[garth]

You guys are not going to believe this !
Shortly after posting above about me taking delivery ( and paid a deposit) for the "latest" samsung 52", i was informed by the shop that the unit had come in but wasn't working... and that there were no others in HK at the moment. Next shipment was due in late August for these 650 models ! Unbelievable

Doing some further research on the 950 Samsung models noted by Boarder, show that they are due out in Europe in September

Nothing about coming to HK though from my research.

I am quite interested in the option of ordering from the Uk and shipping to HK, and understand that our PAL system here is the same as the UK ? Thats why we have 100Hz sets here rather than the 120hz of the US, which definitely dont work in HK from my understanding.

I am not sure how that would work in practice though. I found this post on another forum about the difference between US and European sets:

"Europe uses PASCAL (50 / 100 Hz) not NTSC (60/120Hz) as their picture format, which I believe (and I'm open to correction) is a higher res than NTSC, so the set would not necessarily 'tune' to channels nor display all content well, if at all, hence no 'world models' like you could with Cars"

Would be very interested in finding out how dbjjenkins is getting on with his imported set ?

[FilipH]

Originally Posted by garth

You guys are not going to believe this !
Shortly after posting above about me taking delivery ( and paid a deposit) for the "latest" samsung 52", i was informed by the shop that the unit had come in but wasn't working... and that there were no others in HK at the moment. Next shipment was due in late August for these 650 models ! Unbelievable

Doing some further research on the 950 Samsung models noted by Boarder, show that they are due out in Europe in September

Nothing about coming to HK though from my research.

I am quite interested in the option of ordering from the Uk and shipping to HK, and understand that our PAL system here is the same as the UK ? Thats why we have 100Hz sets here rather than the 120hz of the US, which definitely dont work in HK from my understanding.

I am not sure how that would work in practice though. I found this post on another forum about the difference between US and European sets:

"Europe uses PASCAL (50 / 100 Hz) not NTSC (60/120Hz) as their picture format, which I believe (and I'm open to correction) is a higher res than NTSC, so the set would not necessarily 'tune' to channels nor display all content well, if at all, hence no 'world models' like you could with Cars"

Would be very interested in finding out how dbjjenkins is getting on with his imported set ?

You might be interested in the recent news that Samsung is going introduce a new line of plasma tv's : 760 serie.

some details :

Full HD in 50",58" and 63"
dynamic contrastration of 1.000.000:1
has one button RSS service (news from USA today on your tv. offers news, weather and stock info)
4xhdmi with CEC tech,etc
2x20W speakers
compliant with the dlna standard

prices in America should be
50" 2799.99 usd
58" 4499.99 usd
63" 5499.99 usd

To be released in America in august.

[dbjjenkins]

Originally Posted by garth

You guys are not going to believe this !
Shortly after posting above about me taking delivery ( and paid a deposit) for the "latest" samsung 52", i was informed by the shop that the unit had come in but wasn't working... and that there were no others in HK at the moment. Next shipment was due in late August for these 650 models ! Unbelievable

Doing some further research on the 950 Samsung models noted by Boarder, show that they are due out in Europe in September

Nothing about coming to HK though from my research.

I am quite interested in the option of ordering from the Uk and shipping to HK, and understand that our PAL system here is the same as the UK ? Thats why we have 100Hz sets here rather than the 120hz of the US, which definitely dont work in HK from my understanding.

I am not sure how that would work in practice though. I found this post on another forum about the difference between US and European sets:

"Europe uses PASCAL (50 / 100 Hz) not NTSC (60/120Hz) as their picture format, which I believe (and I'm open to correction) is a higher res than NTSC, so the set would not necessarily 'tune' to channels nor display all content well, if at all, hence no 'world models' like you could with Cars"

Would be very interested in finding out how dbjjenkins is getting on with his imported set ?

Sitting here watching my UK 46" Samsung Series 6 (656) as I type......had no problems at all.....the built in tuner picked up whatever signal was detectable where I am. Its hooked up now to Cable (NOW TV) and runs like a dream. Shame there are only 4 HDTV channels on NOW TV to choose from as they dont have reception on my side of the island for terrestial HD till later this year.

SHop around if you want to buy in the UK.....I had to get the TV delivered to a UK address then a shipping company picked it up for me. Most retailers I spoke to wouldnt ship direct to Hong Kong. I opted for the air freight option (a 10 day turnaround) which wasn't cheap (about £500 all in door to door) rather than wait for the sea freight option at less than half the price to ship (8-10 weeks). Sill worked out about 10,000 HKD cheaper all in than if I had waited and bought the 46" Samsung 650 (or even the F series after the clearance discounts on offer).

[garth]

Thanks for the update and really glad you have everything working out fine.

Contentwise, i am really only expecting limited TV in HK anyway - will get NOW digital once i have a TV. The rest will be bluray and games to be honest, and even upscaled DVD's.

I had looked at doing shipments from the UK for hifi in the past and Selfridges seemed to be able to ship pre VAT priced goods.
So Airfreight seems a decent option in the overall scheme of things.

Obviously one would have to take a deep breath and hope the TV starts when it arrives in HK.... but i think when the new 55" 950 Samsungs come out in Sept, that i may take up this option.

Which were the most "sensible" retailers in the UK from your research if you don't mind sharing the fruits of your research ?

[yellowtip]

Originally Posted by dbjjenkins

Sitting here watching my UK 46" Samsung Series 6 (656) as I type......had no problems at all.....the built in tuner picked up whatever signal was detectable where I am. Its hooked up now to Cable (NOW TV) and runs like a dream. Shame there are only 4 HDTV channels on NOW TV to choose from as they dont have reception on my side of the island for terrestial HD till later this year.

SHop around if you want to buy in the UK.....I had to get the TV delivered to a UK address then a shipping company picked it up for me. Most retailers I spoke to wouldnt ship direct to Hong Kong. I opted for the air freight option (a 10 day turnaround) which wasn't cheap (about £500 all in door to door) rather than wait for the sea freight option at less than half the price to ship (8-10 weeks). Sill worked out about 10,000 HKD cheaper all in than if I had waited and bought the 46" Samsung 650 (or even the F series after the clearance discounts on offer).

Congratulations with a successful outcome of your UK TV project! Thanks for sharing your experience.

[PDLM]

Originally Posted by dbjjenkins

Shame there are only 4 HDTV channels on NOW TV to choose from as they dont have reception on my side of the island for terrestial HD till later this year.

You are aware that there isn't much terrestrial HD either and none in English that I'm aware of? What there is is Digital TV, which is a lot better than the analogue version, but not HD.

[yellowtip]

Originally Posted by PDLM

You are aware that there isn't much terrestrial HD either and none in English that I'm aware of? What there is is Digital TV, which is a lot better than the analogue version, but not HD.

PDLM, thanks for clearing that up. I was always under the impression that both were one and the same.

Guess I'll hold off on getting one of those HDTV receiver boxes...

Wish NowTV would offer more HDTV, but since it's all streamed over IP, I doubt they'll be expanding their HD offerings any time soon.

Besides, what they charge for their current HD channels is just simply not worth it for me.

[dbjjenkins]

Originally Posted by garth

Thanks for the update and really glad you have everything working out fine.

Contentwise, i am really only expecting limited TV in HK anyway - will get NOW digital once i have a TV. The rest will be bluray and games to be honest, and even upscaled DVD's.

I had looked at doing shipments from the UK for hifi in the past and Selfridges seemed to be able to ship pre VAT priced goods.
So Airfreight seems a decent option in the overall scheme of things.

Obviously one would have to take a deep breath and hope the TV starts when it arrives in HK.... but i think when the new 55" 950 Samsungs come out in Sept, that i may take up this option.

Which were the most "sensible" retailers in the UK from your research if you don't mind sharing the fruits of your research ?

I shopped around and the best and most readily available I found was at RGB Direct, an internet retailer I've used before in the UK. The only complication is they insist on delivering to the registered address of the CC holder only and having the CC available for sighting at delivery....both manageable as I did with my London CC (temporarily changed to a friend's place).

[garth]

Thanks for that info, dbjjenkins. I will certainly make sure that i have the credit card sorted for the delivery check. I see RGB are also listed on the What Hifi sound & vision website as an award winning retailer.

It seems that most don't want to ship overseas - oh well.

Looks like all i need now is for the new 950 Samsung to come out in the UK.... have been lusting after in on AVS Forum .

[pirxthepilot]

I'd like to put in a relevant question to the HDTV gurus out here. Me and my flatmate are planning to get an LCD TV soon, and we were deciding whether to get either a 22" Samsung Series 3 ($3380) or a 26" Olevia (forgot which model, ~$3500 IIRC).

I think for the size of our flat (TV should be around 5-6' from couch) 26" is perfect, but 22" would suffice as well. So my question now is: should we get the one with the smaller screen, knowing it has good reputation/reviews, or is it more worthy to think of size instead? Not that I'm knocking of Olevia's quality entirely, it's just that I haven't read enough about it to decide if it's a good brand.

BTW, we plan to use the TV primarily for Playstation 3 gaming and watching blu-rays and DVDs.

Thanks in advance!