New HDTV purchase, need advice

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Biggrich76

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 16, 2005
Messages
411
So, I'm in the market for a new HDTV which will be used for my main living room, watching Blu-Ray, high def cable, sports and playing Xbox 360. I am mainly concerned about color reproduction, black levels and motion blur. My current 37" Vizio LCD is a few years old and does poorly in all those areas, so anything is an upgrade at this point.

I think I have my choices narrowed down to the following 2 ;

1- Samsung LN40B630, 40" LCD with 120hz @ 1080p

2- Panasonic Viera TC-P42S1, 42" Plasma @ 1080p


Anyone have personal experience to share with either of these models? Pros/Cons of either?

Image Retention and Screen Burn shouldn't be a problem with the plasma since I don't watch the same station(s) or play games for hours at a time. And I'm not really worried about viewing angles on the LCD since it's a small living room and will be mostly watching from straight on.

Thanks in advance.
 
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OK, It really boils down to LCD vs plasma and most on here will sware up and down that Plasma is the way to go. I personally have a Samsung LN52A650 and my brother liked it so much he bought a LN52B750 (got a great deal at Frys). The reason why is that you have watch plasma in a dimely lit, or dark room. If you like to do it with the lights on then LCD is the way to go. What I am saying is that it really depends on your viewing environment. I like to have people over for a game/fight/race and this almost always includes food and beverages, plus my house has windows in it, lots of them. The other thing I do not like about plasma is that I am bothered by the 60 Hz flicker. This should not be a problem on a 40 inch screen, but you may notice it. I also suggest going with a larger screen if it is possable. 40 inches will start looking small once you see someone else with a 50 or larger.

To other posters; I am not trying to start any arguments, so lets try to remain objective here.

Thanks Dave
 
As long as you don't leave it on for a while and mind the larger power draw , Plasma is nice. Plasma's usually have glossy screens that I really cannot stand. LCD is nice, but not as vivid color, and not as good black levels. Technology has advanced alot, so I wouldnt count either out, but LCD is my choice. On the 120 Hz side, I used to work in circuit city a few years ago, and upon seeing a HD DVD 120 Hz copy of Pirates of The Carribean, I couldnt stand it. Have you watched 1080p in 120 Hz, it looks a little tooo real. I honestly felt like I was watching a play or actually being there in front of the actors. It took away from the 3rd wall perspective, and I didn't feel like i was in a different world, or another time and place, but a broadway set.
 
I will take my plasma any day. My biggest gripe about the LCD is the motion problems they still have. Things move fast and your image gets distorted. Have the LH90 47" from LG, which has the TruMotion 240hz (yea right) and backlit LED and it still doesn't look right with motion, whether TruMotion is off, low or high. I mean it's a great TV but still, my plasma was $400 cheaper and I like it more. The LCD does do well with blacks, but it's still not up to par with the plasma.

Given that my LCD has better specs than the one you're considering, I can't imagine it would be any better, and probably worse. For your concerns of black levels and motion blur, plasma is the only option in my book, at least with a fixed budget.
 
IMO, you cannot go wrong with the Panasonic Plasma.
The Samsung is nice but the Panasonic is better.
 
I have a plasma and still prefer a plasma. So lets debunk some myths here from the first reply. Plasma's which by the way usually start at 50" do not suffer from a flicker to the bare eye. Plasma's have richer color saturations than LCD's, better viewing angles (make sure you watch an LCD on the showroom from all the possible angles that your guests might be watching it) than LCD's and contrary to what the poster was saying does not suffer from having to be in a dark enviroment to watch them. I would think that maybe they were referring to rear projection large screen's or maybe DLP (no idea about dlp technology).

I have had my Hitachi plasma for three years and recently went shopping for a new LCD, after spending two days looking at all the coolness of the new ultra thin Samsung's with the $1800 plus price tags I could not find a reason to change TV's. I actually was wanting to go a tad smaller than my current 50" because the room it is in really does not need that big of a TV. My daughter disagrees :D

At any rate that annoying glare you see on a plasma is not really a glare, most of them have a glass covering to protect the screen, to me that means no little fingers touching the crystals and possibly screwing up my investment.

Lastly Plasma's play games like Xbox's etc.. flawlessly....
 
Is it true you gotta be careful when you move a plasma tv about keeping it rightside up (cant set it down)?

And I still got a bad taste in my mouth about alot of the original plasma's that came out that I see around that lost there brightness. I dunno if this is still a issue.. and I hear burn in isnt anymore. I have allways had lcds.. about 15 tvs all LCD.. latest is the new led backlit vizio 55 inch... good for the price ($1899 when I bought it).

Anyways long story short.. If I didnt have SO MANY phobia's about plasma I would say comparing the 2.. That Panasonic picture should be superior... I allways like there plasmas just allways ended up going the LCD right for one reason or another..
 
Hah.. I wasnt even paying attention.. I got the same tv hanging in my bedroom (the samsung)... The speakers SUCK on it. But besides that I dont have any gripes about it. A solid television.. oh yeah one thing is.. I used it to play computer games before for like 2 hrs. Compared to even my crappy hanns-g 28inch monitor.. the contrast was crappy.. and the color pallet seemed lacking if that makes sense.. (like it showed less variation in color and contrast..) This is not noticeable when I played 360 or ps3 on it though... or watch regular tv.
 
i'm not buying squat till i see an affordable OLED tv :D too bad i'm not gonna be buying squat anytime soon!
 
Biggrich76 said:
So, I'm in the market for a new HDTV which will be used for my main living room, watching Blu-Ray, high def cable, sports and playing Xbox 360. I am mainly concerned about color reproduction, black levels and motion blur. My current 37" Vizio LCD is a few years old and does poorly in all those areas, so anything is an upgrade at this point.

I think I have my choices narrowed down to the following 2 ;

1- Samsung LN40B630, 40" LCD with 120hz @ 1080p

2- Panasonic Viera TC-P42S1, 42" Plasma @ 1080p


Anyone have personal experience to share with either of these models? Pros/Cons of either?

Image Retention and Screen Burn shouldn't be a problem with the plasma since I don't watch the same station(s) or play games for hours at a time. And I'm not really worried about viewing angles on the LCD since it's a small living room and will be mostly watching from straight on.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Unless you get the V10 or Sammy ^650/860 Plasmas I wouldn't touch a plasma unless you like medicore whites and monitor quality contrast (they do have deep blacks though).

the Samsung 630/650 are way better than the S1. Check out

http://www.digitalversus.com/
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/
http://hometheatermag.com/
http://www.televisioninfo.com/

For in depth reviews, contrast/black depth iny info color accuracy, ect check out these sites.
 
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NCX said:
Unless you V10 or Sammy ^650/860 Plasmas I wouldn't touch a plasma unless you like medicore whites and monitor quality contrast (they do have deep blacks though).

the Samsung 630/650 are way better than the S1. Check out

http://www.digitalversus.com/
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/
http://hometheatermag.com/
http://www.televisioninfo.com/

For in depth reviews, contrast/black depth iny info color accuracy, ect check out these sites.
Click to expand...

Mediocre whites? Sure plasma elements won't sear your eyeballs like some LCD backlights, but even in low white scenes the S1's color quality kills most sub $1000 LCD's I've seen and the viewing angles and response rate more than make up for any shortfalls, especially for HTPC usage.

Also, the S1 is rated highest in its category at the last link (televisioninfo) amongst all others in its class. NeoPDP's really are good for the money. I looked at the 40" B650 before I bought my TCP-42S1, and the LCD just didn't seem like it was worth the money especially considering the viewing angles, response time, energy efficiency, lack of input lag, and similar price tag of the S1.
 
NCX said:
Unless you V10 or Sammy ^650/860 Plasmas I wouldn't touch a plasma unless you like medicore whites and monitor quality contrast (they do have deep blacks though).

the Samsung 630/650 are way better than the S1. Check out

http://www.digitalversus.com/
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/
http://hometheatermag.com/
http://www.televisioninfo.com/

For in depth reviews, contrast/black depth iny info color accuracy, ect check out these sites.
Click to expand...

And http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=9

Dave
 
Actually, some of those reviews are making me want the Panny more. I realize I'm not buying a "top of the line" set, I was going for more "bang for my buck" than anything but I don't want to sacrifice good performance.

My living room is only about 12 x 8, so I'm going to stick with the 40-42" range and move my current 37" Vizio into the bedroom.

http://hometheatermag.com/ - This place reviews the Panasonic G10, which is similar to the S1 just with less bells and whistles (same panel, same processor, etc). From what I've been reading on AVS Forums, the S1 can achieve similar picture quality as the G10 through some service menu tweaks.

Appreciate all the input so far, there is a lot of good points made here. If anyone has pictures/personal stories about these sets, please keep sharing. I'm not going to be making my purchase until March so I still have some time to research.
 
If it helps any, here my personal review of the 54" S1:

Part 1/3
Part 2/3
Part 3/3
*watch in HD* (~30 minutes total)

The TV is great for gaming, as input lag is basically non-existent (I didn't test). Phosphor trail is also not a problem, as you NEVER see it. The only way I can see it a little-tiny-bit is in the forest fight in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but that's it. Don't go by youtube videos on that, as the camera records it, but you never see it in real life. Kind of how you see scrolling bars when you record a CRT with a camera, but you never see that when you watch it in real life. Another reason why it's great for gaming is because motion is EXTREMELY smooth, as long as it's displayed at matching fps rates. 30fps video and 60fps games looks very smooth, but 24fps movies make judder somewhat apparent.

While the S1 has no blurring problems, it does have distortion. However, this only happens in Cinema mode. The other modes don't have that problem, but have color and sharpness problems, so I guess is a matter of which problem you can live with. It also has very apparent grain around everywhere, and it intensifies depending on the color, or if there is motion. This grain, sadly, cannot be eliminated by changing picture modes.

There is also banding, but I noticed this became less and less of a problem as I used it. Brand new was very OUT THERE, but 25 days into using it, the banding was not really a show stopper. While it never bothered me watching movies, it was a problem while browsing the web. I never knew if the color change was intentional, or the tv playing tricks on me.Speaking of that, the S1 has internal reflections. So if you read white text behind a black background, the text will reflect itself in the glass, making you see triple. That's right, the original, plus 2 extra reflections (one on front, and one behind).

Now, Image Retention (IR). While the S1 is pretty much bullet proof against actual burn-in, IR can happen in as little as 1 minute. So for instance, if you watch a channel that has a clock in the bottom that says 7:32pm, and you switch to a movie with black bars straight away, you will actually see the numbers 7:32pm for a while. IR doesn't go away fast unless you put some moving content with bright colors over it first. A work around that problem, is to run the built-in anti IR scrolling bar right before watching a movie, that way the screen is nice and clean before you start the movie. If you don't, you can loose shadow detail, as the detail merges with the IR from the show before. Also, when there is a change of chapter in a movie, where the screen might go pure black before showing the next scene in the movie, you will see a black screen with IR over it, instead of pure black.

The only show stopper for this TV is the black levels. I had to return mine because it was loosing contrast as time passed by. It got to a point where it wouldn't even reach reference black, let alone below black level. It fixed itself after a few days, and then the problem came back. Read online and you will hear about this problem, but most people online experience a somewhat different problem. Some get their black levels double and never come back, while mine just started crushing the contrast, and sometimes increasing black level. Either way, is very apparent according to all the complaints, that the G12 Panasonic have problems in that area.

I would say, the S1 is a great tv for you purpose. I see how it can look like garbage as a PC monitor, but that area is often very strict, as using it at so close for such long periods make all the problems more apparent. If you are not in a hurry, you might want to wait until the S2 comes out, which should be around March.

If it helps your decision any, I returned my S1 and plan to change it for a LN52B750. I know that's a few notches above the B630 you have in mind, but at least you know what I mean. For my purposes, I think I'd rather stay LCD. This doesn't really apply to you, as you don't use it as a PC monitor, so you won't see the disadvantages of plasma as much as I did. But the black level problem, that's a biggie. So either risk it with Panasonic and their fluctuating black levels, or risk it with Samsung and their poor customer service and high failure rate. All I know, is that those companies should be ashamed. I currently own a 37" 1080p LCD from Westinghouse, and this baby is going strong. I've been using at least 10 hours a day for god knows how long, and it keeps going strong. Sure, it has it problems, but it damn sure is reliable.

Ok, I'll let you make up your mind. See the review, and let me know what you think. If you have questions, just ask me. Ok, good luck.
 
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