TV bargains abound this holiday shopping season

— -- The hunt for that traditional Black Friday quarry, a low-priced HDTV, should be as easy for shoppers this year as shooting fish in a barrel.

That's because a confluence of market pressures has created a perfect buying opportunity for shoppers this season. Economic woes made consumers hesitant to spend on big-ticket items such as TVs throughout the year. That has left retailers with a surplus of displays and sets on hand. Those TVs need to be sold to make room for 2012 models, which will likely include new entries from Apple and Google.

With TV makers expected to add more Net and Web-based connectivity to next year's models, "This holiday season might be the last year you are buying a TV as you know it," says Eric Bleeker, senior technologist at The Motley Fool. In 2012, he says, "Everything on the TV is about to change."

Consumers have put off buying new TVs in anticipation of good deals during the holiday shopping season, says Paul Gagnon, director of North American TV research at DisplaySearch. "In terms of raw demand, we think it could be up for the holiday season."

TV makers have been touting 3D and "smart" features that deliver Internet-based services such as Netflix, but he and other analysts foresee most Black Friday and holiday shoppers focused on the price and size of a TV as the most important aspects of their buying decision.

Retailers are responding to those shopping tendencies. "Price is always the big feature," says Stephen Baker of The NPD Group. "We are going to see a lot of aggressiveness and see a lot more (models) in the very large sizes. People are looking for a really big television as they start to upgrade their flat panels."

Last year, retailers rewarded holiday shoppers with 32-inch displays priced below $200. This year, Best Buy has already broken that barrier with a 42-inch Sharp 1080P LCD display priced at $199.99 starting at 12 a.m. Friday.

(The 1080p stands for 1080 progressive resolution, pretty much the standard for most displays 40 inches and higher. There are some HDTVs that use 720 progressive, which has fewer pixels making up the image and therefore a slightly less crisp picture.)

Lowest-priced display spotted so far? A Dynex 24-inch LCD TV for $79.99 to be available in Best Buy stores, according to BlackFriday.Info.

Elsewhere, 40-inch displays will be found in abundance for $300 or less. Target's Black Friday deals include a 40-inch Emerson LCD HDTV for $265 and a 46-inch Westinghouse LCD TV for $298. Among Walmart's Black Friday offerings: 32-inch and 40-inch Emerson LCD HDTVs for $188 and $248, respectively. A 43-inch Samsung plasma HDTV is priced at $398.

Such low prices might be striking to some, but TV prices have fallen dramatically since 2007. Back then, the average selling price was $935 per TV set, compared with the estimated price this year of $545, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

Those prices, Gagnon says, "are remarkable to somebody who has been following the industry for a decade."

Low prices can sometimes work in favor of both consumer and retailer. Shopper Brad Pauley, 35, from Westchester, Calif., found himself at the Video and Audio Center near Los Angeles. "What drew me was an ad in the paper," he says. "There was a pretty good-sized TV, 55 inches, for $797."

After looking at the set, he gravitated to a 47-inch LCD set from LG that had a better picture and cost $500 more. "The salesperson explained that the TV had built-in 3D," says Pauley, who likes to watch action sports.

The display's TruMotion technology reduces video blurring by refreshing the image more rapidly.

"If you have time to shop around," Pauley says, "there are plenty of deals. These places are all willing to match each other."

Shoppers looking to replace their current TVs with even larger displays should be able to find big-screen plasma and LCD displays, 50-inch and larger, for less than $1,000, says Al Griffin, technical editor for Sound & Vision magazine.

Already this week, Best Buy included a 55-inch LG 1080p LCD display with LED-backlighting for $897.99 among its pre-Thanksgiving daily deals. Use of LED lights behind the panel rather than fluorescent bulbs is a common upgrade that can improve energy efficiency and picture quality, Griffin says.

Other low-priced, larger HDTV sets on Black Friday include a 50-inch Panasonic 720p plasma display ($499) at Kmart. Best Buy is offering a 50-inch Panasonic 1080p ($599), a 51-inch Samsung plasma ($498) and a 60-inch Sharp LCD 1080p ($799).

Those looking for even larger TVs will find price reductions, too.

Sharp has an 80-inch LCD LED HDTV ($5,500) that can be found for nearly $1,000 off the suggested retail price on Amazon.com. Such competition has led to lower prices on large rear-projection 3-D sets — 73, 82 and 92 inches — from Mitsubishi. "There will be a lot of focus on the 73-inch model because … you can probably expect to see that product advertised below $1,000," says Mitsubishi's Frank DeMartin.

Other factors to consider if you are shopping for a TV this holiday season:

Picture quality

Price and size are important, but shoppers should take time to look at a set before they buy. "Just because you got a good deal on a TV doesn't necessarily mean it's a good TV," Griffin says.

The smaller the screen, the less difference there is in picture quality, so major brand names don't matter as much. Major TV makers "tend to channel their best efforts into larger models," Griffin says.

And while most shoppers won't care whether a flat-panel HDTV is an LCD or plasma, "plasma still retains an edge over LCD when it comes to" brightness of even the darkest images and uniformity of the picture, Griffin says. But the best LED-backlit LCD displays "can give plasma a run for its money," he says. They are "usually expensive ones with a 'full-array' backlight," he adds.

The distinction between 720p and 1080p displays isn't quite as important as it once was. The prices on some smaller 720p sets remain at bargain levels — and the slightly lower resolution is negligible at that size. Most displays 40 inches and above are 1080p.

3-D TV

Just as Hollywood and movie theaters have embraced and hyped 3-D films, so have TV makers. Initially, 3-D came at a premium price, but lackluster consumer response to expensive sets led to lower prices.

Most displays — including sets from Panasonic, Samsung and Sony — use active shutter 3-D technology with battery-powered glasses that alternately open and close the lens to create the 3-D effects. Those TV makers claim their picture quality is superior to that of newer passive 3-D displays from LG and Vizio that sport lower-priced and lighter, non-powered glasses.

LG packages four pairs of glasses and a 3-D Blu-ray Disc player with its LED LCD displays that run 42 to 55 inches (starting at about $1,200, but expect lower Black Friday pricing).

Cable and satellite systems do offer a few 3-D channels, including ESPN 3D, but a lack of content has contributed to the consumer indifference.

The LG set also converts 2-D content to 3-D, so "you can watch a show or a ballgame or something else and convert it to 3-D," says Jay Vandenbree, LG Electronics USA's senior vice president of home entertainment. "We're trying to eliminate the issue of 'Is there enough content?' "

Another possible 3-D driver: The BCS National Championship college football game will be broadcast on ESPN 3D on Jan. 9.

Smart TV

Consumers looking beyond entry-level sets will find many displays that have built-in Internet connectivity.

New applications on Panasonic Viera TVs include Facebook and Twitter updates that can be displayed on the side of the screen or scroll across the bottom. "You can see your friends' Facebook statuses or update your status (while watching)," says Merwan Mereby, Panasonic's vice president of content and services development. "You are also able to tweet or see what is trending and what your friends are tweeting about while watching your favorite television show."

Panasonic Viera displays also let you stream Netflix, Hulu Plus, CinemaNow, YouTube and subscription-based pro baseball, hockey and basketball programming. LG Smart TVs offer similar content, including Vudu and Amazon VOD, as well as other apps. Sony's Google TV displays, launched last fall, have since gained Android apps along with its Web features and are discounted for Black Friday, too.

TV makers and retailers alike would prefer to sell connected TVs because the sets carry a higher price tag, typically at least $200 or $300 more, and deliver higher profits. "The connection story for the living room TV is vital," says Myra Moore, president of Digital Tech Consulting.

But not so fast, some analysts caution. Despite the deals expected between now and the end of January — the Super Bowl serves as a bookend for the holiday TV bargain season — there are reasons for shoppers to remain tentative and stick with displays without any bells and whistles.

With the "connected TV" competition far from settled, "Everyone is taking a wash," just to drive traffic at retail, Bleeker says.

Consumers will be interested in new features when they are perfected, Griffin says. "Until that day comes," he says, "they'll stick with what they know."