Help with Television Selection

[straya]

Hi everyone....I'm new here, so be patient. I tried to seach with not too much luck. I recently purchased a 2006 30' classic with S/O. I will take delivery in about two months. I need to find two LCD tv/dvd combos...one for the bedroom and one for the living room...Is it better to wall mount or free stand above the microwave in the living room......any sugesstions?

[vswingfield]

My suggestion is to avoid the combo units. DVD is low definition, and they don't look as good as programming available from HD. Blu-ray has won the HD disk war and you will probably want to go with one of them eventually. Multiple HDMI inputs are another thing to look for.

[DKDarrow]

Ditto on not purchasing a combo unit........the player will eventually fail, repair is expensive or impossible, and they just take up room............

We have a 27" flatscreen that we have traveled with for 3 years as well as used it for a demo screen for our video business..........The lack of being huge in depth makes up a lot for where you can put it on a shelf or counter.....good luck.........Dennis

[peegreen]

Ditto on the combo DVD unit. When the DVD player stops working.... you're stuck with a TV..... I mounted my 20" to the wall. I like the clean, out of the way look. Swivel mounts allow virtually every viewing angle, even when lying on the floor.

[straya]

I was a little nervous about a combo unit anyway......I would be happy with a stand alone....Does any unit shine above the rest? Size and performance? I understand there is two different swing arm mounting devices...my dealer could'nt recomend one over the other...one is black and the other looks like aluminum. I belive the black one locks the arm in place while the other one uses straps to secure the TV panel.....anyone have an opinion?

Thanks everyone.....

[TinShack]

I agree with the above posts about purchasing a seperate DVD player from the TV....unless space is an issue like in the bedroom. Also, keep in mind that if you are doing a lot of boondocking, a larger TV will run your batteries down faster than a smaller one.

In our 28' s/o we have a little TV stand/cabinet adjacent to the dinette. Our DVD player fits right on top of the stand with a 19" HD flatpanel on top. I have some PC speakers with a subwoofer connected to it. The subwoofer fits in the cabinet below the TV, and the speakers fit on either side. Everything stays in place with (believe it or not) museum putty while traveling. After 5 years of using museum for this, the TV has never come loose, and I have traveled some gnarly roads!

[overlander63]

We have a 20" Element flat panel HD TV in the living room, hung on the wall. We also have a 13" Sylvania flat panel in the bedroom. Both have separate dvd players. The one in the bedroom is a tiny Coby (I think) we got from Camping World for $25. It's not much bigger in diameter than a DVD, and about 2" tall. If you really want a comboi unit (I don't recomend it for the reasons stated above) Sam's Club has Sylvania 19" HDtv/DVD combo units for about $250. They have the same TV, sans dvd player, for a bit less.

[jcanavera]

Originally Posted by straya

Hi everyone....I'm new here, so be patient. I tried to seach with not too much luck. I recently purchased a 2006 30' classic with S/O. I will take delivery in about two months. I need to find two LCD tv/dvd combos...one for the bedroom and one for the living room...Is it better to wall mount or free stand above the microwave in the living room......any sugesstions?

I hate to throw cold water on your bedroom plans but your trailer is much like mine. You have the center bath model where the TV hookups are on the curb side of trailer. The wall where the current mirror/shelf is mounted is on a pocket door wall. That wall needs a backing plate to support the weight of the mount and to make it worse you need space so that the door stores in the pocket.

My dealer had to replace the front pocket door due to a screw from the refrigerator protruding too far which resulted in large horizontal gouges in the door. The dealer noted that manuevering that door out of the pocket is not an easy piece of work. Compound that with limited clearances for a backing plate and screws, I pretty much put that idea out of my mind.

The mounting point for the front TV is wall which is common to the refrigerator. The biggest problem again here if getting a backing plate to support the wall. You have to either pull the fridge or find a way to work your way into the refrigerator compartment from the outside. I've seriously considered a pedestal that I could mount on the top of the cabinet top (which houses the microwave) which could hold an articulated mount.

Good luck and I'd be interested if you come up with a solution other than what I've looked at.

Jack

[TomW]

Originally Posted by peegreen

Ditto on the combo DVD unit. When the DVD player stops working.... you're stuck with a TV.....

Actually, you would end up where most people start from - making room for an external DVD player.

I recently bought a 13" Sylvania TV/DVD combo and really like it. If the built-in DVD player should fail or I decide to get a Blu-ray player, the Sylvania has a ton of jacks in the back in which the new device can be plugged.

Tom

[peegreen]

Originally Posted by straya

I was a little nervous about a combo unit anyway......I would be happy with a stand alone....Does any unit shine above the rest? Size and performance? I understand there is two different swing arm mounting devices...my dealer could'nt recomend one over the other...one is black and the other looks like aluminum. I belive the black one locks the arm in place while the other one uses straps to secure the TV panel.....anyone have an opinion?

Thanks everyone.....

The TV comes off my fully articulated mount in about 3 seconds. I take the TV off while travelling and put it on the rear bed where it stays put.

[wolverine]

We wall mounted a Sony LCD when we got our 31 Classic two years ago and are very happy with it. Since we bought it before the digital tuners were standard equipment we mounted a small shelf above the screen to hold the Wineguard HD digital converter sold by Camping World. We have a small DVD player that we use in conjunction with this set up.

While I wanted to mount a flat panel in our bedroom that would have required removing the fold down table that my wife uses a makeup space. Since we travel with a laptop, a purchased a Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick USB 2.0 TV Tuner that delivers an incredible HD picture on a laptop. While it has its own small antenna that works great, I plug into the bedroom AS antenna outlet and it works great. Add a couple small USB speakers from Best Buy and I have a completely portable 15" TV monitor with a built in DVD player for the bedroom. Best Buy sells the tuners for $99 but I bought a reconditioned one from CompUSA for $49. We are very pleased with this set up.

[Ahab]

Sharp,Toshiba, or Sony have great pictures. The rest are blah.

[Bob Thompson]

We started with Panasonic LCD and it worked fine for about 3 years of Home and Trailer use, then the screen went bad. The Panasonic had a great picture and great sound. We now use a JVC LCD and are delighted with it. The sound isn't quite as good as the Panasonic but the pic is every bit as good. The Panasonic had a 13 watt power consumption and the JVC has 17 watts of power comsumption so they are very easy on the batteries. We picked up a Sanyo DVD player which stays in the trailer and it seems up to the DVD tasks, uses very little electricity and has been reliable.

[DEITZ645]

Straya,
We have pretty much the same unit you have purchased, but ours has the Limited package. You are going to love it!!! I thought all the 06's had stereos and TV's in them. Maybe you'll get lucky and the wiring will already be run and you will just have to plug in a TV that will integrate with the stereo system.

Ours came with a Sony flat panel already mounted on the bulkhead wall next to the refrigerator above the microwave tower. It is mounted to the wall with the silver articulating mounting system that secures to the wall with wide black straps with Velcro fasteners. It is integrated with the Sony DVD / CD stereo system. So far we have had no problems. For the bedroom we mounted a fold up shelf on the bulkhead wall next to the shower stall. For that we have a 17" Toshiba TV / DVD combo and it works great so far. When in the stowed position the shelf becomes a mirror.

I can also attest to the difficulty of removing one of those pocket doors. On an early trip the bedroom door came loose and was banging around and broke the stop block off in the pocket wall. I had to remove the door, spread the walls to get my arm in and re-mount the block of wood that stops the door from going too far into the pocket, and then re-install the door. From then on we travel with two spring rods to make sure the doors don't become loose and bang around again.

[Poprivet]

My motor home has no good place for a tv so I opted for a HP 20" screen entertainment lap top. It has a HD TV tuner built in, plays DVD's, CD's and provides internet access. It's roughed and built to be moved around and has a remote control. It also serves as my GPS navigational system. Internet TV services are becoming more availible and will soon eliminate the need to hook up to cable. Life is good!

[tsunami]

I saw a news show here in Indianapolis, this morning, that was showing a TV repair person that had several off brand, low cost LCD digital/high def TV's that he was unable to find common parts for (tuners,power supply's...). He basically stated that he was going to have to dispose of them in the trash. His suggetsion was to purchase a brand name LCD tv for peace of mind. I replaced the factory installed Sony Wega with a 20" Sharp digital/high def LCD. It bolted right up to the factory articulated mount. I had to remove the microwave to get the Wega's power brick out, but everything else went smoothly.