Flatscreen TV - What do I do?

[skywatcher]

We are in the midst of sorting out all our stuff, what we're going to take, sell, give away and junk.

I have a Panasonic 32" CRT TV which will inevitably end up in the skip despite giving 11 years of sterling reliable service. It's just too big and bulky to consider taking to the far side of the world.

So, the question is, do I plump for a great value LED TV from the UK while we are still here or wait until we get out to NZ and risk the bargaining lottery that is Noel Leeming et al?

Sage advice would be much appreciated.

[IanW99]

...
So, the question is, do I plump for a great value LED TV from the UK while we are still here or wait until we get out to NZ and risk the bargaining lottery that is Noel Leeming et al?
...

If you don't need the TV now then I would wait until you get to NZ.

Ian

[Manks]

As an illustration, we bought this TV from Harvey Norman (in one of their regular sales of course!) for $888. Not much difference to GBP429.99 (about $40/20 quid) so for the risk that it might break en route, the extra insurance cover you might need (our insurance was per US$1,000 of goods) etc, you might as well wait until you're here.

[Addicted to NZ]

Apparently Flat screen TVs are the cheapest they have ever been here in NZ. I can't comment if the UK HDTV's work perfectly fine in NZ. I think they should but it would be better if someone that has experience in it to say.

But in the Sage area...I had both Sage (2yrs) and BeyondTV (5yrs) running on the same computer at the same time.

SageTV could be setup, but not with SkyTV here in NZ, as near as I can figure. Problem is getting the EPG for all the channels, I don't think it is out there for SkyTV (again..as near as I can figure). The only option I can see happening is getting a couple of FTA and working a third party app (there is one) to grab the EPG for SageTV to use.

Seems most of the guys down here are using Media Portal, GBPVR, Meedio or even Microsoft Media Center. Seems all of them require some effort to get the EPG data integrated into the program.

Go over and checkout the forums at Geekzone, some users there.

I haven't gotten into trying to setup my old BTV/Sage, just not sure how much of a PITA it will be or the maintenance area for the epg data (but I plan to play with it someday). I also run XBMC, but it doesn't have any PVR features.

[tk1]

Has anyone had good success with a slingbox connected to their old country?

[edw123]

Don't buy one and bring it.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the prices of stuff like TVs etc. in NZ (strong Dollar Helps). Indeed, most electrical stores have stuff as cheap as the UK plus you can negotiate with them.

Plus it will have a NZ plug, warranty which is easy to manage, have built in digital if you don't go with sky etc. etc. etc.

[James 1077]

Buy it here and it comes with a 3-5 year warranty through the consumer guarantees act.

So if you are pricing them up then you should take this into account too!

[mooncalf]

Has anyone had good success with a slingbox connected to their old country?

I did consider this and tested it while on recce and it did work in my testing. However the bandwidth cost in NZ (limited and expensive data caps) do not stack up to streaming video from ya slingbox.

[rogercruse]

Has anyone had good success with a slingbox connected to their old country?

I left my slingbox setup in the UK running and was able to access it without any problems from NZ when I first arrived (a year ago).

I used it a couple of times each week until my household possessions were all packed and shipped out here in January.

Haven't set it up here yet as the mysky box is nowhere near my router at the moment.

[tk1]

Regarding the slingox, I already have it set up at my parents house to their DVR so that I can watch local sports teams. Right now that means I can watch Philadelphia TV in Chicago, but I'm hoping it will still work in Wellington. At low settings (320P works at 470kb/s) it is a bit blurry but I don't think it uses that much bandwidth (about 0.2 GB per hour) So if I use the slingbox 15 hours a month (that would cover 8 NBA or NFL games if I skip commercials) that would only use up 3 GB. And any more than that I should be outside instead