New living room TV ideas sought please

[MSIC]

Evening all.
Our family home is about to undergo a major house refurb / loft conversion inc living room changes (flipping direction of our stairs, changing ceiling and floors, removing chimney breasts - a big job!).

As a part of the wider upgrade, my wife has given me permission to upgrade our living room entertainment system

I'd appreciate running my thoughts across the forum to check our where i'm heading, maybe get some suggestions on purchasing...

My existing system is a fairly old (6 years), but still very effective 37" Panasonic Plasma Viera (720p, thick bezel, but still really nice blacks and colours). I'd be willing to keep it in principle, but it doesn't meet my requirements any longer (see below).
Sound is provided by an old Sherwood Amp (huge, thick deep thing which has never been used to even 30% of ability), 2 x 3 foot tall floor standing Eltax speakers (cant remember RMS, but again never used to full advantage, though give a beautiful sound stage).
Feeding it all is a current self-build miniITX PC with OpenElec, and a NAS with my videos on.
Finally, also attached is an old Sky box hooked up over Scart, and a Wii.
Also have a BluRay player.
The whole lot of mounted on or under a big wooden media cupboard which is about 2 foot deep.

My new system I want to be wall mounted, and to protrude very little from the wall.
This is where the Panasonic TV fails - stand mount only.
The NAS can be moved to about 4 foot away from the new TV area, as i'll have Ethernet cabling running.
I'm think of either changing the PC to an Intel NUC, and having very close-by; or having the miniITX PC with the NAS and running a long HDMI cable.
I'd like to change the Sky box - maybe to a Humax with FreeSat? We get very bad digital broadcast signal strength, so i think Satellite is the only realistic option. I toyed with the idea of a satellite card for the OpenElec PC, but i don't know what i'm looking for there.
The Wii can go, am not worried about keeping that.
I want to get a single soundbar, fairly thin, to wall mount under the TV - overall sound power is not of interest to me as such (don't want to upset the neighbours, or the kids asleep upstairs) but having a wider sound stage with better fidelity than a TV is something i'd like. Ideally, i'd love not to need a seperate remote control either, but just for the TV remote volume to operate it.
Finally the TV. This is what i most want help with please.

Where i'm at currently is:-
Size: 40" is the smallest i'd consider, 45" is the biggest my wife would allow. (Even 45" is too big really, but our current 37" has a large thick bezel, so i think i could pass off a bigger one as "oh no, thats about the same size")
Resolution 1080p is fine. Not interested in 4K (wont be sitting close enough to get the benefit), and honestly 720p is still ok by me.
Colour & Blacks I know i'll be leaving behind my beloved Plasma, but also LCD has come along way in 6 years. I'm not looking necessarily to have better colours, but i'd be upset if they are not as good as my current.
Refresh rate Watching my mates new Sony W8 TV, with (i think) 400 Hz, i now find that when I watch my own TV (50Hz i think(, i can detect judder when cameras track from side to side. I think therefore i'll want a good refresh rate; though i am also reading about 600 Hz TVs with 'true" 100Hz plus some processing attached, so am aware that there is smoke and mirrors here.
Features Am fairly ambivalent about this. On the one hand, my wife watches Eastenders on iplayer / catchup etc (or occasionally live), and i like occasional live sports; but on the whole, we dont watch alot of broadcast stuff. On the whole it's either films, or catch-up TV.
Not interested in 3D. Not interested in 4K. Not interested in curved screens.
I do still have quite a bit of SD / DVD content though, so reasonable upscaling is something i'll pay for.
Because my current Plasma is 720p, it copes with SD content very nicely.
In many ways, i think i want a decent 'monitor' rather than a smart TV.
I DO however rather like Phillips Ambilight stuff, just from what i've seen advertised, though it may be a fad, am not sure.

I'm going to do my level best to also hide all cabling - the ultimate goal is just to have a TV and soundbar floating on a wall, without any cables visible. If i achieve this, then i'll post pics (it'll be after September).

Walking around John Lewis and Richer Sounds (the 2 shops i prefer) didnt really give me a feel for what I want.

Overall
1) I really want to know what TV to buy. Budget i'd prefer to be around £500, however am willing to go up to £700 if there is a good reason.
2) Soundbar? Looking to spend perhaps £100, maybe £150 - but i want it to sit thin on the wall.

Anything else people would recommend I consider?
Thanks in advance to all

[cptwhite_uk]

My first port of call would be one Sony's 2015 range:

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/t...ype=android-tv

Having a quick look the W75C 43" (RRP £700) might be the one to keep an eye on:
http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/te...s/w750c-series

Sony's panels are (in my opinion) much more natural looking than Samsung / LG, who tend to over saturate colours. It's also meant to be great at upscaling (read any reviews with the X reality pro chipset from their 2014 range).

I've definitely ensure your choice has Android TV, it will probably negate the need for a NUC for catch up TV. The 2014 range's "smart" features were incomplete, laggy (in the extreme), unstable and cumbersome to navigate. Android TV should fix this.

It's full HD, no 3D rubbish and has a slim bezel. My parents have a Sony 40" 2014 model and I'm jealous every time I see it

[MSIC]

Nice one, thanks. Will do some reading reviews etc now

Edit: (Just in case others want to read).

First of all, thanks a bunch cptwhite_uk
I hadnt really got Sony's range on my agenda before, but they are now. A good friend has a lovely W8 TV (50") but for some reason I just hadnt considered it... Anywho, I am now.

Also, that particular model seems pretty much the right one for me too. 43", no 3d, good refresh rate.
I am not attracted to all the Android stuff, however the YouView could be very appealing.
A recent (june 2015) discussion of Sony's Android TVs.

There are already some "deals" about (55" version of that range for £999 inc soundbar), and the 43" version already seems a great price (£600 is the lowest price, or £650 from Richer Sounds including a free £120 soundbar).
Will await some reviews, but a great TV from the looks of it

[MSIC]

Hey, i picked this model up today. I was also using another forum for some more specific info, so i have written a brief initial review and wanted to also post here for us 'Hexites'. Hope it helps someone.

A KDL-43W755C. Bought from Richer Sounds for £599, with the SoundBar offer free (Sony HTCT80).
This is a preliminary review since I was able to unbox, play with it, install a few things, but then it has had to go back in the box since our house is about to undergo a couple of months of refurb work, lots of dust, re-plastering.... nightmare for a new TV!
Finally, i'm coming mostly from a position of currently owning a 37" 6yr old Panasonic Plasma, which i have always loved, and the lower 'HD ready' (1024 x 720) resolution was never much of a problem to me in the real world. Feeding that is a self-built HTPC (SandyBridge Pentium, 4GB RAM, SSD, Nvidia card) running OpenELEC (kodi 14.2), and a separates amp and floor-standing speakers.

Design - really like this. The exterior design / frame very much carries across a design theme from last year's range (my friend has a 2014 50" W8, and they are very nearly the same (but mine is 43"). It's slim and light, with only a mild concern whilst removing from the box that i didnt want it to flex overly or place too much pressure on the screen. Didnt seem to be a real problem though. A lot, lot lighter than my plasma.

Setting up - Funky Android log on animation (identical to my Nexus 5 running lollipop), it then wants some personal info about you (google account stuff etc) and a couple of screens asking for permission for Sony to store various details about you. I did read most of this, nothing TOO onerous to my mind, but it was still a fairly stark reminder that we are fully living right now in the world where the big corps know all about us...
It also asks if you can go to a website and gives you a 6 digit code to enter, presumably to demonstrate that you are online or something.
I had plugged in power, ethernet, optical, and a USB drive (see later), and digital aerial, and the machine then asked to update the firmware; fine, i was expecting this. Took about 3 mins to download the file (over a fibre connection - i'm guessing it was well over 500MB, probably a Gig???) and then about 20 mins+ to install. Once installed, went straight in to the main (android) interface. I notice that there is a satellite physical connector, but (briefly) read that it wouldn't be too useful for British systems??

Main interface - Nice enough, bright and a decent 10ft UI at first glance. Quite a bit of content that i dont necessarily want, but quite easy to move down to the line I am interested in.
Crucially, the response was good - not any particular lag between pressing up/down/left/right/select and seeing the response on screen. Happy with this.

Installing an app - I went straight into the app menu, it knew who i was and showed me if i'd already purchased from the Play store before. I downloaded the new (release candidate) version of Kodi 15.0, and it installed a treat. No hiccups.

Running Kodi - This was a big one for me, and the experience here will define whether i keep my discrete HTPC (which I am expecting to, and willing to) or whether the machine can do it all.
Overall, i'm impressed. Not perfect, but pretty good for Beta software running on developing firmware. Firstly, in settings, i wanted to see what hardware was shown up. Some type of dual core CPU, which was running at around 20% CPU power just in the background, though went up to close to 100% when scanning for files over a network / NAS.
The GPU was shown as a Mali T624, which i know is used in a few higher-end tablets (eg Note 3), and got me excited about the possibility of H265 Decode (for reference, my Quad-core Nexus 5 phone can decode H265 video at DVD and slightly higher resolution with typical bitrate, but chokes on 1080p decode).
I scanned a few network folders (CPU went up alot), and ran a few files.
I changed the Skin to the 'Arctic Zephyr' (which i have only just started playing with - beautiful, clean, and a nice 'Spotlight' feature for the main menu - very pretty).
The menu navigation was smooth. Fast flicking through multiple films (over 100) was pretty quick, perhaps not identical to my HTPC, but not slow. Much, much smoother and quicker than a Raspberry Pi (1).
I will also comment that the remote control buttons are well-mapped, and do exactly what you'd want them to - up, down, select etc. Even 'back', which is very needed for Kodi to work well. All good.
1080p H264 DTS files, slightly lower bitrate than BluRay - played perfectly.
1080p H265 DTS files (8GB for a 3 hour movie) - perfectly
Finally, i tried playing a file over the USB stick plugged in to the rear - recognised the USB drive, and was easy to navigate to the file, which then played well. Exactly as you'd expect.
So i'm happy. I think a little more development of Kodi, of the Skin, and of Android and it should be perfect.

Connecting to the Soundbar with Optical cable - a mixed experience. Firstly, the soundbar gives better sound, clearer, wider soundstage and louder than the built-in speakers (as you'd expect).
But i havent yet figured out how to control the volume from the TV remote.
Also, in Kodi, changing the volume on the TV did a weird thing of changing the in-built Kodi volume and the main TV speakers simultaneously - didnt seem to change the actual audio output volume though. Need to explore this more.
Pressing the physical volume buttons certainly changed the volume, and in the box does come with a remote, however i really hope i dont need it: this would be a big negative in terms of ease of operation.

Overall - i'm really happy so far. This is only about an hour of playing, and its back in the box now. Need to wait for far too long before it becomes mine again! I really hope that the YouView update occurs before i unbox for real, but i now have to give serious thought to getting rid of my HTPC - looks like it isn't needed!

[jonathan_phang]

Thanks for the great review regarding the ability to play files over the network. I'm in a position now where I'm about to upgrade a 5 year old Samsung 40 inch to something larger - poss 50-55 inch - and like yourself have been thinking of getting a well specced 1080p set over a less well specced 4k one. I think by the time there are enough 4k sources and content to use then it will be time to get another TV.

I was thinking of getting one of the top W8 (I think) series as they have dropped a lot in price but have great reviews all round for the picture quality. I then came across the Android OS and its made me think more about that choice. When you get the set up and running again, would be nice to get some more thoughts on the picture, blacks etc, and maybe any more thoughts on network playback of HD content and if you've encountered any more foibles.

Congrats on the new house bits and TV