LCD or Plasma - Whats best

[Kevl]

This might be controversial. :-)


But.. I think the difference in picture quality between 768 line panels c.f. 1080p full HD panels is not that great.

I suspect you'd have to sit pretty close to the screen to get benefit from 1080p panels. If you watch lots of SD stuff anyway then maybe 768 line panels are much better value for money.

I decided on a 768line 50" plasma. It cost me c.a. £2300. The equivalent 1080p panel was £3300 and I didn't think the picture was 50% better. I decided for my application it was better to wait a few years until most source material is HD and even bigger (say 60") 1080p panels are the norm and hence much cheaper.

I also wondered at how good an HTPC would be at upscaling to 1080p. Reading many forums it seems many pcs currently stuggle to put out 576line video without stuttering and artefects.

1080p LCD panels are becoming very common and cheap. But having more pixels that cant keep up with the video, rather than fewer that cant keep up with the video isn't guaranteed to produce a better picture.

Kev

[Deusxmachina]

Really? You think so?

Right now I have a 37" Panasonic with purple and green blotches. I could get it fixed, or I could use it as an excuse to upgrade. But first a need a 'slightly' larger entertainment center.

CRT is well-known by videophiles to trounce all comers in picture quality. You can even sit as close as you want and not see individual pixels, a common problem on 720p sets. But, CRT does need a bit more controlled lighting, takes up more space, etc. Main thing is: CRT are not dead due to having a bad picture. They're dead due to profit margins and aesthetics.

If all three colors work on your TV, you probably have a decent shot of fixing it. I don't know what "purple and green blotches" means. If they are concave wavy lines, that can be an easy fix. If the colors are simply out of convergence, that can be an easy fix. If you haven't cleaned the lenses in awhile (or ever ), it could just be dust. Or algae/fungus/whatever growing inside a gun, which you can see if you take the cover off and look. CRTs are big and scary, but there's really not a whole lot to them inside.

This is assuming you have a rear-projection. I never messed with tube CRTs much. 37" is an in-between size, so I don't know if it's a big tube or a small RP.

[pastro]

This might be controversial. :-)


But.. I think the difference in picture quality between 768 line panels c.f. 1080p full HD panels is not that great.

I suspect you'd have to sit pretty close to the screen to get benefit from 1080p panels. If you watch lots of SD stuff anyway then maybe 768 line panels are much better value for money.

I decided on a 768line 50" plasma. It cost me c.a. £2300. The equivalent 1080p panel was £3300 and I didn't think the picture was 50% better. I decided for my application it was better to wait a few years until most source material is HD and even bigger (say 60") 1080p panels are the norm and hence much cheaper.

I also wondered at how good an HTPC would be at upscaling to 1080p. Reading many forums it seems many pcs currently stuggle to put out 576line video without stuttering and artefects.

1080p LCD panels are becoming very common and cheap. But having more pixels that cant keep up with the video, rather than fewer that cant keep up with the video isn't guaranteed to produce a better picture.

Kev

I ended up buying a Panasonic 58" 720p plasma display. hard to pass up the price at the time. $1800 was just too tempting. We don't currently have any 1080P channels and almost everything here is 1080i which ends up looking really good on the 720P display since the panasonic scaler and deinterlacer are very good. The deinterlacer on the display is an important piece given there is a lot of 1080i programming. A 1080P panel may not look that good with a soso deinterlacer.

[skippy_nz]

so what alot of you are saying is get a 720p screen until mainstream content is coming out as 1080p - then get a decent panel that will do 1080p...

hmm didnt think about it that way - guess that would be an option that would help with my constant on handbrake..

[mkenyon2]

Correction... I have a 27" TV with purple and green blotches, but not all the time. It seems to happen after the TV has been off for a while. But they come and go while watching. I thought of magnets... but don't have any nearby.

Wow... more homework for me basically.

I'm pretty much decided on a 42". But my wife says AFTER we set up the guest bedroom, which includes replacing our bed so it can be moved to the guest bedroom.

Also, I'm looking for a TV that'll last for 5-10 years.

So.... I guess I suffer for now.

[mkenyon2]

How about this one... I know it's Sharp, not highly rated, but how do the specs look? $1,379.99
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...=WEM1535IM

One thing I noticed first off, I DO NOT LIKE the ports on the side, especially the right side.

Then we have a Toshiba. $1,199.99
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...CatId=2815

[pastro]

Correction... I have a 27" TV with purple and green blotches, but not all the time. It seems to happen after the TV has been off for a while. But they come and go while watching. I thought of magnets... but don't have any nearby.

Wow... more homework for me basically.

I'm pretty much decided on a 42". But my wife says AFTER we set up the guest bedroom, which includes replacing our bed so it can be moved to the guest bedroom.

Also, I'm looking for a TV that'll last for 5-10 years.

So.... I guess I suffer for now.

Center channel speaker?

[Deusxmachina]

so what alot of you are saying is get a 720p screen until mainstream content is coming out as 1080p - then get a decent panel that will do 1080p...

There's plenty of 1080i broadcast content out there (in the U.S. anyway), 1080p is on disc and 1080p broadcast is probably a long time coming. And people argue whether they can notice the difference between 1080i and 1080p.

If the price is right on a 720p, I wouldn't pass it up. But they seem to be on their way out real quick right now, so the price would definitely have to be right since 1080p sets keep coming down.

Reminds me of back when HD was first getting popular, some sets were 4:3 while others were 16:9, etc. So many variations and options and changes in the industry that it wasn't a very good time to buy a TV due to everything in transition and prices hadn't settled down yet.

[mcervi]

Then we have a Toshiba. $1,199.99
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...CatId=2815

I have the Toshiba 37HL67 (720p version of the above) and it has been great. I heard some bad things about the 167 series at the time I bought my *67, but maybe they've worked those issues out with firmware upgrades since that time. I recommend AVS Forum (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=9/) for getting good feedback on TV's. It seems to be visited by intelligent people, not fanboys or people who bitch about everything.

[pastro]

There's plenty of 1080i broadcast content out there (in the U.S. anyway), 1080p is on disc and 1080p broadcast is probably a long time coming. And people argue whether they can notice the difference between 1080i and 1080p.

If the price is right on a 720p, I wouldn't pass it up. But they seem to be on their way out real quick right now, so the price would definitely have to be right since 1080p sets keep coming down.

Reminds me of back when HD was first getting popular, some sets were 4:3 while others were 16:9, etc. So many variations and options and changes in the industry that it wasn't a very good time to buy a TV due to everything in transition and prices hadn't settled down yet.

You can definitely see the difference between 1080i and 1080p on some sets. Look at scene that has motion and still images in it.