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Post by epaul on Nov 28, 2008 13:49:02 GMT -5
A friend asked me what type of flat screen TV to get, plasma or LCD. I haven't been paying much attention, as I won't be in the market till the one I have developes an issue of some type (and if it does't develop an issue with the next year, I might create one)
I went to Consumer Reports, and gathered the impression that LCDs, especially in the 40"- mid-50" range was emerging as the better choice (they called a 52" Samsung one of the best TVs they have ever tested).
But I have also heard support for Plasma.
What hears ye?
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Post by lpattis on Nov 28, 2008 14:09:39 GMT -5
DSP/rear-projection is an economical choice, will cost about 1/2 of a similar sized LCD or plasma screen, and perhaps the only drawback would be viewing in bright daylight conditions. They are quite a bit slimmer than they used to be...
We opted for a large DSP Mitsubishi unit (about 6 months ago), and could not be happier...
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Post by epaul on Nov 28, 2008 14:13:21 GMT -5
Just read some other reviews that called the comparison a very close one in the 40- mid-50 range. Plasma was described as just barely hanging on to an edge in picture and price that was rapidly disappearing.
Picture. Plasma has a little deeper black and richer hues when viewed in a dark to moderately dark room. LCDs were better in bright light or possible screen glare situations. Some LCDs still have peripheral viewing issues, but the issue is approaching gone and done with the good quality sets.
Plasma still will hold a slight price advantage, but this is shrinking. The best current deals are on older 720 res Plasmas. All new ones are 1080.
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Post by Village Idiot on Nov 28, 2008 14:17:18 GMT -5
The girls came home with a 42" LCD TV today. I hope LCD is good, and I wish the cabinet TV I'm getting ready to move was lighter.
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Post by billhammond on Nov 28, 2008 14:32:01 GMT -5
Can someone tell me why so many people are spending so much money on huge, verrrrrrrrrrrrry wide TV sets that distort the images because of their screen proportions?
I may be crazy, but I don't care HOW colorful and sharp and big an image is if it does not represent reality. I see all these flat-screen TVs here there and everywhere with the football players looking like grapes instead of the giraffes that they are, and I just have to laff.
I mean seriously, people, it's ridiculous!
It's like the dirty little secret that is so obvious that no one will talk about it.
My Sony is big and heavy and eats up lots of electricity, I spose, but dammit, what I watch on it has REAL, accurate proportions, not squished ones.
p.s. I know that the problem goes away when you are watching modern DVDs with widescreen view ratios, but I watch about three DVDs a year.
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Post by knobtwister on Nov 28, 2008 14:35:46 GMT -5
I'm jonesing for a Samsung LCD but 4 Michelins are ahead of it on the list.
Don
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Post by billhammond on Nov 28, 2008 14:49:03 GMT -5
I'm jonesing for a Samsung LCD but 4 Michelins are ahead of it on the list. Don Be careful not to buy wide-screen Michelins, Don -- they are oval instead of round, and boy do they make your car ride bumpy. ![](http://www.cadillacxlr-v.com/Quickstart/ImageLib/XLR-V_Tire_Wheel_Oval.JPG)
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Post by kenlarsson on Nov 28, 2008 14:49:39 GMT -5
HDTV shows use the wide format that the new HDTV's have, just like a movie screen. For regular TV shows the new TV's have the option of selecting a regular size TV viewing format within the larger TV screen or stretching it out to the full size with the distortion you are wondering about. Perhaps people think they're getting an HDTV picture anyway, even if it is stretched out.
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Post by dradtke on Nov 28, 2008 14:50:47 GMT -5
There's a little one-story house about a block from here, probably four rooms total. When I drive by at night I can see a very very large TV screen through the living room window. But in that house, I don't see how there's room to sit back far enough to watch it. They must have to move their heads from side to side.
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Post by epaul on Nov 28, 2008 14:50:56 GMT -5
with the football players looking like grapes instead of the giraffes that they are, This is especially true when viewing Pat Williams of the Vikings. He appears positively un-svelt.
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Post by billhammond on Nov 28, 2008 14:55:36 GMT -5
with the football players looking like grapes instead of the giraffes that they are, This is especially true when viewing Pat Williams of the Vikings. He appears positively un-svelt. < veldt >
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Post by billhammond on Nov 28, 2008 15:01:48 GMT -5
HDTV shows use the wide format that the new HDTV's have, just like a movie screen. For regular TV shows the new TV's have the option of selecting a regular size TV viewing format within the larger TV screen or stretching it out to the full size with the distortion you are wondering about. Perhaps people think they're getting an HDTV picture anyway, even if it is stretched out. I watch: "Judge Judy" "Speeders" and other shows on the Tru channel. Lots of pundit shows on CNN, MSNBC and (yes) Fox History and A&E shows Comedy Channel stuff NFL Motor racing Skiing None of these, far as I know, are broadcast in HDTV, so all look squished when seen on wide-screen TVs. They look awful, in fact. They turn F1 race cars into station wagons.
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Post by PaulKay on Nov 28, 2008 15:13:47 GMT -5
DSP/rear-projection is an economical choice, will cost about 1/2 of a similar sized LCD or plasma screen, and perhaps the only drawback would be viewing in bright daylight conditions. They are quite a bit slimmer than they used to be... We opted for a large DSP Mitsubishi unit (about 6 months ago), and could not be happier... I have this type also and would only provide one word of warning. The projection lamps for the rear display are very expensive and don't last forever (around 2 years typically). They are usually rated for some number of hours before they burn out. I think the last time it happened I paid over $200 for aftermarket lamp. I'm about 2 years into this one now, so I should be faced with replacing it soon. So at least with LCD or Plasma, you won't have to deal with an ongoing maintenance expense. If I had to do it over again, I'd go with LCD.
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Post by RickW on Nov 28, 2008 15:15:53 GMT -5
You can get most of that in HD Bill, and it's very cool.
We have an LCD. If you intend to play games on it, then you want LCD.
You can't get a plasma smaller than about 42", at least you couldn't last year when we bought ours.
To be honest, it's tough to tell the difference. Go and look at a bunch. But do beware - large shops that sell lots of TVs are known for diddling with the settings on ones that are not the current one they want to sell, in order to make them look just a bit worse.
Buy one the correct size. I think current though is that you should 2 to 3 times as far away as the width of the TV. If you're 5 feet away from a 60" screen, you needed something smaller.
Ours is 37" - it's wonderful. Get digitial, with a PVR, and all the HD channels you can. The PVR will change the way you watch TV.
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Post by billhammond on Nov 28, 2008 15:19:21 GMT -5
Rick -- Every time I walk into a bar or restaurant that has flat-screen TVs from wall to wall, each and every one is showing a sporting event with stretched-out, flat proportions.
I do not think I am imagining this.
I go home and switch on the same sporting event and it looks great and accurate.
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Post by Russell Letson on Nov 28, 2008 15:20:52 GMT -5
Bill, as Ken pointed out, there's a setting to display standard-def material in standard aspect ratio. For reasons that I don't understand, many people leave the set on widescreen all the time, so that non-wide-format material gets squashed. They avoid those dreaded blank areas at the screen edges, though, and they can be sure they're getting 100% of the screen area they paid for. I'm not sure that compensates for making Saffron Burrows look squat, though.
The tuners in our recent DVD recorders will manage HD signals from our cable system, so we use them to watch the local stations' HD feeds of "CSI" and "Masterpiece" and such and see the entire widescreen frame on our standard-res 24-inch set--we don't mind the black bars at the top and bottom, and I like the clear picture and getting the director's full frame. But we're not likely to pop for an HD set for a while, mainly because it would require rearranging all the video boxes. (You can't stack anything on top of a flatscreen set--and we have four boxes of electronics on top of the Toshiba.) And we'll never go for anything bigger than a 32-inch anyway, since our living room setup won't take it.
I suspect those sports bars are feeding their screens with SD signal and leaving the screens on the widescreen setting--a combination of economy (use over-the-air or basic-cable signal) and ignorance (it's the set that makes it HD and widescreen).
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Post by billhammond on Nov 28, 2008 15:23:46 GMT -5
Bill, as Ken pointed out, there's a setting to display standard-def material in standard aspect ratio. For reasons that I don't understand, many people leave the set on widescreen all the time, so that non-wide-format material gets squashed. They avoid those dreaded blank areas at the screen edges, though, and they can be sure they're getting 100% of the screen area they paid for. I'm not sure that compensates for making Saffron Burrows look squat, though. The tuners in our recent DVD recorders will manage HD signals from our cable system, so we use them to watch the local stations' HD feeds of "CSI" and "Masterpiece" and such and see the entire widescreen frame on our standard-res 24-inch set--we don't mind the black bars at the top and bottom, and I like the clear picture and getting the director's full frame. But we're not likely to pop for an HD set for a while, mainly because it would require rearranging all the video boxes. (You can't stack anything on top of a flatscreen set--and we have four boxes of electronics on top of the Toshiba.) And we'll never go for anything bigger than a 32-inch anyway, since our living room setup won't take it. Those black bars convert your expensive new TV to the proportions I now enjoy on my set, right? And don't those black bars tend to "burn in" to those new expensive TVs, making them appear as ghost images over time? Great idea.
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Post by knobtwister on Nov 28, 2008 15:25:20 GMT -5
Bill's right about watching 4x3 content on 16x9 screens. Some of the schemes the 16x9 sets use to fill the screen when viewing standard-def 4x3 content are sub-par.
Sports is especially susceptible to weird images that look OK in the middle of the screen but stretched on the sides. I prefer the blank bars on each side of a properly proportioned image.
We're still watching a lot of standard-def 4x3 images but almost nothing is still being produced that way. It's all shot in 16x9 high-def and down converted to 4x3.
I been in this biz for a long time and was blown away by the analog NHK high-def I saw almost 20 years ago, BTW much better than the digital system we have now. I have seen 100s of demos at trade shows but I hadn't really 'watched' TV in high-def. Spending a couple hours watching Monday Night Football or the Masters was what it took for me to start seriously looking toward replacing the Sony CRT TV.
At work it's driving us nut's. There are no 4x3 LCD monitors bigger than about 19 inches. So all the LCDs we sell are 16x9. BTW plasma is almost never used in business applications. All the reasonably priced projectors are 4x3. The sub $2000 16x9 projectors are only about 1000 lumens, about 1/4 of what is needed in a office environment. The 16x9 projectors that are bright enough start at about $15,000.00. The fun comes when you need to use both projection and LCDs in the same system. Sorting out the different aspect ratios is an expensive pain.
Plus the laptop folks have decided that 16x10 is the right aspect ratio for business use.
So we install 16x10 electric screens (because they'll last 15-20years) point 4x3 XGA projectors at them (because that's the most cost effective projectors right now) and install 52" 16x9 1080P LCDs on either side of the screen for the teleconferencing system.
It's going to be 2-3 more years to pretty much make it through the transition.
Don
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Post by Russell Letson on Nov 28, 2008 15:36:05 GMT -5
LCDs don't "burn in" the way CRTs do--here's the clearest quick-and-dirty explanation I found: compreviews.about.com/od/monitors/a/LCDBurnIn.htmThis is about computer monitors, but the principles apply to TV displays, which should be even less prone to image persistence, since static images are less common--who leaves the cable-system guide screen on all the time?
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Post by billhammond on Nov 28, 2008 15:46:17 GMT -5
I still DO NOT GET how all these sports fans seem OK with these elongated images, to the point where they themselves must go out and replace their properly proportioned TVs at home.
Reminds me a lot of SUVs.
Gee, everyone is buying these -- they must be better than what I have now.
So they trade in their Accords for TrailBlazers.
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