RCA Flat Screen TV

[Console User]

I have saw RCA Flat Screen TVs advertised many times. I am wondering if and LED Model 1080pixel capable are a good TV to buy if you switch from CRT to Flat Screen? I just don't know much about their longevity, picture quality, and etc. I guess some they say are better than others out there to buy. I know some of the old RCA CRT's lasted for yrs......

Thanks!!!

[ChrisW6ATV]

Console User-

The recent devices called "RCA" have less to do with the real/original RCA than any "Zenith"-labeled products from the last 10+ years, which are at least still made by the company that did buy Zenith. Those current "RCA" TV sets are very low-end models, equivalent to various brand-X ones or store brands.

[Zenith26kc20]

Like mentioned, the RCA flat screens are very poor sets. I don't take them in for repair anymore. The few that came in ended up going to the scrapper that comes here.

[Jeffhs]

It is a doggone shame that RCA flat screens are so unreliable. RCA, after all, was the company that pioneered b&w and color television in the 1950s; to put their logo on flat-panel televisions of such low quality today is almost a crime, IMO. I would never own a flat panel with the newer (post-1968) RCA logo on it. I know RCA was once a very fine brand of television, radio and even hi-fi stereo (my folks' first TV was a 1954 RCA Victor 21" b&w console; they also had the matching 45-EY-3 45-rpm record changer and an RCA Victor 3-way [AC-DC-battery] tube powered portable radio), but that was decades before the current trend of slapping once-famous brand names and logos on cheaply-made offshore-built devices began.

I have a 19" flat panel "Insignia" brand TV. Insignia is a house brand of Best Buy. The set has been operating flawlessly for nearly three years; it is used daily on cable, with an LG Blu-ray player and a Panasonic VCR.

I read somewhere that these TVs are built using many LG parts, including the panel which is rated for 60,000 hours to half brightness. This equates to some 20 years of average use, although I do not expect my set to last anywhere near that long. However, I am expecting it to last somewhat longer than the often quoted two years; how much longer, however, is anyone's guess. I am thankful I did not have the kind of out of the box problems some folks have had with these sets; on the contrary, mine worked well (and continues to operate exceedingly well) from the moment I unpacked it and hooked it up.

[rca2000]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

Console User-

The recent devices called "RCA" have less to do with the real/original RCA than any "Zenith"-labeled products from the last 10+ years, which are at least still made by the company that did buy Zenith. Those current "RCA" TV sets are very low-end models, equivalent to various brand-X ones or store brands.

The loast time I was " in the loop" with all of this (a little over a year ago) RCA was being made by AUDIOVOX, of all people. Their flat panel sets are of very low quality, often like an "Isynphony" or other bargain-basement set.

Then again...NO flat panel set should be expected to last a long time. New plasma sets--once the "dream " of many--are alomst gone...the "word has been out" for a few years now, about how absolutely terrible the reliablilty of them is, how easily they burn, how fragile they are, and how hot they run/how power hungry they are. And LCD panels often suffer from "seperation" of the panel ribbons...often not repairable, since they are soldered by ultrasound..not heat....and the "lead free solder" causes all kinds of problems too, with the ribbons and all else.

Maybe sometime....people will relaize there is only ONE truly reliable, proven, long-lived, inexpensive, relatively simple to run display device out there...and go back to it...the CRT,

[dishdude]

The Insignias are made by XOCECO http://www.xocecousa.com/

They aren't bad sets but have nothing to do with LG. LG did make a few DVD recorders and players for Best Buy a few years ago, and I think that's how the LG connection got made.

As for RCA, Thomson will license that brand to anyone that wants it, so there is always someone different making the accessories, TVs and other RCA crap every few years.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by rca2000

Maybe sometime....people will relaize there is only ONE truly reliable, proven, long-lived, inexpensive, relatively simple to run display device out there...and go back to it...the CRT,

That's why I'm keeping my RCA CRT TV. That set is now 14 years old and has had no problems to date (except for an RF connector snapping off the tuner PC board the first year I owned it). I also have a 19-year-old Zenith color set that still works amazingly well.

BTW, I have heard and read about the problems plasma televisions have, but I did not know until now that plasma sets are almost extinct. You are correct in that plamas have many problems, such as image burn-in, very high energy usage, etc. It is probably just as well that this type of TV is becoming scarce; they may work well and produce excellent pictures when they are new, but once they get a few years on them the problems begin. Some plasmas are trouble right out of the box.