We just bought 2-30" Advent HT3061A HDTV sets

[jpchleapas]

We bought two of these to use in our bedrooms. We have a 60" Sony kdf-60WF655 for the main viewing in the living room. These Advent HDTV's are on clearance at Best Buy for $497 each. We looked hard at the picture quality and it was much better than both of our bedroom TV's.They come with a 30 day trial period from BB so we can always return them. I know people do not think too highly of these sets. But at that price it is replacing a 15 y/o lousy Samsung 25" in my bed room. In my Dad's room the Advent is replacing his 31" RCA plain jane color TV. The picture is better on his TV than my very old 25" TV set. We liked the fact there is a built in headphone jack on the Advent HDTV's. My Dad is very hard of hearing so this will be good for him. We used a AMEX card and the woman at AmericanExpress told me when we bought the brand 60" Sony KDF-60wf655 last week for $2327 new that the 1 year warranty is automatically doubled to 2 full years. That was the best price we could find on the Sony. With shipping at $150 we paid a total of $2477 for the TV. At CC the same set is $3,699 right now. There must be a 40-50% mark up for profit on these TV sets at the stores. We are buying a 5 year RepairTech warranty for the 60" Sony for $349. We figure if the Advent craps out after 2 years when the factory warranty runs out by then both TV's will owe us nothing. I will post a follow up after we get the sets hooked up next weekend when they are delivered by Best Buy. We are going with Comcast with the HDTV option for all 3 TV's. The 60" Sony only needs a cable card so that should save us a few bucks renting boxes. I will follow up after we watch the set for a week, or two. John C.

[jpchleapas]

Well. Both Advent 30" HT3061A were delivered and set up. These are in our berooms. The image is much better than the nasty 25" set I had. I can not find any faults with either of the sets, The pictures looks very good on both sets. I will give them some minor tweak with my Avia and DVE "tune up" DVD's. The image on these sets is excellent on HDTV material. It is OK on digital, and acceptable on analog. We swapped from RCN to Comcast with HDTV. The picture quality is much better for us. I could easily live with another one of these Advent TV's in my separate apartment. At $497 these sets are a steal. Maybe not as many bells and whistles as our 60" Sony Grand Wega. I will post some random thoughts after I adjust them with Avia and the other tweakers program DVD by the end of next week. The standard headphone jack is a bonus for my Dad who is hard of hearing. Headphones make his watching the TV more enjoyable. If anyone buys these please consider using AmEx CC's to double the one year standard warranty out to two years. At this price if they crap out in two years they owe us nothing. John

[mattf0124]

with my advent, some hd programming was spectacular, from 20 feet away,and being my first in depth experience with it,also this is a 30" set,I only use one tv,and only watch tv on purpose at one place,and thats mine,........if it works for you, good, dropping 5 hundred bucks is a fairly big deal for me, as is the labor of getting the set where it needs to be,the sony was far from trouble free,and a bit more up front, but after some work, and no more other expense but time, I'm pleased with it,but thats just me, if my only choice were the advent,or my old set,a 27" wega, old set would win hands down, ifyour happy with it, I'm not knocking you, it didnt work for me,especially for close range viewing, ie video games, if you have the money to spend,.....and it sounds like you might, a few hundred more might make for a more worthwhile investment,but if it works for you, good, just giving my opinion, M.

[jpchleapas]

with my advent, some hd programming was spectacular, from 20 feet away,and being my first in depth experience with it,also this is a 30" set,I only use one tv,and only watch tv on purpose at one place,and thats mine,........if it works for you, good, dropping 5 hundred bucks is a fairly big deal for me, as is the labor of getting the set where it needs to be,the sony was far from trouble free,and a bit more up front, but after some work, and no more other expense but time, I'm pleased with it,but thats just me, if my only choice were the advent,or my old set,a 27" wega, old set would win hands down, ifyour happy with it, I'm not knocking you, it didnt work for me,especially for close range viewing, ie video games, if you have the money to spend,.....and it sounds like you might, a few hundred more might make for a more worthwhile investment,but if it works for you, good, just giving my opinion, M.

Kind of a yawn type reply here. $500 is good money to me. I am glad your new set works. This Advent HDTV is just for my bedroom. We have a 60" Sony for our main viewing. I do not game on TV's so that means nothing to me. The Advent is heads above my old 25" color TV in picture quality. So of course you are knocking me. You stated, "If you have the money to spend......" And you meant exactly what?.? I am stating a fact that on HD material the Advent is spectacular. On digital it is also very good. On analog it is as good as the sony. No HDTV looks its best on analog signals. We are all different in what we like. With you gaming is important, right? Not to me.. With all TV's I highly suggest EVERYONE buy a $50 UPS. The power supply was damaged on the one Advent in my Dad's room. To be fair his bose wave radio also had the power supply damaged with a voltage spike. So he now uses a dedicated UPS, as do I on all 3 of our HDTV's. Best Buy carried out the old set and replaced the Advent in one day for free so all is good. They should post a sticky for everyone to read on using a UPS with all TV's. Ditto for how using AmEx doubles the standard 1 year warranty to 2 years at no extra charge. I own a Sony 60." I have also read of many Sony and all TV's having problems right out of the box. That is not at all unusual. I worked on a $2.5M MRI machine. It had ALL kinds of problems for the first few months. TVs' are not much different than any other piece of electroincs today. The PITA factor is steeper with 145 pound TV's. But BB carried out the old one and delivered the new one for free. So good luck with your new TV. John

[garage]

I'm glad you are happy with your set. I too couldn't pass up the 497.00 price but it didn't work out so well for me. The picture quality seemed fuzzy on mine no matter what I did. I had convinced myself that I was expecting too much for the price and was actually going to keep it. Then I had other problems. My other remotes would false trigger functions on the TV. If I pushed play on my DVD remote, the TV would change to a different input. My satellite remote would mute the TV when I hit the guide button. I again thought that would put up with it because the price seemed so reasonable. About a week later, my TV remote quit working all together. I tried to program my universal satellite remote but could not find a code for an Advent TV. Being a very patient guy I figured I could go through code search and find one that would work. I found a couple that would turn the power on or off but that was it. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

I am in my mid-thirties and in my day, Advent was a well respected company that made mid to high-end speaker components. Upon some research I found that it is now just a name that was licensed by Korean manufacturers. If you look in the remote codes in the manual you will see that it shares the codes for other crappy brands like Recoton.

My advice would be to avoid this TV. BB may deliver the TV but I seriously doubt they will come pick it up if you decide to return it. A couple hundred dollars more will give you a less quirky, more dependable product.

[GutBomb]

I have one of these for my bedroom and absolutely love it. Digital looks great, and even analog (through s-video) looks great. of course it really shines in HD.

one thing i noticed is that the picture "pulses" when there is bright white objects moving on the screen, but it's minor. it's still there though even with the brightness and contrast way down.

i'm willing to put up with it for the price. i would be even happier if someone had a solution for some settings i can change, maybe in the service menu.

[RedLotus]

I have one of these for my bedroom and absolutely love it. Digital looks great, and even analog (through s-video) looks great. of course it really shines in HD.

one thing i noticed is that the picture "pulses" when there is bright white objects moving on the screen, but it's minor. it's still there though even with the brightness and contrast way down.

i'm willing to put up with it for the price. i would be even happier if someone had a solution for some settings i can change, maybe in the service menu.

That "pulsing" is the contrast auto-adjust... something you just can't get rid off with that TV. I couldn't stand for it, along with many other things (bad picture quality, etc). I almost cried, but I returned this TV and took out $400 more dollars and voila... got a Sony 30-inch Widescreen HDTV that works worlds better, doesn't do crazy stuff with the remote, and has pristine picture quality.

My friend who's an ISF tech told me to steer far, far away from these tv's... I wish I would have listened the first time.

[GutBomb]

here's a follow up. several months after owning this tv i have become fed up with it. i have to adjust the geometry every few days and every time i switch between my xbox and my cable box. i am currently getting rid of this piece of crap and getting a philips.

[jpchleapas]

My Dad bought the 30" Philips when a power spike damaged the power supply on his new Advent 30" HDTV. We now use APC on all 3 of our HDTC sets. The picture on my Advent just smokes his more expensive Philips TV. Go with another brand than Philips is my suggestion. After almost 1 year my Advent 30" is still working just fine. Using our Amex card we still have one year of warranty left on the Advent, Sony, and his Philips. Amex doubles the one year factory warranty to two full years at no charge. John.