Plasma > LCD

[Sxotty]

Though in the case of the 50" and 42", Kyleb said what the cause likely is. Did you notice less color banding or more dynamic range on the 50" over the first 42" or even more of a range on the second 42" over the others?

Those first two were next to eachother. The smaller looked better though likely for the reasons said.

The other one was way away from the sets (an endcap on opposite end of aisle).

To be honest the newer one had the glossy bezel and I don't like that as much, but that is minor.

@kyle

I think I might actually try that with laptop. I will see if I can find something. They might go crazy though in the store if I try it

 

[snarfbot]

i think the major difference between lcd and plasma regarding black levels is the viewing angle, on a tn panel it can have major differences in black level top to bottom, while seated directly in front of it, in a well lit room even. with ips and pva its not so bad, but they are more expensive and have worse response time, which effects that apparent resolution in fast motion.

honestly im not a big fan of lcd at all, and until the companies making them can recoup enough of their r+d money we probably wont see much from oled's. i dont have any statistics, but the economy probably isnt helping anyone bring out new tech.

personally im gonna wait for a laser projector, they have mini ones in production, so if thats any indication it shouldnt be a very long wait.

 

[Mize]

thread resurrection!!!!
LCDs don't burn in (can you say Wii not filling the phosphor real estate?), plasmas look better.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Still think my plasma puts LCDs to shame, 9 months later

 

[vazel]

Got my plasma in November and loving it. I previously had a 30'' Sony CRT HDTV and the geometry and convergence on it drove me insane.

I was surprised by the dithering. Phosphor trails and image retention are well known but I wish more people had mentioned plasmas have dithering and other picture noise which are issues with all plasmas even the Kuros. But I still would've gotten it I just hate it when people gloss over things. Just goes to show we still have a ways to go for the perfect display even LaserVue has a speckling problem.

 

[Thowllly]

I am not talking about any charts, I am taling about the science behind them.

I know this is old, but how did you reach the conclusion that from 8' from a 42" screen you could only resolve 720p worth of detail with 20/20 vision?

20/20 means you can see 60 cycles per degree, according to that page. 60 cycles require at least 120 pixels to show. Using that I end up with a number in the neighborhood of 1440p as the highest resolution you can see with 20/20 from 8'with a 42" screen.

 

[kyleb]

I going on 60 cycles require at least 60 pixels to show. I don't see why you are doubling it.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

All this talk about LCD and Plasma but non on DLP. Out of the 3 I like the DLP more and with the new laser DLP AKA the laser TV, I see DLP moving way ahead of LCD and Plasma. The DLP's out now I think are better the the plasma and LCD with better color, better blacks, better frame speeds, and not problems with using non native res like 480i/p. There cheaper too for the same size LCD and Plasma.

 

[MfA]

Rear projection displays have become a bit of a niche in a niche ... everything has to be flat, flatter, flattest.

 

[Entropy]

I going on 60 cycles require at least 60 pixels to show. I don't see why you are doubling it.

Because a cycle is a positive/negative pair, as in the period of a sinewave.
In photographic discussions typically called a line-pair, resolutions given as lp/mm.

 

[neliz]

I was surprised by the dithering. Phosphor trails and image retention are well known but I wish more people had mentioned plasmas have dithering and other picture noise which are issues with all plasmas even the Kuros. But I still would've gotten it I just hate it when people gloss over things. Just goes to show we still have a ways to go for the perfect display even LaserVue has a speckling problem.

Dithering is also available on Samsung LCD's, I haven't seen it on Philips though.

 

[vazel]

Since both LCDs and plasmas are 8-bit per pixel they both have banding. But from my understanding all plasmas use dithering to try to compensate. Dithering to me is more detrimental to the image than just letting the banding happen. All plasmas also have line bleeding where under certain conditions some elements of the screen extend a shadow horizontally. I've also noticed a lot of picture noise on my Viera but that can be caused by video processing irrespective of display technology seeing as how even my 1080i CRT HDTV had that although to a lesser extent.

 

[Gubbi]

Since both LCDs and plasmas are 8-bit per pixel they both have banding.

Why do you think they are 8 bit per pixel?

Plasmas use pulse width modulation. This means that lower framerate material has better contrast/colour reproduction because the TV have more subfields to resolve a correct value. The pulse modulation also gives minute variations from one field to the next (on top of what the image processing adds) which is what you perceive as dither.

Cheers

 

[vazel]

Why do you think they are 8 bit per pixel?

Plasmas use pulse width modulation. This means that lower framerate material has better contrast/colour reproduction because the TV have more subfields to resolve a correct value. The pulse modulation also gives minute variations from one field to the next (on top of what the image processing adds) which is what you perceive as dither.

Cheers

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Since both LCDs and plasmas are 8-bit per pixel they both have banding. But from my understanding all plasmas use dithering to try to compensate. Dithering to me is more detrimental to the image than just letting the banding happen.

That all depends on the quality of the dithering. Similar to how not all LCD/Plasma's can scale SD sources to HD resolutions (with black bars on the sides of course) well.

Take for example the dithering 3dfx were able to achieve with their later cards with 16 bit sources. In general it was as good as competing 24 bit solutions and far better than anything displaying an actual 16 bit source.

Regards,
SB

 

[Xmas]

Take for example the dithering 3dfx were able to achieve with their later cards with 16 bit sources.

It wasn't the dithering that was special, though, but the filter that removed the dithering before the signal was sent to the screen.



I'm currently looking for an HDTV set in the 37"-42" range, and I do find the dithering/PWM noise on the 720p plasma models in that range slightly annoying. I'm also not that impressed with the reflective glass and the relatively light grey of the screen surface itself, which means you only get good contrast in a dark environment. But it's not really different from a CRT, which is what I currently have. What really bothers me most, though, is that I can see plasma TVs flicker.

 

[green.pixel]

Then you have one of these two
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/sony-kdl-40w5500-kdl40w5500u-20090323144.htm

 

[Xmas]

I'm considering them, among other models.

What confuses me about plasma flicker is how little information there is on the web. I went to a John Lewis store yesterday to compare TVs and I could immediately see some plasma TVs flicker when showing relatively bright images. Panasonic TX-P[37/42/50]X10B, and another model I forgot, were all flickering, while Samsung PS42A451 and PS50B451 as well as a Pioneer PDP-LX5090 had a stable image like the LCDs around them. To make sure I'm not the only one seeing it I asked a store assistant, and he saw it, too.

If I had to guess I'd say it's flickering at 50Hz. Unfortunately they all claim to have some 100Hz technology, so I'm not really sure what feature specifically to look for. And all the reviews I've seen so far completely ignore the problem. One little indication is the video at the bottom of page 1 of this review: http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/Panasonic-TH42PZ85B/
But then the text itself says: "As demonstrated in the video above, activating [Intelligent Frame Creation] appeared to increase the refresh rate on screen (the flicker present in the video was not visible to the naked eye)."

 

[green.pixel]

Are you sure that those sets in store had IFC turned on ?

 

[Mize]

LCDs are getting there, but I have yet to see one (and I own two) that doesn't have significant banding and resolution (pixelation) problems on fast movement.
DLP is great if your sitting in the sweet spot but off angle sucks worse than LCD.
For picture quality for the whole room, plasma and CRTs are still king...hopefully not for long.