How to buy..TV's? What to look for?

DarkScythe

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 7, 2008
Messages
367
Hey there, everyone.
I hope this is a good place for this, since it technically is home theater equipment, haha.

We still have a gigantic and very old CRT TV in the living room. I think it's about time we retired it, as the newest input the TV supports is the amazing component video.
I have been tasked with looking up a good deal on TV's in the near future, and of course that means moving into the 21st century with an LCD TV of some sort.

Unfortunately, I have no real idea what to look for in a TV. If this was a PC monitor, I'd look for an IPS, like my NEC. Alas, needs for a TV are probably quite different, so I need some help.

Does anyone have any tips or advice on what to look for in a good TV nowadays, or if anyone could point me to a quick primer on the various technologies being used? (Example: I have no idea what a plasma TV is.)

Thanks, everyone.
 
Hey there, everyone.
I hope this is a good place for this, since it technically is home theater equipment, haha.

We still have a gigantic and very old CRT TV in the living room. I think it's about time we retired it, as the newest input the TV supports is the amazing component video.
I have been tasked with looking up a good deal on TV's in the near future, and of course that means moving into the 21st century with an LCD TV of some sort.

Unfortunately, I have no real idea what to look for in a TV. If this was a PC monitor, I'd look for an IPS, like my NEC. Alas, needs for a TV are probably quite different, so I need some help.

Does anyone have any tips or advice on what to look for in a good TV nowadays, or if anyone could point me to a quick primer on the various technologies being used? (Example: I have no idea what a plasma TV is.)

Thanks, everyone.

Okay so you basically have 2 choices: Plasma, or LCD (Or 3 if you count the 2 sub types of LCD: CCFL or LED backlit). Each has their own advantages and disadvantages.

One thing I recommend doing right off the bat, is skimming through this thread:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1763905

Now for a basic comparison:
LCD
Pros:
- CCFL LCD's are very cheap
- LED LCD's can be very cheap, depending on quality or sale prices
- TON'S of choice. I'd say at least 75% of HDTV's these days are LCD.
- Very high brightness - this is good for rooms with direct sunlight and you have little to no light control (Eg: No curtains or blinds on the windows)
- Not susceptible to burn in or permanent image retention
- Less power consumption (especially LED) over Plasma
- Thinner (especially "edge-lit LED)
- Lighter

Cons:
- Less colour accuracy and fidelity
- Much worse contrast over plasma
- Very bad Black levels
- Generally bad at full motion playback (Even 120Hz/240Hz TV's generally introduce artifacts and glitches due to the "processing" of the image"
- Generally bad 24p Playback (Eg: 24p Blu-Ray playback)
- To get the better picture quality, you generally need to step up to a mid or high end Smart TV, regardless of if you want those features or not
- Much worse viewing angles
- Noticeable flicker when viewing off centre

Plasma
Pros:
- Generally considered to have far superior overall picture quality (Especially when comparing low or mid-range HDTV's)
- Superior contrast ratio
- DEEEEEP Blacks - Black actually looks black (The "pixel" can shut off individually to create very close to true black)
- Excellent colour accuracy and vibrancy
- Best 24p playback
- FAR better full motion playback (Very good for fast action scenes or watching sports)
- Burn in is essentially a non-issue with normal use these days
- No distortion or darkening of screen when viewing at extreme angles
- Generally considered to have superior 3D performance when used in a darkened room (must be in light controlled room - 3D is basically useless in direct sunlight because you lose even more brightness from the 3D glasses)

Cons:
- Heavier (All Plasma TV's have a glass panel screen - though still far lighter than a traditional rear projection TV)
- Thicker
- Increased power consumption
- Burn in is still technically possible, especially if "brightness" is maxed... which it shouldn't be!
- Less choice - only a few manufacturers still make Plasma: Panasonic, Samsung, LG, maybe a few others.
- Less brightness - In a room with direct sunlight/uncontrolled light, colours will appear washed out
- More glare (because of the glass screen)

Alternative Technologies
- Projector - Benefit: Potentially MUCH larger screen
- Rear Projection TV - You can still find em occasionally, even in HD. Generally not worth it in any way.
- OLED - Once this becomes affordable, this will trounce both Plasma and LCD. Has benefits of both technologies. The only HDTV panels that are available are extremely expensive right now.

How to choose

Well this depends on a few factors:
- What are the room conditions like? Lighting, space, sunlight/windows, light control (curtains, etc)
- What are you using it for? (Movies, video games, HTPC, etc)
- What is most important to you? (List some of the factors that are most important - Keep in mind you can get a fully featured "SMART TV" in either technology for similar prices)
- When will you be using it most often? (During daylight, during night time, combination of both - if so, what ratio)

For myself personally:
My first 3 HDTV's were both CCFL LCD TV's. The first one was a 27" Electrohome 720p cheapo TV. My second was a 32" 720p - forget the brand, but it was a rebranded RCA no-name brand. My third was a 32" 1080p Sharp TV. This I still use as a second monitor/gaming screen for my Gaming PC

Recently I bought a 50" LG Plasma TV (50PA6500), and it's simply on another level compared to any of my old TV's. It also looks (my opinion obviously) better than most mid-high end LCD/LED TV's.

The first movie I watched when I got it home was Star Trek (2009) - which I had seen many times before, but it was like nothing I've ever seen before. The black of space was deep and felt authentic. The colours were amazing and vibrant. The motion was smooth and felt natural.

I only paid $650CAD + tax for it (No smart features since it's connected to an HTPC) and it was WELL worth the price in my eyes. If I had wanted "equivalent" picture quality from an LCD TV, I would have had to purchase a much more expensive Smart TV set, at likely double the cost, that came with features I didn't want.

Anyway, this is my advice and the information I can provide.
 
The less you know the better you sleep. Go to the store, does it look good? Yes. Buy it. :D

But the above pretty much gives you everything you need to know.
 
Be aware that most stores will have the TVs in a display mode, what you see in the store often wont be usable in the same state at home.
Read reviews LOTS, most people dont know their arse from their elbow and will be happy if it looks nice.
As mentioned, AVSforum is pretty good, you should be able to tell who has decent experience and standards.


I'm a CRT fan and prefer Plasma to get the deepest blacks and high contrast.
Having said that I just gave away my plasma TV because I got a very good projector, but similarly am now after the best projection screen, currently favouring the Dalite 2.4 gain.
 
Wow, that's quite a lot of information to sift through; thanks guys.

I have seen AVS Forum a few times here and there, but I never made an account, since I wasn't too crazy into that hobby. Thanks for the reminder.

Lurker, the problem with simply going to a store is that the gearhead in me wants to know which TV is better on a technical level.. haha. Sucks being a hardware guy. :(
If we were simply okay with whatever looked good at a store (and Nenu has a point - stores will try to make their displays seem better than they are, and cover you with marketing speak) we would have probably just gotten whatever 40-50 inch TV was on sale for like $300.

Plasma sounds very attractive in terms of black levels, but coming from an IPS LCD, black levels aren't everything. Then again, I won't be editing photos on the TV so maybe it won't matter, lol.
 
Without darkest black, you miss out on a whole load of deep colours and the picture is a little washed out in comparison.
 
Yeah, it sounds like from a color and picture quality, as well as motion perspective, plasma might be great.

However, it seems the common thread is that it has inherently lower brightness than the normal CCFL/LED LCD's, and so everyone recommends against it if the room is "bright." Unfortunately, I don't know on a technical level what constitutes as bright.
The TV will be in our living room with 2 windows, and the room generally can be moderately bright.
In terms of measurable numbers though, we have 2 T8 tubes installed that output 2600 lumens each - 5200 lumens of lighting during the evening hours. Does this constitute as "too bright" for plasma?

The other issue with plasma is that it seems like it could be fairly susceptible to burn-in. While the rest of my household tends to watch TV shows and movies, I primarily just switch it on to CNN during the day, and I'm concerned that the CNN ticker could do some 'damage'..
I'm not sure what's best just yet.

On another note, are there any particularly "problematic" brands that I should avoid (or likewise, good to recommend), or are they like RAM manufacturers now where basically every company is about the same?
 
In terms of brands, any of the "well known" brands will do well for LCD/LED tv's. Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba (I'm probably missing a few). They'll all make a good set. Samsung LED units tend to be quite exceptional in quality for the value. I used to have a Sharp LCD HDTV and loved it.

In terms of Plasma, there are only a few manufacturers period. Panasonic is by far the best manufacturer (This is because they bought all of the Pioneer Kuro patents, and then hired most of their Plasma engineers when Pioneer exited the market). Samsung's Plasma tv's are getting closer to the Panasonic ones, and are also of exceptional quality. I personally own an LG unit that was low-mid priced ($650CAD after taxes) and for that price range it looks amazing.

As far as burn-in goes, yes it's "technically" possible still, but all modern plasma TV's have anti-burn in technology now (tricks like occasionally shifting the image by one pixel), so I doubt it would be an issue, even with the CNN logo. If you ran your TV on CNN 24/7, then yeah, it'd likely burn-in, but for a few hours a day? No. Also, the TV is most susceptible to burn-in within the first 100 hours of use, so just treat it kindly during those hours.

Room brightness:
I use my plasma in a room with a large, double windowed sliding balcony door (About 3 times as long as a normal door), and if the blinds are open, during high noon, there is noticeable glare and reflection, but if I close the blinds, it's fine. During evening and night time are the best viewing experience though.

If you are used to an IPS display from computer monitors, Plasma's are like that for the HDTV world. They have the best/most accurate colours, and the deep blacks DO help a LOT when it comes to colours as well. You get much richer dark shades of colours, and a higher variety of deep colour shades. The contrast and general deep black is also something that once you see, you will likely appreciate very much.

One of the risks of Store Displays:
The in-store displays in most big-box stores (Like Best Buy, Costco, etc) are very biased against Plasma TV's. They generally aren't calibrated or setup properly, as well as the store display being FAR more brightly lit than your home would ever be (even during high noon with windows), so thus, the brighter screens of the LCD/LED units LOOK better.

If possible, go to a store that has a home theatre preview room with proper-adjustable lighting, so that you can play around with the lighting levels and see what it'll actually look like in various conditions. Hopefully they'll have a Plasma already setup for you to view, but if not, ask them to move one of their Plasma displays (hopefully the one you're most interested in buying) to the theatre room for you to view. Tell them that setting up the display in there is a condition of you buying the unit. Walk if they refuse - if you live in a decent sized modern city, there will be tons of other places to view it at.

Finally, as others have said, read tons of reviews, both professional as well as personal user reviews. AVS forums is particularly good for looking up personal reviews of units. The professional reviews will compare the unit to other like-priced TV's, as well as their personal "high end ideal" TV. They will even give metrics such as screen brightness, uniformity, true contrast ratios, etc.

With all of this in mind, and despite how much I recommend a Plasma TV, buy what YOU like looking at. Stay away from store-brands and no-name brands - buy a good name brand like Samsung or any of the ones I mentioned earlier. If you see an LED TV that looks good and is the right price, go for it. I personally think that you'll be happier with the visual experience of a Plasma, but in the end, it's what YOU like to look at.
 
Yeah, it sounds like from a color and picture quality, as well as motion perspective, plasma might be great.

However, it seems the common thread is that it has inherently lower brightness than the normal CCFL/LED LCD's, and so everyone recommends against it if the room is "bright." Unfortunately, I don't know on a technical level what constitutes as bright.
The TV will be in our living room with 2 windows, and the room generally can be moderately bright.
In terms of measurable numbers though, we have 2 T8 tubes installed that output 2600 lumens each - 5200 lumens of lighting during the evening hours. Does this constitute as "too bright" for plasma?

The other issue with plasma is that it seems like it could be fairly susceptible to burn-in. While the rest of my household tends to watch TV shows and movies, I primarily just switch it on to CNN during the day, and I'm concerned that the CNN ticker could do some 'damage'..
I'm not sure what's best just yet.

On another note, are there any particularly "problematic" brands that I should avoid (or likewise, good to recommend), or are they like RAM manufacturers now where basically every company is about the same?

Bright would be if have a window directly behind or adjacent to the seating area. I have an ancient plasma and with a bunch of lights in our living room at night its fine. However, it's almost unwatchable during the day unless I use black out curtains.

Forget about burn-in.

If you got money go get a Panasonic ZT60. That's going to probably be the best plasma on the market. Unless you want a Samsung then look at the 8000 series, it has similar brightness to an LED so it fairs better in high ambient light.
 
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Well, both windows in our living room actually are situated right behind our couch (directly across from the TV.) It's a horrible position, I know, but there isn't much we can do about it in terms of arrangement of the room. There aren't any curtains; at best the windows have blinds over them which block some light, but not all.

All in all, we generally watch TV in a brightly lit room.

In either case, I went over to Best Buy yesterday just to check things out.
I wanted to see what plasma was like, even though I know Best Buy probably isn't the best place to go to - it was the closest location, though.
Anyway, on display were various models of plasma TVs from Panasonic and Samsung, alongside a metric ton of 120Hz LED TV's. I could not find a single one that was still using CCFL on the floor, so I can't comment on that. Having them all grouped together, it was obvious that the plasmas were much, much dimmer than the surrounding LED TV's. On first glance, this makes LED TV's look better (and my parents immediately wanted them because it looked "clearer.") Having worked with photos, I know this wasn't really the case, so I stood my ground and told them to ignore the brightness for now. However, I have to admit that if our room is on the brighter side, the LED TV's might fare better.

The bigger problem came with something I noticed almost immediately.
As I was looking at the plasma TV's, even though they were rated at 600Hz, I was seeing an annoying flickering. It's not as obnoxious as the old CRT-at-60Hz flicker as it's a little fainter, but I can definitely see it. As a test, I unfocused my eyes from reading any of the labels, and just glanced from TV to TV looking for flickering. I was able to pinpoint every single Plasma TV on display with 100% accuracy, just from that. Now, I don't know if this is inherent to plasma TV's, since I didn't notice any such behavior on the 120Hz and 240Hz LED TV's, OR if Best Buy simply failed somehow in setting up the TV's. For now I'm assuming the latter, since they were all playing the same exact in-store advertisement, which probably wasn't optimized for every single type of screen, and they probably used a bunch of trashy splitters. Still, it is disconcerting.

I don't know where else to go look at these things though, and from that experience, it feels like LED TV's have the edge right now.

As for budget, I was given a budget of around 1k for something in the 40's to 46 inch range.
 
Does anyone have any tips or advice on what to look for in a good TV nowadays

A Sony (LCD) or Panasonic (plasma) badge. But avoid Sony's lowest-end LCDs (Panasonic's lowest-end plasmas are fine however). If you really want to make an informed decision, you can either listen to recommendations or do a significant amount of research on your own. No way around it.
 
Probably a result of the stores lighting (which is also fast flickering light) allowing your eye to see lower frequency harmonics from the interference patterns between them.
I've never seen any flickering on any plasma I have seen in a home.
I was susceptible to CRT flickering up to 85Hz, fyi.
 
Probably a result of the stores lighting (which is also fast flickering light) allowing your eye to see lower frequency harmonics from the interference patterns between them.
I've never seen any flickering on any plasma I have seen in a home.
I was susceptible to CRT flickering up to 85Hz, fyi.

Seconded. Something with the viewing environment at Best Buy.
 
Well, both windows in our living room actually are situated right behind our couch (directly across from the TV.) It's a horrible position, I know, but there isn't much we can do about it in terms of arrangement of the room. There aren't any curtains; at best the windows have blinds over them which block some light, but not all.

As for budget, I was given a budget of around 1k for something in the 40's to 46 inch range.

Those windows will be a nuisance if you decide to watching during the day unless you can black them out. However, I say this only because I am unsure of how much better a new plasma will perform vs my old one and few others I have seen but I doubt it will be enough to overcome the glare.

LED on the other hand wont be phased by the ambient light. My parents have a very very bright room with windows all along one wall and their Samsung looks perfect in any light.

With such a tight budget I almost want to recommend you pick this up.
http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital...TF8&colid=1Q2CEJF0KDVDO&coliid=I27CFNRJ30LYKB

If you watch it carefully, I saw it go for 950 shipped two weeks ago for the fifty.
 
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Something was wrong with the PLASMA you saw or it was reflections of the overhead lights. They don't flicker, that's for sure.

My sliding glass door is behind my TV and my parents are setup the same way. Close the blinds, and the plasma looks fine. Hell, my wife watches it with them open and we are not even near using the brightest setting.

If you watch AMAZON or SLICKDEALS you can find Panasonic PLasmas on sale (last year model) often. Don't look back! If you get a bad one they will swap it out. Happened to me on my 1st plasma from amazon.
 
I haven't seen what your budget is.

In post #11 he states that his budget is around $1000.

I personally still think a Plasma would work very well, especially a Panasonic one. You could even get last years model (as suggested ToddW2) from Amazon. This will allow you to get a higher end model within that budget. (And really, Plasma TV's from last year are still really awesome).

As for The Lurkers suggestion, I would NOT recommend getting that Seiki TV at all. 4k content is still years away from wide spread consumption, so you'll only just end up using it as a 1080p 120Hz LED TV, and the reviews consistently say that it's not a very good panel. Bad colours, low quality, etc. If you're gonna spend $1000, then you might as well buy a GOOD TV.
 
I have a 2012 and 2009 ? (or 8) Panasonic and I can tell the difference slightly but I would say 95%+ of population probably couldn't. I'm rather picky... and I didn't swap out my main TV with the one I got for my office. Having 3D is nice but I only have a handful of 3d movies so I can watch those in the office ;)

I know for a fact my wife has left the same menu on for 4hrs+ and we don't have burn in. Sometimes the screensaver for a movie is left on and we may see it when there is NOTHING on for a day or two after but then it's gone. Nothing has ever been visible even after many hours of screen saver or the same menu, and this is ~5year old panasonic plasma.
 
Well, that's pretty comforting to know, with regard to burn-in being a non-issue nowadays.
Actually, even with my NEC 2490 LCD, I experienced burn-in for a few days, which freaked me out.
I spent a couple days reading a novel in PDF form in Adobe Reader; every page was the same size, so after a couple days of reading, I noticed that there were some dark lines on my screen, and I was like oh crap what's going on!? Turns out the lines had lined up perfectly with the borders of the pages I was reading. I took a break for about a week from reading, and just loaded blank browsers and videos to try and get it to go away.

Anyway, as long as it doesn't become permanent it should be okay.

Yes, my budget is probably around $1k and physically speaking, I think 46" is our limit. Much as I'd love to have a 50-60 inch TV, my family was arguing for something closer to 42, and I convinced them that 46 would at least be a decent upgrade from the TV we currently have.

Right now I feel like leaning toward LED, but considering how much you guys love plasma, I want to give it another go. Does anyone know any decent places in NYC for checking out these TV's? I would have gone to J&R, but since they closed down most of Park Row and consolidated everything into one building, I don't think their home theater area is as robust anymore. Only other place I can think of is B&H, but while the sales reps there should be more knowledgeable (at least from dealing with their photography department) their setup feels largely the same as Best Buy - just a bunch of TV's shoved together.
 
Lots of great information here.

I suggest picking out one TV from each category (LCD and plasma) that you are interested in and purchased both of them. Do some comparisons at home, then return the one you don't like. Most of these stores have a 30 no questions return policy.
 
lol, I am trying to do that right now, but AVSForum feels like a place where you can only get information if you know exactly what you're looking for.

As for an in-home trial, that's actually easier said than done.
We honestly don't have room in our living room for 2 TV's, even if one were to stay in the box for a while, we have nowhere to put the box.

That's why I'd prefer to find a store that has a good showroom so I can firmly decide one way or the other before I commit to buying something.
Still, I understand the suggestion - it's the same way when I was buying headphones. You have to see how they sound on your equipment, so back then I had bought 3 pairs all at once to trial them for a week each, and returned whichever ones didn't make the cut. The difference, of course, is that headphones occupy dramatically less space than a TV.. haha.
 
- Rear Projection TV - You can still find em occasionally, even in HD. Generally not worth it in any way.

It was too bad so many people saw it this way. I bought an 82" Mitsubishi DLP 3 years ago for about $2K. The picture quality is very very close to CRT, and we are still on the original bulb. And the thing is on probably 10-12 hours a day.

Sadly Mitsubishi has stopped making DLP televisions. But they had a quality, a film quality, that you don't get with the panel TV's. You don't get the pixilation, and you don't get the "clinical" crispness. Things I never cared for when watching a movie.

Would buy another if I could. In fact the only negative about it is the thickness. 18" seems so unthinkable now-a-days where TV's are measured in millimeters.
 
That's why I'd prefer to find a store that has a good showroom so I can firmly decide one way or the other before I commit to buying something..

If you live in a large enough metropolitan city there are probably some "home theater" stores that have a more natural viewing setting. They will charge more because they move a lower volume of goods.
 
I don't think a projector is really viable for us, haha.
We don't have a large enough clear wall to project onto, not the mention nowhere to put the machine, and I don't feel like drilling into the ceiling.

Anyway, I'm still trying to look for some good stores and/or showrooms, but from everything I have read so far, it seems that in my living room LED might be better than a plasma.
For one, it is far brighter than any showroom I've seen so far, since it's lit by 2x2600 lumen tubes (equivalent to around 300W of incandescent bulbs) and all the walls are white. And that's during the evening hours. During the daytime, our two windows are set directly across from the TV, behind our sofa, so on our CRT TV the windows reflect off very clearly, making it hard to see. I have read about some matte plasmas here and there, but I'm not sure how common they are.

On the other hand, an LED TV would most likely be bright enough to power through the brightness of the room, as well as almost always come with a matte screen. The problem though is off-angle viewing. Not everyone watches from the sofa, so off-angle viewing is of some concern. I think most displays should be OK, but considering my PC monitor is a NEC IPS, I looked into any IPS TV's. People say they are not as bright, or have way less contrast, though. Any input on this?
If I go the route of IPS LED TV, it seems the ones to look at are the LG and Panasonic stuff.

Lastly, do Plasma or LED TV's typically come with sound bars built in to them?
If not, I'll have to budget some cash for speakers.

As an aside, I spent some time reading AVSForum last night, and oh god. I literally came away wanting to punch a kitten in the throat. "Debates" over LED vs Plasma essentially became a group of 12 year olds with advanced vocabulary posting, more or less, "yes it is," "not it's not" "you suck" "you're a liar" ....yeah. For a site entitled AV Science, there was basically no science or data at all.
 
a good place to start would be AVSForum.

http://www.avsforum.com/f/

Prepare to do a lot of reading.

I could go on and on about what to look for and what not, but personally I think this is the best info. Lots of people there with first hand experience with all models of TVs. They give some great advice. Knowledgeable people over there who make it their life to know the home theater department, just like we got some serious computer people here on this forum.

Edit: Just saw your post, yeah gotta wade through the 12 year olds there, but I find that issue with most forums.
 
what to look for?...make sure you pick a plasma set...and get it calibrated if you can (and not from Best Buy)...plasma has the best overall picture quality combined with the best price/performance ratio...my Panasonic 55" VT25 from 2011 is amazing
 
freakycody: I am trying, but it's tough because the forums are filled completely with "Official XXXX Owner's Thread" and barely anything else. Of the threads where people asked for help, I saw few of them actively being replied to. Model numbers are great and all, but when you're trying to find a set, being presented with 50 model numbers and 500 page threads is a bit much. And most of them is just "Yay, I got this, here are some photos."

polonyc2: I assume you did not bother to read any of my posts in this thread, as I've detailed why I believe plasma is looking not so likely for my situation. I would be willing to give it a chance, but people really need to offer evidence that it would work well for my situation, instead of just infinitely repeating "I have a plasma. I like my plasma. Plasma is best tech. You should get a plasma."
 
if you can't control light output then LCD is your only choice...plasmas have much improved filters on them but it is always best to have at least some control over light coming in even if it's just closing the blinds...if you're not a hard core videophile then you probably won't even notice the advantages in PQ...only LCD I'm familiar with is the uber expensive Sharp Elite sets which is the only one I would even consider over a plasma (being a videophile myself)

most retailers these days don't showcase plasmas...Best Buy still does so that's a great place to go but it's not ideal due to the lighting and settings being pumped into Vivid mode (Vivid= bad)...you pretty much do have to know what you're looking for these days after doing tons of research as it's hard to compare and contrast by going to retailers and asking the reps there as most of them aren't hard core video or audiophiles
 
Well, during the daytime it's tough to control the light because the windows do get excessively bright; I've closed the blinds in the past but they still show up reflected in the glass of our CRT TV, and I imagine this would happen on any Plasma I get as well, since the majority of them seem to have glass panels.

During the evening, we always watch TV with the lights on, so that 5200 lumen of lighting is a constant.
On the bright side, the light is fairly soft, as it's from 2 tubes on the ceiling through a diffuser and reflected off white walls. Still, it is fairly bright.

Personally, I don't think I am a videophile, but I am a photographer, and an audiophile, so I am aware of the intricacies of most of these things; I just don't know what TV tech is like. I want to give plasma a shot, I really do. But as I learn more and more about its issues, the more it feels simply incompatible with our room.

To that end, I'm doing some research on the LED TV's now, but there is so much marketing speak, ugh. I've found so far from some people that LG's TVs can (do?) use S-IPS panels, while Panasonic uses A-IPS. I don't know if it's specific models, or their entire lineups. Then there's people like Samsung, where I can't tell what type of panel they use because they have marketing names for everything.
 
Well, during the daytime it's tough to control the light because the windows do get excessively bright; I've closed the blinds in the past but they still show up reflected in the glass of our CRT TV, and I imagine this would happen on any Plasma I get as well, since the majority of them seem to have glass panels.

During the evening, we always watch TV with the lights on, so that 5200 lumen of lighting is a constant.
On the bright side, the light is fairly soft, as it's from 2 tubes on the ceiling through a diffuser and reflected off white walls. Still, it is fairly bright.

Personally, I don't think I am a videophile, but I am a photographer, and an audiophile, so I am aware of the intricacies of most of these things; I just don't know what TV tech is like. I want to give plasma a shot, I really do. But as I learn more and more about its issues, the more it feels simply incompatible with our room.

To that end, I'm doing some research on the LED TV's now, but there is so much marketing speak, ugh. I've found so far from some people that LG's TVs can (do?) use S-IPS panels, while Panasonic uses A-IPS. I don't know if it's specific models, or their entire lineups. Then there's people like Samsung, where I can't tell what type of panel they use because they have marketing names for everything.

you ever consider DLP?...that might be a great choice for your situation
 
I have not considered DLP's.
It took some Googling to figure out what they were, lol. I thought they were just projectors, which I had already ruled out. If you mean those TV's that kind of look like a truncated CRT, I'm not too sure what kind of benefits they bring.
 
I just did a quick search and found that the last manufacturer of DLP sets (Mitsubishi) stopped production on DLP recently...they made some decent sets...I guess LED is your best option...check out these top picks from Cnet...they even have separate categories for best LED etc...worth a look...

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-hdtvs/
 
Haha, we're in desperate waters if we're resorting to CNet reviews.. :p

Cnet is excellent with their TV reviews...their overall rankings are also pretty spot on...great resource for those that don't want to do all the research and just want the details...you could also compare the Cnet sets with the AVS forum threads...you'll find they match up pretty well
 
All right, I will give it a shot.

Although, I would personally prefer getting a handle on the technologies they all use first, so I can accurately narrow down to a specific shortlist before looking at the models themselves. :/
 
Let me add that the lighting situation with plasma is entirely over blown. My house in phoenix (extremely bright place in the usa) had a ton of small windows all over the place. My living room wasnt a bastion of darkness and never once did I say "man theres a lot of glare" but direct sunlight sucks.
 
Let me add that the lighting situation with plasma is entirely over blown. My house in phoenix (extremely bright place in the usa) had a ton of small windows all over the place. My living room wasnt a bastion of darkness and never once did I say "man theres a lot of glare" but direct sunlight sucks.

I'll second this. While I live in Ontario (Much less sunlight than Phoenix), I have double sliding glass doors right beside my Plasma TV, and it's manageable. The Window has those crappy plastic blinds that are like 4 inches wide and there are dozens of them dropping down. They do NOT keep light out effectively, but despite that, the TV still looks great, and during the night, it's just a whole other world of complete awesome.
 
Yeah, I'm hearing more and more that new Plasmas are quite usable in brighter settings.
Unfortunately, the Achilles heel seems to be that almost all of them come with a glass screen, which I need to avoid due to our windows being directly opposite the position of the TV. If our windows were to the side of the TV, I'd be much more willing to give it a shot.

I went to look at some more TV's today, at a cheap little local Asian electronics store.
The store was extremely bright, as the storefront was all glass, and I went there right before noon. They didn't have any plasmas, but I went to take a look at the LED TV's, since I knew they had a variety of the new Samsung sets there, including the F8000. Unfortunately, it seems like even most of those use a glossy coating nowadays. It seems like it'll be even harder trying to find a TV with a matte screen. :(

I did compare a random Samsung model (something in the 6000 series, I believe they're all edge-lit anyway) to a nearby LG LN5300, which I believe is both IPS and direct-lit (according to LG.. whether that means it's a full array or not, I have no idea.) Colors aside, they were pretty close, although the Samsung did seem to win out in contrast since I believe they use *VA panels. On the other hand, both extremes seemed less detailed than the LG, so I don't know.

I can't really say anything too concrete, since they were also streaming crappy Youtube-quality videos through a bunch of 1x4 HDMI splitters along the wall.
 
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