Not sure, was thinking of getting a new TV.

http://www.popsci.com/entertainment-amp-gaming/article/2009-02/plasma-going-way-romans

I have a plasma and the picture is superior to that of an LCD even at only 720p. Hands down. I'm glad I got one instead of an LCD. Everything from sports, to movies to gaming on my 360 looks better on my plasma. But they do use more power and they do give off some heat.

Still, I just love the display. LCD's look washed-out by comparison.

Yep one of plasma's many problems is they dont make a smaller then 40inner. Not good for the growing number of apartment dwellers.

I just switched to a 50" 1080P Plasma from a 46in 1080P LCD and i think i made a great swap.

I don't own either. The only issue I have with LCD is that in fast motion I think I see a sort of jumpiness. Sports and fast action just seems to flow better on plasma. I'm fairly certain that I'm looking at the very high quality LCDs in Best Buy as well.

I use my 22" LCD monitor when I watch most DVD movies, and there are things with the LCD that bug me. I've seen the same on other people's 32" and up LCD TV's in their home theaters. My parents have a 42" plasma, and the picture is astounding. If I were going to buy a panel TV, it'd be plasma.

Pioneer already sold their plasma production facilities and (presumably) related technology to Panasonic last year so it wasn't really a surprise. But this means Panasonic might very well pick up where Pioneer left off, so the rumours of plasmas death are somewhat exaggerated.

I've had a Panny TH-42P850 with inbuilt Freeview box for three months now and am very happy with my choice of set. I had started out looking for a LCD TV, but having seen micro shudder and contrast problems in some of these sets I came around to giving Plasma a chance. Also I've read about numerous customer complaint's about the Sony W and W4500 sets which were the two set's I was originally interested in.
The picture quality with the Panny is fantastic, black really is black, there is no distortion in running text on the news channel's and my games/photos look superb on this set. Also there is a glass sheet covering the screen so it's kid safe and no dust can settle on the bottom edge. We sit about 2.5m's away from the TV and the 42inch set is just right for us.

Gille, I have the same set, in a 50" screen. Looks fantastic. I cant rave enough about how good console games, the pc hooked up to it and Bluray movies look.

O.L.E.D.

Getting ready to buy ~ 50" LCD or Plasma. Will be wall mounted in the front room of the house. No arguments that Plasma is the way to go for HD output? We have a 37" LCD for the upstairs and the biggest gripe on it is the black levels. Looks reddish-black in some cases. Really want to avoid that. TIA.

This

OLED

and

LASER

Laser could be the next generation beyond OLED.

plasma and LED are just passing by.

OLED is great but it has two major problems. The blue OLEDS die much faster than than the red and green. The lifespan of OLED tvs right now in very short. The other major problem is cost, OLEDs are already very expensive to build and they also can't be built on existing production lines. The entire factory has to be retooled and none of the companies producing OLEDs are willing to retool in this economy. An affordable OLED TV probably won't be a reality for 5-8 years.

Plasma has been pronounced "Dead" every year since LCDs became popular. Just like PC gaming being pronounced dead every year it isn't at all true. Both Panasonic and Samsung showed plenty of new plasma models at CES. As long as there are people who care about picture quality, someone will supply them with plasmas.

In July I'll be running the infamous "which BATV* is the best for the money" sort of thread - it's a belated retirement gift to the wife (LOL, I retire and she gets a present), and we're holding off until we get back into the house in Alabama.

I'm still wrapping my head around a thousand dollars for a TV set, let alone a fifty inch TV.

*Big A--ed TV

Right now the answer is a Panasonic or Samsung plasma. The Pannys are brighter (good if you have ambient light in the room), the Samsungs have more realistic color. Both have good black levels and are priced well.

Check out Samsung's new LED TV's...

www.samsung.com/led

-Skater

We just finished reviewing a 55" Sony LED backlit LCD. The new Samsungs have LED edge lighting while this Sony has the entire panel backed by tri color LEDs. The picture was pretty impressive but you could buy two 58" plasmas with a better picture and still have around $1500 left over.

We should be getting one of those Samsung LEDs shortly.

just wait till Apple makes an OLED TV

they will call it the IpodyTV

then everyone will retool their factories for OLED



LASERS will need an ALIEN INVASION, then everyone can have an AA battery in their own home

lol

Considering the amount of money people will throw at anything with an apple badge on it you may be right.

I just bought a 58" plasma a couple months ago. Watching an HD channel that has been filmed with an HD camera and fed through the HDMI cable gives the impression that you are at the event sitting behind a glass wall. It's incredible and every person that has visited my home since we got the tv has commented on how incredible the picture is.

Does anyone else find it ironic that many discussions about the viewing qualities of LED or Plasma seem to ignore the brilliance of the colors and focus on the blackness of the black?

Black is what gives the picture depth and what makes those colors stand out. It also is import to displaying detail. That's why manufacturers concentrate on it.

What about projectors, any value there Jeevz?

Sure, just ask Kerpal to post a pic of his gaming room.

You can't use them well in a room with any kind of natural light but if you have a theater room, you can have an affordable 100+ inch HD "TV".

Bulbs will add up after awhile, a projector should be more for specialty use than every day TV watching.

Was wandering through the shops the other day and saw a 2.6 metre plasma tv.
Very. Gosh. Darn. BIG!

Oh, and the price was one dollar less than a hundred grand.

Although they have LED projectors now for the same prices as traditional ones from a few years ago - and the LED versions have something like 100,000 hour lamp life with hardly any degradation toward the end.

For those willing to spend the money there's screens that actually work outside of a dark environment - but last time I looked at those they were like a thousand bucks, this was about 2 years ago.

I agree that either way a projector is best for "special occasions" rather than everyday use, unless you actually have a dedicated room...

My TV is going out. Everything is turning yellow. (Sony) I was going to buy a Samsung LCD, but I guess they force a auto dimming feature that really is annoying. I'm leaning towards plasm, but worrying about burn in with games. Is this a non-issue or still a issue?

Got a Samsung LE40A656 before Christmas last year. It has one of the best black levels I've ever seen on an LCD, and the colours are spectacular. Never gonna buy anything else than Samsung unless I'm blown away by something else. My next one may very well be an LCD Samsung, they're just spectacular. The newer LCDs/LEDs have 200Hz motion technology as well, which just about makes plasmas redundant.

Samsung makes some great LCD PC monitors too. I've had the best of luck with them.

I've been running an HD Projector setup for "routine" use for over 4 years now. For me, there is no way other way to go. I don't understand why people spend so much money on a LCD or Plasma when I can blow them out of the water for half the price. They make plenty of projectors now that work perfectly fine in daylight. When I bought my projector, the best lumens you could get was about 2000. Now, they have projectors with upwards of 10,000 lumens! I think if you looked at that it would be like staring into the sun. LOL. The screens are not too bad now. I think I paid about 700 bucks for my Carada screen that is designed for 16:9 picture and is a 120" screen. They do have cheaper ones now and many different options. As far as bulbs go, I think its how and what you use your projector for becasue my bulb had a 3 year lifespan and its still going strong. A replacement bulb would cost me around 100-200 bucks since my projector isn't the latest and greatest now.

I guess one thing I would suggest to someone who is looking at buying an HT system is research. I researched nearly every TV, sound system, etc for about a year and half before I figured out that a projector system was what would work for me. They're not for everyone, but once you go there, you'll never want to go back to just plain old TV again. I know I won't.

My Samsung is really incredible. So glad I did it.

I got a new LCD this year with HD cable TV it gets a real good picture.

Just be happy that you have a HDTV. I'm still stuck on standard def...granted I don't watch much....

I'm dissappointed. I was expecting a You Tube clip of Hitler ranting about Plasma verses LCDs.


I'm a die hard Cathode Ray Tube affectionado.

Too bad you don't live closer to San Diego -- a friend of mine has a Sony 30" CRT HD set for sale that's in great shape. It's 150 lbs., so even if you were interested, shipping would probably cost more than he's asking for the set.

I'll bet that would cost a pretty penny to send. In all seriousness I'll eventually be buying an LCD. I live in an apartment so I can't install the dish, and my city has a deal with Comcast so that no competition cable providers are allowed..... So no Verizon FIOS. To make matters worse; for that exclusivity Comcast pulled their local office out of the city to one thats about ten miles away. It's $80.00 a month for basic cable and HD.... with NO HBO/Cinimax/Showtime included.

Went to Best buy last night to look at Tvs'. Wife and I both agreed, rarity, that this plasma blew away all the same size LCDs' around it with picture quality. They were showing nature scenes through sports scenes like tennis. All showed so much better then the LCDs' including a Samsung LCD that was to the left of it. The only one that came close to it was a Samsung Plasma that was 720p.

This looks like the one we'll be getting. Many reviews on a lot of sites rate this a great TV.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9317287&type=product&id=1218084032650


the Samsung Plasma
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9235259&type=product&id=1218064392359

We just finished reviewing a Samsung PN50B550 Plasma. Probably about the best value you can find in a TV right now. I've seen them for as low as $1050. The calibrated contrast ratio (the real one, not those silly factory numbers) was more than double some of our recent plasmas and super expensive LED/LCDs and more than triple most regular LCDs. Fantastic TV, if I was on the market for a new TV I'd get it in a heartbeat.

Could you point me to this review? Thank you

Nice the one we saw that looked the best is your top rated 42" one. Panasonic TC-P42S1

Yep, the S1's are nice. It's the G10 panel in the X1 case.

We went with a 55" Vizio LCD BATV, mostly because of price and the fact that the room it's in has a lot of sunlight in it during the day. The plasma TV's we saw didn't look bright enough to get the job done right.

We were watching the Band of Brothers on Blu-Ray and were absolutely stunned. One feels like one is standing right there with them. Indeed, my wife says it's because they're 1:1 scale from the camera's distance in many cases.

Oddly enough, the main board on the TV went katywhompus and Vizio is coming out to replace it, as it's within 90 days of purchase. Not repairing or having us send it in. They're having someone bring around a brand new one and taking the bad one with them.

This is shocking in that customer service is not only based in the USA (South Dakota), but the guy on the end of the line didn't treat me like an idiot. He actually asked if I had done any troubleshooting and listened while I ticked off the list (moved the TV to see if it was interference, used different devices using different connection techniques, etc.) and quickly admitted the TV was bad.

One of the things that was a deciding factor was we have a dedicated TV/Video Game room that has only 1 double window, outside it is a 12 ft porch with 12 ft overhang and a big tree in the yard so very little light makes it in, plus the window has a room darkening shade we can pull down and make the room completely dark.

Since it's our dedicated viewing room we have the lights and seating placed so there is no glare or reflection on the screen. The room is setup perfectly so that a plasma will look awesome.

Sounds sweet!

When the wifey had the house built in '93 she was thinking "lots of light in every room" instead of "man cave potential."

Women. Can't live without them. But sleep lightly; they can live without you.

That's why any house that any man has any sayso whatsoever in the construction of should have a "man cave" built into the plans somewhere! I know if I ever own a house it will have that, if nothing else just for my projector and movies.

And side note - feels weird to be discussing this in a dead mans thread, not that there's anything bad about it, but still, weird...

Personally, I'm still in the "denial" stage of things.

So no, it doesn't feel weird - he's just logged off the site, that's all. Really.

I don't think it's weird. This is a great thread with lots of info being passed around. I think over the next year many here who haven't jumped to LCD or Plasma will look at this thread.

Right now HHgregg has the Panasonic on sale with a free Panasonic Blu-Ray player after mail-in rebate for a total of $800.00. Good deal.

http://www.hhgregg.com/ProductDetail.asp?SID=n&ProductID=22945&BrandStore=All#script

If we get it we will wall mount it with the viewing distance being 9ft to 10 ft.

Update----

After further research it turns out the problem with my tv is the optical drive. Due to a lawsuit Sony has to replace it for free.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/news-item.pl?news_id=277&mdl=KDS50A2000

Called, repair came out and said yes optical drive, ordered a new one, when it gets in he will replace. Takes about 45 min. My wife know the guy from working at McDonalds, so I'm going to slip him some extra cash to clean it while hes' here. He said my TV will basically be a brand new one, minus the lamp which is about 8 months old. This is great news because I really loved the great picture on my TV.

Here is my TV.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Grand-KDS-50A...8055&sr=8-1

There was a thread here previously on how to calibrate a LCD TV and I haven't been able to find it. Since this was bumped, I figured it might be a good question to ask here. I have tried multiple searches and am still coming up with nothing.

This might help:

http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdtv/lcd-tv-calibration.html

They are predicting some really big TV price wars for this coming Black Friday, especially in the small 32 to 37 inch range that Plasma doesn't compete with. If you are in the market for this size there may be some real deals to be had since retailers are nervious about the upcoming holiday selling season.

According to this article, Target is going to offer a 32 inch Westinghouse 720P LCD for $249. Of course it won't compare with the high end stuff, but that's still a heck of a price, and these price wars will effect all sizes and types.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/13/news/economy/retail_holidayshopping_pricewars_television/index.htm

Regardless, it might make sense to hold off buying until after Thanksgiving.

Cheers