LCD vs. Plasma

It was $99 Dave. At that price, who cares?

I will say, that the thing upscales regular DVDs so well, that I almost don't miss the BR version.

 

They will have to keep coming up with something to keep the prices up. They are making a killing on them now.

 

got the a3 which wasnt the $99 deal. Did play a regular dvd in it the other night and it was awesome.

 

Wow, you're the forum HD guru? Ruh roh.

Anyway, the motion blur and colors look amazing on my 4270 pio plasma, motion blur and artifacting and washed out colors are some of the inherent flaws in lcd tech.

Also, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are already 1080p/24. The 60 frames per second are important in live events, but movies are filmed in 24 fps, and thus are better shown in that format. TVs that show these movies in 1080p/60 are using a method called '3/2 pull-down' or something like that, in essence repeating frames in an unnatural manner. This can sometimes cause a stuttering picture called 'jutter' when there are fast moving pictures.

If I was getting a tv now, and money was no object, I'd get a Pioneer Kuro 1080p, maybe 60". The newer plasmas indeed go to 1080p (mine is 768p) and the Kuro is supposed to have superior black levels (which leads to better color depth.) My Pioneer looks amazing though, can't complain.

The HD-DVDs look incredible, can't wait to see them on my dad's new 1080p plasma (he went with Panasonic, another good Plasma maker.)

The key with a good Plasma is a good scaler, since the majority of the material you watch on it will have to be scaled to the panel's resolution.

And yes, reading up to decide which type of tv/tech you want is mind-numbing. I studied for damn near a year, you have to weigh your room/what you use the tv for very carefully. That said, I find the lightness/reflectiveness to be a little overstated, and can't possibly use that alone to recommend LCD unless you live at an airport or a mall. In regular home use I find plasma to almost always be the superior choice. It just has better color depth, motion handling and viewing angles. Resolution is a little overrated in the overall scheme of things. It's just one part of what makes a great picture, that said, there are 1080p plasmas available now.

If you're on a budget then by all means get an LCD at Walmart. Plasma can't compete with LCD on price. But if you're paying $1200+ for a tv, you're much better off with plasma.

 

What about OLED?

 

Some of you guys spend way too much time thinking about and researching televisions. Just go buy a respectable name, plug the fucker in and enjoy it. They all look good.

If your worried about the life expectancy of your purchase then you probably can't afford it to begin with. Who the fuck keeps a tv more than 8 years anyway?

 

Couldn't be further from the truth, unless all you're planning on doing with your tv is looking at hi res pics.

 

most of my tv watching is basketball. my wife watches all the cooking shows. we watch some movies, too (hbo, ppv, etc). the league pass hd schedule is pretty thin, so i'm guessing i'd be watching a lot of stuff in sd (which tends to look bad considering dtv's sd signal is like 480x480 and pretty darned compressed).

 

Despite how I obsess over this bullshit, I agree with you.

 

Okay, I'll admit it. I am bored off my ass at work. So...

You're still pissy about that whole Dayton drubbing of Pitt, huh? Here's what's gonna scare you then - the A10 has 3 other teams that are as good or better than Dayton, and 4 more just a notch below.

That's why the manufacturers are moving both techs towards 120 Hz displays and other corrective measures. Please, spare me the fanboy bullshit. The moment you start pushing one over the other as "clearly superior" your opinion stops mattering. The marketplace says otherwise and the whole point is that it doesn't really matter. Only fucking geeks like me give two shits.

And 24 isn't 60 and has to be converted. Dont trust me, read the endless number of articles about it.

Why do you think most people buy HD cable/dish? Think about it a while and then consider why the ability to push 60 frames at 1920x1080, uncompressed, might be something that people wanna see.

#1 purely subjective, and #2 standard broadcast TV is 30 fps, but most importantly #3 all the recent HDTVs already convert 24 to 60 anyway.

Go back to my point about being able to deliver 1080p60. "Something like that".

Good for you. That's a $5,000 TV. Are you buying the $140 salt too? Any idiot can pick out the top of the line, or even the Mercedes, the real trick for most of us mere mortals is finding something that offers 95% of the performance for 40% of the price.

BTW, I have my TV hooked up to my PC. And I have a room that features large windows. No way in hell would I want a plasma in this situation. An LCD is what I needed. A coworker of mine turned his basement into a home theater. He installed curtains, acoustic soundboard, etc. I helped him pick out and install a Pioneer plasma. It was what he needed.