I just sold off most of what I own and moved cross-country, so I suddenly find myself in the market for a new TV. I decided to wait until after the move to get a new one (didn't want to have to ship much stuff) which turned out to be a mistake as the entire Panasonic line of plasmas that I was interested in have pretty much disappeared over the last month (even floor models, I've been calling around).
So in considering all the lesser TVs still on the market I was surprised to see the new lineup Vizio announced at CES - they've dropped 3D across the board, and their mid- and high-end ranges are all 4k. On top of that they've gone to local dimming LED backlights on the entire line and added a host of other tech to improve the picture quality, it looks like they're stepping up to compete quality-wise with the big names. The general sentiment from everyone who saw these at CES seems to be that the quality is pretty impressive, although we'll have to wait for their release to get any comprehensive reviews. The crazy thing is the mid-range 4k line runs from $1000 for a 50" to $2600 for a 70" (msrp of course, street prices likely to be even lower).
In any case, when the largest seller of TVs drops 3D across the board, I think that's a sign that home 3D is pretty much dead. It'll be interesting to see how that carries over into the theatrical market.
And when they aggressively price 4k like that (sony & samsung's 4k start at about $3k) it may be a sign that 4k will be commonly available in the home a lot sooner than I expected. It certainly looks like I personally may end up with 4k sooner than I expected to - just because I'd prefer the larger backlight array that comes with their 4k sets. I'm wondering how soon we'll actually see much 4k content available - is there any real source for this yet? And, maybe more important, will people actually seek out 4k content? Or simply continue watching letterboxed SD content blown up with the TV's zoom feature to get rid of those annoying bars in glorious 4k?
So in considering all the lesser TVs still on the market I was surprised to see the new lineup Vizio announced at CES - they've dropped 3D across the board, and their mid- and high-end ranges are all 4k. On top of that they've gone to local dimming LED backlights on the entire line and added a host of other tech to improve the picture quality, it looks like they're stepping up to compete quality-wise with the big names. The general sentiment from everyone who saw these at CES seems to be that the quality is pretty impressive, although we'll have to wait for their release to get any comprehensive reviews. The crazy thing is the mid-range 4k line runs from $1000 for a 50" to $2600 for a 70" (msrp of course, street prices likely to be even lower).
In any case, when the largest seller of TVs drops 3D across the board, I think that's a sign that home 3D is pretty much dead. It'll be interesting to see how that carries over into the theatrical market.
And when they aggressively price 4k like that (sony & samsung's 4k start at about $3k) it may be a sign that 4k will be commonly available in the home a lot sooner than I expected. It certainly looks like I personally may end up with 4k sooner than I expected to - just because I'd prefer the larger backlight array that comes with their 4k sets. I'm wondering how soon we'll actually see much 4k content available - is there any real source for this yet? And, maybe more important, will people actually seek out 4k content? Or simply continue watching letterboxed SD content blown up with the TV's zoom feature to get rid of those annoying bars in glorious 4k?