Buying new TV - Go LED or wait for 3d?

[joker454]

Even with all its limitations, i rather die than go back to LCD now, after having spent a couple of years with a really nice (and not even that expensive) Panny Plasma.
Image retention is a non-issue and the clarity, sharpness, black level and contrast are so above anyone else's TV i've seen (well apart my best mate who has a new Panny Plasma with the new NeoPDP screen) that i will simply never go back.
Compared to all the LCD screens i've seen, the best way to describe it is that it has a natural look, while LCD does not.
It's not even Full-HD and its sharpness and detail shocks me (and anyone watching with me) at times.

Couldn't agree with you more. We have three Panny plasmas (42/50/65 inches) and even the old 720p ones look great. I've gamed on all of them without issue. I didn't even bother with break in on the new 65", I just fired up the 360 on it from day one. Never had any burn in issues on any of them, and we constantly get comments on how incredible the TV looks. What really shocks them even more than the picture quality is that the 65" model was only $2200, free shipping to our door and no taxes. Some get pissed off when they realize they spent twice as much on a not as good looking 50" lcd There are some crazy deals on plasma's out there, feast on them while you can!

 

[Mize]

Couldn't agree with you more. We have three Panny plasmas (42/50/65 inches) and even the old 720p ones look great. I've gamed on all of them without issue. I didn't even bother with break in on the new 65", I just fired up the 360 on it from day one. Never had any burn in issues on any of them, and we constantly get comments on how incredible the TV looks. What really shocks them even more than the picture quality is that the 65" model was only $2200, free shipping to our door and no taxes. Some get pissed off when they realize they spent twice as much on a not as good looking 50" lcd There are some crazy deals on plasma's out there, feast on them while you can!

My Panny is much picture quality than my Sharp LCD, but the Sharp still looks good and NEVER has IR from an 8 hour Halo death match just prior to a blu-ray.

Like LB I'm biding my time for OLED or Laser...

 

[djskribbles]

Plasma definitely offers better bang for buck (especially in the low-mid range). You really have to step up to the better LCD's to have comparable performance to a decent/good plasma, like the better LED backlit LCD's with local dimming. Viewing environments should also factor into your TV purchase decision; LCD's are still better suited for brighter environments because they're capable of higher light output. Some plasmas are capable of a fairly bright picture, but usually you have to sacrifice picture quality by going to a picture mode that has terrible picture (like vivid mode). Two things plasma will have the edge, is motion handling and viewing angles. LCD's have frame interpolation to help aid the poor motion handling (particularly in films) but it just looks unnatural and many people don't like it. Personally, I'm not in any particular camp (LCD or Plasma) I just buy whatever gives me better bang for buck, and this time, the LG 55LH90 was the best my money could buy.

Chad B is a well respected ISF calibrator and he has reviewed several top models. He has a chart with his ratings as well as links to his reviews HERE.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Where are you guys purchasing these plasmas at discounted prices from LCDs?

Everywhere I look, I get a very limited selection of plasmas, and they certainly don't appear to be significantly less expensive than the LCDs.

 

[djskribbles]

There is less selection of plasmas because LCD trumps plasma in sales. I think how TV's look in store is a big reason for this. LCD's look better in stores because they have bright lighting. A darkened theater room is when a plasma will shine.

You can't really just look at prices though, you have to look model numbers and how they compare to a similarly priced LCD. In most cases, you can get better bang for buck with plasma.

 

[joker454]

Where are you guys purchasing these plasmas at discounted prices from LCDs?

I check dealsea.com, there are crazy deals posted there frequently. For example, last year I bought a loaded 18.5" display Core i7 laptop complete with blu-ray and a geforce 230m for $899 shipped to my door. Deals on TV's are fairly common there as well, stuff like 50" plasmas for $600 with free shipping and no taxes. I bought all my TV's over the years purely from crazy deals found on that website.

 

[Graham]

What are the newer generation '600hz' plasmas like? From what I understand, these perform basically no image processing correct?

I don't understand why more TVs don't have a 'pure direct' mode (like AV receivers tend to have). Just display the damn image!

I currently have a cheap and nasty samsung 32". It's 1366x768 native.
The xbox detects this, and outputs 1360x768 - and the TV treats it like a monitor (disabling all its image processing?). It's colours are a bit off but it's very good. Set the 360 to 1280x720 and it looks horrible. It's really quite an amazing difference.

 

[RobertR1]

What are the newer generation '600hz' plasmas like? From what I understand, these perform basically no image processing correct?

Read xrox's posts. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1064241

I don't understand why more TVs don't have a 'pure direct' mode (like AV receivers tend to have). Just display the damn image!

Outside of A/V enthusiasts, TV's are black magic to people. People are attracted to over bright, super sharp pictures with unnatural color saturation. I would like nothing more than all TV's be close to an ISF spec with adjustments available for personal preference. However, I suspect people walking through stores would be let down by that thus you see manufacturer making "dyanmic" mode just for store display purposes. You see crap images because as it turns out, most people want that from their TV.

ntly have a cheap and nasty samsung 32". It's 1366x768 native.
The xbox detects this, and outputs 1360x768 - and the TV treats it like a monitor (disabling all its image processing?). It's colours are a bit off but it's very good. Set the 360 to 1280x720 and it looks horrible. It's really quite an amazing difference.

Most sets will not do any processing over a "PC input" if that's how your TV is seeing your xbox. Usually, as you go up in quality the scaling/deinterlacing improves also. Turning off all the fluff is generally a must on all sets though, regardless of quality.

 

[Saga_Studios]

I tought about buyin a new LCD 72" samy for 2gs, haven't seen it tought, got a 42" proscan, nice tv, better than sony, lg, v tvs, not as nice as some samys though i've seen.

 

[Rolf N]

Any strikes against Toshiba LCDs in particular? Their "series" (RV, LV, XV, AV and whatnot) confuse me, getting very mixed user reports, too. There's some dogshit user ratings for particular XV models, but RV models OTOH seem to rank very favourably and are don't cost an arm and a leg for decent sizes.

The Thoshiba website doesn't seem very helpful in all this. They use their series monikers as categories, but never explain what it means for a particular model to be in this and that series, say, in terms of specs or processing, maybe even lag times.

Also on the agenda is info on how to turn off dynamic contrast shenanigans.

 

[djskribbles]

Toshiba is one of the better (what I would consider) budget brands. Good value but not quite up to par with some of the better brands. Their top model of 09 (the SV670U, their first LED local dimming model) is quite good, but IMHO, not quite as good as the other LED local dimming models. Because Toshiba doesn't make their own panels, the performance varies between models. But overall, they are very decent LCD's.

Things could change in 2010 though. Some of the less popular brands like Toshiba and LG are making huge strides lately and are very competitive with the bigger LCD brands like Sony and Samsung. Samsung is probably the most popular brand, but Sony, LG and Toshiba are slowly eating away at their sales. They have been known to be having bad capacitor issues lately, and their plasmas (while they have good picture quality) are known for having more image retention issues than Panasonic and Pioneer.

 

[Rolf N]

Yeah, I've had an LG 32" TV for a while, and was quite pleased with it overall. Had one of those weird 1366x768 panels, and neither HDMI nor HDCP over DVI, but a good scaler (DCDi) and decent audio.

I'd rather skip on LG for one round for external reasons though.
(i.e. I don't want to reward them for this crappy 22" "monitor TV" thing of theirs)

 

[homerdog]

We just go the new Samsung C450s (720p) in the store and they are BEAutiful. The double image you got on the old ones when viewing from extreme angles is gone.

 

[London Geezer]

My Panny is much picture quality than my Sharp LCD, but the Sharp still looks good and NEVER has IR from an 8 hour Halo death match just prior to a blu-ray.

Like LB I'm biding my time for OLED or Laser...

What model do you have and how long does the IR stay for?

Sometimes i see some IR (after having left the TV on with a paused game for example, or after watching a movie with black borders) but it's very faint and only visible on a completely black screen. I usually just switch it to a TV channel and when i turn back to a black screen after a few seconds it's gone.

Also it depends on the contrast you leave the TV on. I tried cranking up the contrast and not only it makes the Tv look like an LCD (yuk) but the IR afterwards is a lot worse.

 

[djskribbles]

What model do you have and how long does the IR stay for?

Sometimes i see some IR (after having left the TV on with a paused game for example, or after watching a movie with black borders) but it's very faint and only visible on a completely black screen. I usually just switch it to a TV channel and when i turn back to a black screen after a few seconds it's gone.

Also it depends on the contrast you leave the TV on. I tried cranking up the contrast and not only it makes the Tv look like an LCD (yuk) but the IR afterwards is a lot worse.

Something tells me you haven't seen a properly calibrated LCD.

 

[London Geezer]

Something tells me you haven't seen a properly calibrated LCD.

The fact that an LCD needs to be 'properly calibrated' (probably paying for the calibration too) in order to look close to acceptable should tell us enough, really.
Anyway, this is not a ZOMG Plasma vs LCD!!!1 thread

 

[djskribbles]

The fact that an LCD needs to be 'properly calibrated' (probably paying for the calibration too) in order to look close to acceptable should tell us enough, really.
Anyway, this is not a ZOMG Plasma vs LCD!!!1 thread

Plasmas need just as much tweaking or calibrating to get close the the HD standard (Rec709). You don't always need to professionally calibrate an LCD to make it look good, just simple tweaks in the user menu will suffice (just like with a Plasma). A properly calibrated LCD should look fairly close to a properly calibrated Plasma. Out of the box, it shouldn't be hard for any average person to tweak the TV to make it look more like a plasma. Furthermore, not LCD's look the same either. All brands have different processing techniques and all of them have a different look. Samsung, for example, does a lot of video processing, whereas LG generally doesn't.

 

[Crossbar]

Ostepop, before deciding I think should wait until some 3D TV sets has showed up in stores, so you can try it out and see if it gives you a good experience that you think is worthwhile.

I´ve read quite a few stories fo people who think it really adds to the immersion.

I kind of regret that I bought a hi-end 52" TV-set last winter, when all this 3D stuff is happening now, but everyone in the family is appreciating the screen so I am still happy with it. :smile:

 

[valioso]

I had this same dilemma a few months ago, and I went Panasonic Plasma, I am very happy.. I game quite a bit, I've had 5 hr gaming sessions playing sports games where the hud is mostly static around the scores and didn't have a problem.

Then again I don't play on vivid settings and I took my time burning it in for the first 200 hrs, keeping the contrast and brightness at about 50.

The image quality is quite good, and the bang for my buck was very good as well.

 

[RobertR1]

Went by Best Buy's Magnolia section after lunch today to check out the Panasonic 3D demo on their latest flagship plasma.

1. The 3D effects were good
2. Some weird flickering going on often (glasses were clean)
3. The effect is best when you're centered
4. Even a 50inch screen size too small. You need a big screen or sit really close. Having the cabinet, speakers and other items around really took away from the immersion. Certainly nothing like seeing an IMAX 3D presentation from that perspective
5. The glasses were not very comfortable

Overall, if I had to buy a set today, I'd get one for 2D first. Since a good set will generally have 3D capabilities, it's a win-win of sorts. However, I would not sacrifice 2D performance for better 3D presentation.

Ideally, I'd like something without glasses as I dont' really want 4+ pairs around the house for guests and such. However, if 3D were to take off and it's done well for broadcast also, I'd properly interested in 3 years or so. By that time the tech will have matured and more importantly, the 2D performance of those sets (HOPEFULLY!) will blow away my current set.