 9 or 10 different TVs/monitors over the years and it's always fixed the problem.

Check this site: http://badcaps.net/

The blown resistors on the two 47" TV's were very obvious, I don't see that on the 50" so I've been leaning towards the power supply as well. Fortunately prices have come down on them since I first started taking it apart, now I just need to do it.

[GottWhat]

I bought a 65" the last year of Panasonic plasma televisions and after 3300 hours it has been great (knock on wood). Yes, the Panasonic has a hidden hour counter lol. This is my TV, the kids and wife don't get to play with it.

Our inexpensive 42" Samsung plasma is still going strong after 6+ years and likely over 10,000 hours of use as the kids use it for everything.

In April 2009 we bought a 46" LCD made by Sceptre (from newegg) for $750 for our bedroom. It was a great deal at the time but the contrast started going wacky a few months ago so we replaced it with a 55" TCL 4K with built in Roku which we love. I read that TCL actually makes many of the TVs for major brands like Samsung and are one of the top 3 producers of televisions world wide.

PS: Shoved off in the corner of the basement, we still have a rear projection 55" Mitsubishi HD widescreen TV. It works great but was replaced by the Panasonic. I am just too lazy to carry it up the stairs as I hurt my back moving it down. We bought it in like 2003 for $2,500 lol.

[mojobmw_e90]

For electronics and such Costco is the place. It's crazy how much people use and abuse the store policy on returns.

[EL Jeffe 5]

Originally Posted by mojobmw_e90

For electronics and such Costco is the place. It's crazy how much people use and abuse the store policy on returns.

nothing wrong with taking advantage of return policy thats why they have lots of happy customers.

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by EL Jeffe 5

nothing wrong with taking advantage of return policy thats why they have lots of happy customers.

There is a limit that reasonable people won't cross. After using a paper dispenser in an office setting for 3+ years, the wife wanted them to take it back because the plastic door to load paper had broken. I was not able to stand in line with her for that one . . .

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by mojobmw_e90

For electronics and such Costco is the place. It's crazy how much people use and abuse the store policy on returns.

Originally Posted by EL Jeffe 5

nothing wrong with taking advantage of return policy thats why they have lots of happy customers.

Originally Posted by UncleWede

There is a limit that reasonable people won't cross. After using a paper dispenser in an office setting for 3+ years, the wife wanted them to take it back because the plastic door to load paper had broken. I was not able to stand in line with her for that one . . .

And Costco has changed their policies with electronics like TVs because of the gross abuse by people with the previous liberal return policy. People were taking advantage of the previous loose return policy as a way to get free upgrades with their TVs. Because of this, the return policy is now 90 days.

https://customerservice.costco.com/a...tail/a_id/1191

[bmw1racer]

Originally Posted by m5james

The blown resistors on the two 47" TV's were very obvious, I don't see that on the 50" so I've been leaning towards the power supply as well. Fortunately prices have come down on them since I first started taking it apart, now I just need to do it.

More times than not, it takes more effort to get to the faulty board (opening up the case, detaching cables, etc.) than to replace the bad components.

[The Chaddening]

Worked at an electronics store in high school and sold TV's for a while. One of the first things they explained to me was that Vizio had a pretty decent picture and the price tag was great.... but had a return rate of ~50%.

[angelr]

I got a 55" Visio m series 4k tv last Christmas as it was effectively free becuase of a promotion. It's been great thus far and it "replaced" a 50" Pioneer plasma that I've had for over 10 years. It just got moved downstairs and still looks great with absolutely no issues to date. Still love the colors on the Pioneer but once tweaked a little I've been very satisfied with the Visio and the 4k content looks amazing, even if there's still a relative lack of content. Mostly watching Amazon, Netflix, Youtube and 4k bluray but none of them have much on their own.

[UncleWede]

Randomly called last night by someone, wanted me to "computer consult" for them. They had finally gotten rid of their CRT, but the new Vizio they couldn't get blue from it when connected to their internet.

Still don't understand what an internet connection has to do with blue on your TV, but I was reminded of this thread. Since TV, I referred him to my son instead.

[csu87]

Ive had vizios for the last 6-7 years with no issues.

FWIW, Vizio LCDs were made by LG and rebranded and Plasmas were made by Panasonic back in the day. Not sure if they still are.