Monday, February 13, 2012

How to Choose LED TV or LCD TV

Update: I put this post at Squidoo as well: http://www.squidoo.com/extreme-method-to-choose-led-tv-or-lcd-tv

This is not an ordinary post of "How to Choose LED TV or LCD TV" that you can find in google or any other search engine. Here is the link to google it, if you insist so:
Google "How to Choose LED TV or LCD TV"

Back to this post, I would like to give a few suggestions on the method to choose the right LED TV or LCD TV. CRT TV is not covered here. :P
Plasma TV might not be applicable as well since this type of display is outdated just like Outdated Penang Uncle. :P

Here are the normal flow that most of us will use:
1. Want to buy a new LED TV or LCD TV (some will do some research on the internet)
2. Go to shops to look for the LED TV or LCD TV
3. If convinced by the sales assistant at the shop (because of sales/discounts/freebies), buy the LED TV or LCD TV
4. Self install or install by the shop technician at home
5. Start enjoying the LED TV or LCD TV
5. Found out missing out some features
6. Regret!

Here is a "minimize-regret" flow that I suggest:
1. Want to buy a new LED TV or LCD TV (some will do some research on the internet)
2. Prepare a thumb drive (USB drive or whatever you call it) with file formats that you wish to test out at the shop
3. Go to shops to look for the LED TV or LCD TV with the thumb drive and paper (file list)
4. Test out the files inside the thumb drive that you bring along to the shop
5. Satisfy with the playback of the file format on the model of LED TV or LCD TV
6. Buy the LED TV or LCD TV
7. Self install or install by the shop technician at home
8. Start enjoying the LED TV or LCD TV
9. Happy!


How to prepare the thumb drive?
The most simple direct method is to copy all the movie/music/photo files that you usually play on your DVD player or home theater system or media player into the thumb drive. One file for each type would be sufficient but since thumb drive nowadays is quite cheap, why not copy a few files for each file format into 4GB/8GB/16GB/etc thumb drive.

What file type should be cover?

  1. Movie
    • VOB - the DVD format that direct copy/rip from DVD disc
    • AVI
      • DivX
      • XViD
      • H.264
      • AVC
    • MP4
      • H.264
      • AVC
    • MKV
      • H.264
      • AVC
    • MPG
    • TS/TRP/TP
    • DAT
    • WMV/ASF
    • MOV
    • Motion-JPEG (some digital camera record video in this format)
    • FLV (not popular on LED TV or LCD TV yet, but no harm to try)
    • And also the subtitle files for each of the movie if you watch foreign movie
  2. Music
    • MP3
    • WMA
    • AAC
    • Other formats that you usually have
  3. Photos
    • JPEG
    • MPO (3D format if your digital camera support this)

Rename files:
Try to rename the files in thumb drive to reflect the resolution and format of the file. Example:
Before:
Smurf_2011.avi
After:
Smurf_2011_1080p_H264_AAC.avi
In this example, The Smurf movie that I wanted to test at shop is in 1080p that encoded in H264 video format and AAC audio format.

Another example:
Before:
Elmo.mp3
After:
Elmo_128k_48kHz.mp3

Even though we are going to prepare a file list that contain all the needed information, it is still good to have the file rename to shorten the time to navigate during testing out the files on LED TV or LCD TV.


File list:
Prepare a piece of paper that listed all the file format (and the resolution, video/audio encoding)that you included in that thumb drive. This is to allow you to check the file format that not being supported. LED TV or LCD TV will not list out the file that it's format not supported, therefore we might forgot that file during testing LED TV or LCD TV using thumb drive. Bring along this list during LED TV or LCD TV shopping.

Summary, this is a better method to help you to make sure you buy the right LED TV or LCD TV.

Wish you all the best to find your favorite LED TV or LCD TV that not only meet your budget, also meet your appetite of file playback.


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