After deciding that I will be travelling to India for vacation this October (2012) I started looking for a good TV that I can take to India for my parents. After checking the prices of Various brands, I almost came to a conclusion that it is not worth the pain. The brand I was interested in was Samsung. But I calculated the total effective cost of carrying TV for a wide array of brands like Samsung, LG, Sony, Spectre, etc etc....
Effective Price = US purchase price + Good Voltage Converter For India + PAL to NTSC Converter + Airline Check in Cost + Customs in India + Risk of damaging the TV + Risk of bad conversion from PAL-NTSC converter
You might already be saying it is not worth it. At least that is what I felt.
But I came across a deal on LG TV (Model : 47G2) for $800 on frys.com with free shipping to my US address. I felt like it was a good price for the package this TV had to offer. The TV is a y3D google TV, meaning had Andriod (3.2) running on it. Has very well integrated Youtube app. Then comes with all standard apps like netflix, cracle etc and you can download any app available from Google Play Store. The app collection is very poor for this TV version of Andriod 3.2. Hardly any good app. The best app that TV has is a full flash supported Chrome Browser. This means if there is something that you can watch / read on a computer you can pretty much do it on this TV. It also supports 230Volts . So I did not need an voltage converter..... So I decided to take a chance and carry it with me as a checked bag.
I was flying on Emirates from DC to Hyderabad. As per the rules of Emirates, even though the weight was with in 50 lb because the size was big (I think about 86"), I was supposed to pay a fee of $170. But the lady who was checking me in was new and took lot of time and her supervisor was mad and they did not charge me the check in fee as the line was building up and they were in chaos.... So I lucked out and they did not charge....
Emirates was pretty good, they did not have any questions except for that the TV must be in original box. Otherwise they will not check in. They had pasted quite a few stickers with handling instructions on the box.
At Hyderabad the TV arrived in good shape. Absolutely NO damage to the box. The box was opened and checked by TSA and they have packaged it back properly.
Hyderabad customs stopped and wanted $400. They did not listen to anything.... After bargaining they settled for $150.
The converter I bought seemed to work good with Cable. Here is the link for the converter I bought
http://www.world-import.com/Com_World_NTSC-RF1080p_HDMI_Video_Converter_with_NTSC_Tuner.htm
The quality was awful! I don't think it was the converter but it probably was the signal coming in cable.
After a few days, I decided to try DTH service. Went to a local DTH guy and he suggested Tata Sky. He said Tata Sky or Airtel is good and rest all are trash. And TataSky has better customer service compared to Airtel. Channels wise they both offer the same Telugu channels... I did not check others as parents generally watch Telugu only.
We took TataSky Plus. The DTH guy said the existing wire in the home is cheap quality and will not provide good picture and said we needed to run a brand new wire. So we did. He also said if possible run a wire straight from dish to the STB without any links in between and we followed it.
Once the wiring was done and STB was programmed, it took an hour for tata sky to enable the STB.
The Quality is very good. Near HD on non HD channels. Good thing, I did not need the PAL-NTSC converter. I do not know if the TV has support for PAL or the STB is spitting out in NTSC. But there is no option that we had to set in STB. So, my best guess is TV is supporting PAL.
r
Conclusion : I lucked out with lot of things in the process. Overall I am very happy with how the process went. But if I had to incur all costs and needed the converter I am sure my opinion would have been different.
One suggestion to everyone who has lcd/led, sign up for DTH. It makes the difference.
Effective Price = US purchase price + Good Voltage Converter For India + PAL to NTSC Converter + Airline Check in Cost + Customs in India + Risk of damaging the TV + Risk of bad conversion from PAL-NTSC converter
You might already be saying it is not worth it. At least that is what I felt.
But I came across a deal on LG TV (Model : 47G2) for $800 on frys.com with free shipping to my US address. I felt like it was a good price for the package this TV had to offer. The TV is a y3D google TV, meaning had Andriod (3.2) running on it. Has very well integrated Youtube app. Then comes with all standard apps like netflix, cracle etc and you can download any app available from Google Play Store. The app collection is very poor for this TV version of Andriod 3.2. Hardly any good app. The best app that TV has is a full flash supported Chrome Browser. This means if there is something that you can watch / read on a computer you can pretty much do it on this TV. It also supports 230Volts . So I did not need an voltage converter..... So I decided to take a chance and carry it with me as a checked bag.
I was flying on Emirates from DC to Hyderabad. As per the rules of Emirates, even though the weight was with in 50 lb because the size was big (I think about 86"), I was supposed to pay a fee of $170. But the lady who was checking me in was new and took lot of time and her supervisor was mad and they did not charge me the check in fee as the line was building up and they were in chaos.... So I lucked out and they did not charge....
Emirates was pretty good, they did not have any questions except for that the TV must be in original box. Otherwise they will not check in. They had pasted quite a few stickers with handling instructions on the box.
At Hyderabad the TV arrived in good shape. Absolutely NO damage to the box. The box was opened and checked by TSA and they have packaged it back properly.
Hyderabad customs stopped and wanted $400. They did not listen to anything.... After bargaining they settled for $150.
The converter I bought seemed to work good with Cable. Here is the link for the converter I bought
http://www.world-import.com/Com_World_NTSC-RF1080p_HDMI_Video_Converter_with_NTSC_Tuner.htm
The quality was awful! I don't think it was the converter but it probably was the signal coming in cable.
After a few days, I decided to try DTH service. Went to a local DTH guy and he suggested Tata Sky. He said Tata Sky or Airtel is good and rest all are trash. And TataSky has better customer service compared to Airtel. Channels wise they both offer the same Telugu channels... I did not check others as parents generally watch Telugu only.
We took TataSky Plus. The DTH guy said the existing wire in the home is cheap quality and will not provide good picture and said we needed to run a brand new wire. So we did. He also said if possible run a wire straight from dish to the STB without any links in between and we followed it.
Once the wiring was done and STB was programmed, it took an hour for tata sky to enable the STB.
The Quality is very good. Near HD on non HD channels. Good thing, I did not need the PAL-NTSC converter. I do not know if the TV has support for PAL or the STB is spitting out in NTSC. But there is no option that we had to set in STB. So, my best guess is TV is supporting PAL.
r
Conclusion : I lucked out with lot of things in the process. Overall I am very happy with how the process went. But if I had to incur all costs and needed the converter I am sure my opinion would have been different.
One suggestion to everyone who has lcd/led, sign up for DTH. It makes the difference.
