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Best 42" HDTV?

D

darkeen

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Apr 12, 2004
Messages
4,267
Ok well after two trips to best buy and some web browsing I have found out the basics, HDMI, 1080i/p etc... now my father is looking to buy an HDTV he does not care about the following

price (nice to work with)
LCD/plasma
color
brand

now what he does want is a 42" LCD/plasma display with 1080i/p support, no speakers on it, wall mountable. Now since I live with him and will be using this for the next few years the things I suggested to him were DVI and HDMI support and 1980x1080 (I think thats correct) resolution, however I cannot find a display that fits all those criteria. Does anyone know of any that exist?
 
Its a good thing that price is not a concern, because to meet the criteria of having a 1920x1080 panel at 42"+ you need to throw that consideration out the window. There are few to no products available that fit what you want, as it stands i'm not sure there is any 42" display with a 1080p native resolution in any technology

There are 1080p LCD panels available on the market, some are not exorbantly expensive like the Westinghouse 37" LCD. and others are just a little larger than what you seem to be looking for like the Sharp 45" LCD.

With Plasmas at 42" the highest resolutions you find are 1024x1024 or 1024x768, if you move up to 50" you can get panels with 1280x720 or 1366x768 resolution. Due to the nature of plasma technology and the size of the individual pixel cells it is unlikely that we will see 1920x1080 displays in a 42" size any time soon.

Really tho, the best place to look for info on lcd/plasma displays is the flat panel section on AVS Forum.

Also it should be pointed out that at this time most 1080p displays cannot actually accept a 1080p signal from a computer or otherwise, i believe that the westinghouse is an exception though.
 
Look at the Panasonic Plasmas. I can't believe that noone has mentioned the 42px50u. The price is coming down on these on the 28th. You should be able to find them in stores for around $2500 by then. They have excellent PQ. They also come with NTSC/ATSC/QAM tuners and a Cable Card slot.
 
Assuming a viewing distance of 6+ feet, it is my opinion that you simply can't beat plasma displays at that screen size. I spent alot of time doing reading forums, viewing displays (everything from pricey runco plasmas and projectors to sharp lcds and samsung dlps) in person, etc before settling on the pioneer 5050 myself (a 50" screen instead of a 42" screen, but the research remains relevant).

Summary:

LCD: Shitty black levels and dark details...unless you like looking at masses of grayish areas when watching something like Sin City.

DLP: I discovered I was particularly sensitive to the "rainbow effect" so this was pretty much out of the question for me outright - though the picture on the hd2+ chips at the time were very pretty :) (a bit less so in a bright, well-lit environment)

Plasma: image retention concerns, lower resolution display (1024x768), blacks not as good as CRT (though the panasonic comes close). IMO, best picture quality aside from the new Sony SXRD displays ($$$).

That said, the pioneer 4350 (new gen due out soon) or the 8th gen panasonic commercial models should fit the 'no frills' display bill nicely. The pioneer comes with removeable speaker attachments, whereas the panasonic doesn't come with one at all. Pioneer has a separate breakout box that accepts input, allowing just one cable connection to the screen, while the panasonic can be customized to your needs via "blades".

Do your research at the avsforums - best bet though, as always, is to view the screens in person. :)
 
Bigshot said:
Dell

Phillips

Samsung

Here are three that I have looking at lately... if you have a Sam's Club near by.
Click to expand...

Links dont work for me, say the "session has expired"

As to everyone else it must be a 42" my dad does not want to go any smaller and you just cant fit a bigger display where it needs to go. Thanks for the input all :) I still would like the res to come up to 1080 native. Anyway thanks again for the input :)
 
Darakian said:
Links dont work for me, say the "session has expired"

As to everyone else it must be a 42" my dad does not want to go any smaller and you just cant fit a bigger display where it needs to go. Thanks for the input all :) I still would like the res to come up to 1080 native. Anyway thanks again for the input :)
Click to expand...

42" is a great size. You're going to have a hard time finding anything that does 1080 natively. There are some LCD's but I wouldn't suggest an LCD to anyone unless the room will be almost always brightly lit. There are a few newer DLP's as well, but they are all above your max in terms of size. There's a lot more to PQ than resolution.
 
Does anyone know if there are ever Dell coupons that apply to their 42" Plasmas?
 
dunno if there are coupons, but i do know they run specials on them pretty regularly, and i've seen at least one insane special on them in a dell kiosk around 6 months ago...

fwiw, if i had waited this long for a "bigger screen" hdtv, i'd wait a few more months, because it's pretty much been admitted by all the players that prices are going to take a nose dive before christmas time...

and i'd also spend a lot of time looking at them... there's huge differences between various sets...
 
I've been doing a LOT of research on this topic as I am looking to purchase a 45"+ hdtv to use moreso for pc gaming and such, than actual tv viewing.
Anyway, as the story goes there very little to choose from if you want a true native 1080p input into the screen.
Most dlp, and lcds for that matter may state that they *display* 1080p, but after you look into the details they are held back by there electronic parts to only be capable of accepting at most a 1080i signal. What this means is that your video card outputs a digital signal which is then manipulated and deinterlaced by the screens electronics and then output to 1080p.

What this means is that you lose a lot of your data, even frames for that matter as this process takes a little bit of time. On top of that the quality is close to perfect, but it is not in reality a true 1080p connection.

As mentioned the westinghouse screen is a great alternative at a great price point. It supports 1080p fine and is all around a nice panel, albeit only a little small.

I've been looking at the Sharp LC-45GX6U for some time now. This is one of three similar 45" Sharp screens, however the only one which can be made to display a pure 1080p feed. The other two variations of it have the avc, or media box, built-into the screen and there is no 'work around' to display pure 1080p.

In the case of the LC-45GX6U model, the avc media box is external from the panel and the lcd screen itself only has one dvi input. Your options are either to directly plug your htpc/pc into the screen after you have adjusted the resolution to 1920 x 1080 60. Or the other option is to buy a dvi switch which you plug both the avc into as well as the htpc and then it outputs one dvi cable to the lcd allowing you to switch between your source.

What is actually going in is that the avc box has a maximum dvi input of 1280 x 1024, so you would be limited by this and then the avc would scale it up to 1920x 1080... so you can see where the problem is, you need to get around the avc. This is also the reason you should only look at the LC-45GX6U as the other counterpart models have the avc builtin so you can't get around them.

I don't mean to drag this out more, but just wanted to mention, there are some screens on the horizon that should supposedly offer a native 1080p input, however it will probably be until next year that the manufacturers start the real transition to true 1080p. This is all a combination of marketing and product life extention to also the fact that the mainstream consumers for the most part have absolutely no need for 1080p as this will probably never be that big of a market segment or necessity for that matter. It does not fall into the category of one of the approved hdtv signals due to all the bandwith necessary to supply the signal.
 
Just spotted and have been researching one more panel that natively supports 1080p:
Samsung LT-P468W

Its a 46" with roughly the same specs as the Sharp, except that its hardware accepts 1080p fine. Now I just have to decide which one! :D
 
There's a lot more to PQ than resolution. 1080p is pretty much overkill on anything smaller than 50" unless you're right up on top of the screen. I wouldn't sacrafice the contrast and color that you'd have to sacrifice in order to go with the DLP or LCD 1080ps. Give me a good 720p plasma with a cablecard and a good scaler and I'm more than pleased.
 
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