First post, filled out questionaire for new tv.

1. How far away will you be from the display when watching it?
11 ft. 9 inches is the measurement from the wall to my eyes when sitting on the couch in a "normal" posture

2. What TV will it be replacing?
27 inch CRT 1080i panasonic

3. What will you be watching on it?
I don't understand the fraction examples, but this would used for mainly sports and television shows, but also a fair amount of games. No computer monitor or streaming video.

4. Will a computer be connected to use the display as a monitor? If so, what percent of the time?
Zero

5. Will you be getting a Blu-ray player to watch movies and will you be getting any HD service from cable/sat, or will you just be watching SD programming, and upscaling SD DVD player?
Have a PS3 so... and would most likely get Direct TV for the HD channels

6. Are you looking for the best in class display, the best bargain display, or best bang for the buck in the middle display?
Most likely best bargain, however best bang is also considered

7. What is the room lighting situation?
Light in this room is pretty bright. 3 large windows with only minimal covereing. It is a rental situation in which I do not care to spend gobs of money to cover the windows properly. The windows actually face the wall the tv would be on. However, I could mount the tv on the SAME wall as the windows.

8. What is your budget range?
Would love to stay around the 1000 dollar range.

9. Will people be watching at multiple viewing angles or just usually one person sitting directly in the center? Mostly two people, me and the wife. Also, just myself alot for games and sports.

10. When will most viewing be done on the display?
All evenings are considered fair game for this tv, but also weekend daytimes as well. This is when I compete with the sun through those windows.

My current CRT tv does reflect light pretty noticeably and it makes daytime sports and gaming a bit annoying, however soon unnoticed due to being "caught up in the moment".

It sounds like based on previous Q and A's you all will be recommending plasma, but just to let you know every plasma I see in a store kind of dissapoints me because I can see every damn pixel. I hate seeing pixels. I have been much more impressed with LCD pictures since LCD images have become more competitive these past few years.

Also 1080p is a must. I don't want to settle for 720

Yea, have to recommend Plasma. this is coming from a long time anti-plasma guy. I was an LCD only advocate for ever, but after buying one I was really disappointed. I took everyone's advise and gave plasma a try. I'm much happier with it. the PQ is awesome and no blur. I agree that the plasmas don't look as good in the store. The LCD I bought first looked a lot better in the store then my plasma did, but at home the Plasma is a lot nicer. Don't know why that is.

I have also heard from other people about this dilema where LCD's look better than plasmas in the store. I wonder what is behind this? What advantage are the LCD's getting in store displays that Plasmas are not getting? Is there more of a profit margin in LCD's and so stores give them an unfair advantage to entice you to buy LCD?

Also, why are there MANY more LCD choices than plasmas? Are plasmas more expensive to make? I thought it was the opposite, that plasmas are cheaper.

I've read recently in this forum that my viewing distance of 11-12 feet is not ideal for 1080p and that I'd be better off getting 720. But isn't that like buying a car that can only go 60 miles and hour when there are those that 200? I won't be traveling 200 MPH, but I'll certainly want to be going faster than 60. Does that make sense?

I have also heard from other people about this dilema where LCD's look better than plasmas in the store. I wonder what is behind this? What advantage are the LCD's getting in store displays that Plasmas are not getting? Is there more of a profit margin in LCD's and so stores give them an unfair advantage to entice you to buy LCD?

Also, why are there MANY more LCD choices than plasmas? Are plasmas more expensive to make? I thought it was the opposite, that plasmas are cheaper.

The reason why LCDs look better than plasma in the ultra bright showrooms is because LCD was designed for bright business office viewing, when brought home lighting conditions change dramatically! How many of you watch TV or movies in a super bright room? I don't know about you guys but I watch TV/movies in the dark, this is where plasma destroys LCDs! If in a bright room LCD is prefered which is why LCDs were created. LCDs black levels in a dim room look gray in comparison to plasmas inky blacks, if you can't control lighting much LCD is the correct choice!

Some would call me a plasma freak! :lol:

Mainly the tv would be used in the dark. Probably 75% of the time. The rest would be daytime sports or gaming in a room with a ton of natural light though.

The one saving grace however is that I'm looking to be moving to a new place soon and hopefully wherever I go the lighting conditions in the room would be much more controlable. Since I'm renting like I said, I can't really spend tons of cash to properly cover these windows for daytime viewing.

My first instinct was to go LCD because of the light issue, but I will be doing a lot of viewing/playing in the relative darkness ( a lamp on maybe, but that will be it).

So why then do stores not set up "fair" displays that give equal treatment to the plasmas? I seem to recall that my local best buy keeps a relatively dim tv area. The lights are always pretty low over there when compared to the rest of the store.

Is my experience correct with plasmas so far when I describe that I can see the pixels? I hear there are varying resolutions of tv's being sold out there and that LCD's have the higher res, wouldn't I ultimately be better off at a higher res? If so, are there plasmas that offer equal res to LCD's?

Mainly the tv would be used in the dark. Probably 75% of the time. The rest would be daytime sports or gaming in a room with a ton of natural light though.

The one saving grace however is that I'm looking to be moving to a new place soon and hopefully wherever I go the lighting conditions in the room would be much more controlable. Since I'm renting like I said, I can't really spend tons of cash to properly cover these windows for daytime viewing.

My first instinct was to go LCD because of the light issue, but I will be doing a lot of viewing/playing in the relative darkness ( a lamp on maybe, but that will be it).

So why then do stores not set up "fair" displays that give equal treatment to the plasmas? I seem to recall that my local best buy keeps a relatively dim tv area. The lights are always pretty low over there when compared to the rest of the store.

Is my experience correct with plasmas so far when I describe that I can see the pixels? I hear there are varying resolutions of tv's being sold out there and that LCD's have the higher res, wouldn't I ultimately be better off at a higher res? If so, are there plasmas that offer equal res to LCD's?

I have 3 windows in my HT room with two of them opposite the TV and facing west with sun from around 1:00pm until sunset and a 3rd window facing northwest on the left side wall when looking at the TV from the seating with those 2 other west facing windows behind me. I bought $24.00/window wood blinds at Lowe's as the solution for me. I actually had bought them long BEFORE getting the plasma in there since no matter what the TV (even matte screen LCDs) strong direct light like that harms the PQ.

If 75% of the time it will be dark when viewing then I would give that more weight leaning towards plasma myself. LCDs will look brighter than plasmas as they were originally designed as computer monitors in bright offices and THIS is where they need that brighter output. But at home you have to turn the LCDs way down to properly calibrate them for the typical lighting in a home. The problem with LCds is that they are great for the bright end side of the contrast ratios, but that is needed to make up for the poor black side of the contrast ratio equation. Just an FYI, Contrast ratio is how many times bright the whites are compared to the blacks in a display. If you make the whites very bright even if the blacks are poor you can get decent contrast ratios, but the problem is once you take the display out of a ultra bright showroom and place it in a home with typical lighting and especially with the lights dimmed for movies/bedtime, you would hurt your eyes with the LCD set as bright as in the showroom, but there is not much that can be done to improve black levels other than making the whole screen dimmer. This is because there is a constant back light that needs to be blocked with LCDs to try to create black on the screen where as plasmas have individual pixels that self generate the brightness or absence (black) thereof by turning off the pixel charge much more like CRTs which have the best black levels so far.

It may seem dimmer in the TV area at Best Buy because the rest of the store is as bright as daylight, but it is still much brighter than in a typical home lighting situation. I would guess (but never brought a light meter in to confirm) that even in the Magnolia section and especially in the regular TV section that it is at least twice as bright as in a home AND the lighting type is different as well. Most stores either have Sodium gas lamps or have gone to florescent lamps that have a different output color and frequency than what we have in our homes even if we changed that TV room to the compact florescent lamps.

I own 2 LCDs, 1 DLP and 1 plasma so i own most of the different tech solutions and my plasma is easily the best and the one i always try to watch things on.

Awesome. Excellent information. I guess part of my problem in signing on to plasmas is because the technology seems so old. I remember when all these HDTV's started coming out and the big buzz word was "plasma plasma plasma" all the time. It wasn't until a little later that LCD and DLP were being thrown around. My brain has a hard time understanding that TV technology that was the beginning of the HD revolution is still superior to other technologies that have come out since.

I know that LCD computer monitors have been out for a while as well, but it wasn't until AFTER plasma tv's became so popular that they started making LCD tv's by the droves and shoving them onto store shelves. At least that is how I remember it.

Anyway, where the hell do you guys get all this cash to afford all these different tv's and audio stuff? I'm here about 8 years after HDTV's hit the market hard and I'm looking to buy my first one(the 1080i CRT I have now was given to me and it's only 27 inches). And I'm scraping together the cash slowly one month at a time! I guess that is what I get for letting my wife be a stay at home mom. She needs to get her ass to work so I can buy some more fun stuff!

I wish I could bring home a plasma and an LCD to test them side by side in MY lighting conditions. 24 dollar wood blinds from Lowes eh? I'll have to make a trip to my local location soon...

Plasma has steadily improved and is NOTHING like it was in the beginning. The current plasmas are not your father's plasmas. :lol:

Just like CRTs got so good from where they started over 50 years ago so has plasmas which getting better each year. LCD is getting better each year but i wonder if it can improve as much based on the back light tech it uses. Time will tell and likely in 5-8 years we will be buying cheap OLED displays that has the potential to replace both LCD and plasma.

I live in an apartment also, buying a house in southern CA is crazy right now! I get direct sunlight in the Fall and Winter, that's great for my iguana and my snakes. I have some expensive outdoor blinds made of bamboo that you hang on the patio, that pretty much takes care of my living rooms light problem.

When you were talking about seeing pixels, what size plasmas were you looking at? Here is a video I made of my Samsung top of the line 240Hz LCD using a freeze frame from a Blu-ray disc, notice the viewing angles and change in light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOYnAmDLXbY

Drastic change techlord. I've never had an LCD in my home to be able to experience that, but I have noticed it in the stores. I just always chalked it up to the fact that I was in a store and I wasn't getting ideal viewing conditions.

I'm not sure I'd like to deal with that. Not that I'd mind when playing games, but if I ever had a few people over to my house to watch a blu-ray I'm sure they'd be less than impressed if they had to sit off to one side or the other.

So plasmas display no such problems huh? Damn you plasma....

Are there plasmas in the 1000-1200 dollar price range that have the same resolution as the LCD's?

Drastic change techlord. I've never had an LCD in my home to be able to experience that, but I have noticed it in the stores. I just always chalked it up to the fact that I was in a store and I wasn't getting ideal viewing conditions.

I'm not sure I'd like to deal with that. Not that I'd mind when playing games, but if I ever had a few people over to my house to watch a blu-ray I'm sure they'd be less than impressed if they had to sit off to one side or the other.

So plasmas display no such problems huh? Damn you plasma....

Are there plasmas in the 1000-1200 dollar price range that have the same resolution as the LCD's?


Yep ! The Panasonic 1080p 50" S1 is $1050 at Sears , $1069 at amazon.com . But you might find it for even less somewhere a few weeks from now on Black Friday . Good luck !


http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_05775559000P?vName=Computers%20&%20Electronics&cName=Televisions&sName=Flat%20Panel&psid=FROOGLE01&sid=IDx20070921x00003a


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001U3YJTY/ref=asc_df_B001U3YJTY951855?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=googlecom09c9-20&linkCode=asn&creative=380341&creativeASIN=B001U3YJTY

Holy smokes!! Nice prices! Why the hell is best buy selling them for 2000 then?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Panasonic+-+VIERA+/+50%22+Class+/+1080p+/+600Hz+/+Plasma+HDTV/9317205.p?id=1218095840085&skuId=9317205&st=panasonic plasma 50inch

Is that because its the "Viera" model. Because I don't give a crap about streaming online video to my tv. I have a nice 32 inch LCD computer monitor and a 1000 dollar computer chair. Don't need to watch youtube videos on my TV.

Drastic change techlord. I've never had an LCD in my home to be able to experience that, but I have noticed it in the stores. I just always chalked it up to the fact that I was in a store and I wasn't getting ideal viewing conditions.

I'm not sure I'd like to deal with that. Not that I'd mind when playing games, but if I ever had a few people over to my house to watch a blu-ray I'm sure they'd be less than impressed if they had to sit off to one side or the other.

So plasmas display no such problems huh? Damn you plasma....

Are there plasmas in the 1000-1200 dollar price range that have the same resolution as the LCD's?

See when you watch TV and movies in a dark room with dimmly lit lights people tend to turn contrast and brightness settings down quite a bit, that's when you'll see LCDs weakness and plasmas strength! Your not going to see this at Best Buy, not unless there's a partial power failure effecting only the ultra bright lights! Plasma was meant for the people that don't watch TV in bright rooms, how many of you watch TV in dimmly lit rooms?

Holy smokes!! Nice prices! Why the hell is best buy selling them for 2000 then?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Panasonic+-+VIERA+/+50%22+Class+/+1080p+/+600Hz+/+Plasma+HDTV/9317205.p?id=1218095840085&skuId=9317205&st=panasonic plasma 50inch

Is that because its the "Viera" model. Because I don't give a crap about streaming online video to my tv. I have a nice 32 inch LCD computer monitor and a 1000 dollar computer chair. Don't need to watch youtube videos on my TV.


All Panasonic plasmas carry the Viera name . The difference is that is the top of the line V model which has all the bells and whistles . In fact BB has the S1 model for $1000 .

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Panasonic+-+VIERA+/+50%22+Class+/+1080p+/+600Hz+/+Plasma+HDTV/9236294.p?id=1218064394819&skuId=9236294

I guess I don't understand the subtle differences then. 50 inches, 1080p, plasma...what else is there to know?

Onboard sound better or something on those more expensive models? They cook pancakes?

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/97XBAM/troll_web.jpg

All Panasonic plasmas carry the Viera name . The difference is that is the top of the line V model which has all the bells and whistles . In fact BB has the S1 model for $1000 .

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Panasonic+-+VIERA+/+50%22+Class+/+1080p+/+600Hz+/+Plasma+HDTV/9236294.p?id=1218064394819&skuId=9236294

I thought their Z series was top of the line.

So I was reading some reviews on best buy (some real boneheads on there though) and one guy pointed out that the 600Hz only applies in "Cinema" mode.

Now, I'm not familiar with all these modes, picture settings, sound modes blah blah blah. However I do understand what a refresh rate is and how 600Hz is crazy awesome. BUT.....if it only works in cinema mode then am I screwed picture quality wise if I take the TV out of cinema mode? Does that mean that if it is not in cinema mode that the refresh rate goes down to something rediculous like 30-40?

I don't want to buy this thing if it only performs on 1 special setting. I'm confused.

First of all, The Panasonic plasmas do NOT have a 600Hz refresh rate. That is the sub pixel refresh rate which is different and has more to do with improved colors and to get the full 1080 lines of moving resolution so it does help, but is different from the standard refresh rate. But plasmas are over 1,000x faster in response times than any LCDs due to the nature of the tech so there is no motion blur with them because of this.

The 600Hz sub pixel refresh rate is hardwired into the panels for ALL video/picture modes and NOT just for Cinema mode so that person was wrong. ;)

So then what would be the "standard" refresh rate of these TV's? Same as a normal 30Hz TV, or do you get more with an HDTV?

Meaning, will I be watching movies in high def at 30FPS or can they do more like 50-60.

Because on my computer monitors I can certainly tell the difference between 60 and 75 FPS. I get headaches at 60, but not 75. Will I see a difference between my current TV at 30 FPS and a new Panasonic Plasma?

All TVs in the USA are 60Hz displays (or greater internally by repeating) not 30Hz. ;)

See something else I didn't know. For some reason 30 was in my head. So this TV gives a locked 60 Hz refresh rate no matter the resolution or display mode (eg. cinema, game, normal...whatever they may be)?

Yes but certain plasma models can use higher even multiples of 24Hz (Fps) with Blu-ray players that output of 24Fps. Some LCDs also have this feature as well.

For gaming and regular TV viewing it will always be 60Hz regardless of the picture mode chosen although some LCDs that are 120/240Hz can internally increase the refresh to help lessen the over 1000x slower pixel response times they have compared to plasmas.