Purchasing: Plasma/DLP/LCD?

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melteye

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I am looking to buy my first television and was looking for some advice. I am looking to spend less then $1200 for the largest quality screen possible.

I read comparisons between Plasma and DLP televisions and came to the conclusion that plasma would be a better option for me as I can mount it on the wall to save space in my 800 square foot condo and I don't watch TV often (less then five hours a week on average so far) so the 30,000 hour life of quality image isn't a major concern.

This means my main motivation for buying the plasma is size and viewing angle and the con of having a non-replaceable bulb is a non-issue. I have also read that plasma screens are not optimal for use with a computer... I will be using a computer/xbox as a movie player so this may be an issue but I could not find much documentation on this.

I am not sure if I will ever have cable/satellite but this is a remote possibility, I will be watching DVDs and backed up content mostly. Also do modern LCDs still suffer from the ghosting issues while watching movies?

I am a completely new to televisions so any help would be appreciated.
 
Brilliant plasmas..I have the 42PX80, the PZ's younger brother. Can't go wrong with them.
 
melteye said:
Anyone have experience with the Panasonic 46PZ80U ? $950 at Costco
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I recently bought the TH-50PX80U (50" 720p) from Amazon for about the same price, free delivery.

Amazing picture - I wasn't sure about Plasma before I bought it, but I couldn't be happier with my decision. My neighbor's 46" Sony LCD is too crispy looking - harsh picture. I also wasn't sure about 720p, but I wouldn't do it differently if I had to do it again. Absolutely beautiful. I couldn't tell the difference between 720 and 1080p from couch distance.
 
Plasma VS LCD vs DLP.....so much to discuss.

Usually the cheapest size to cost ratio will come from a DLP. They do suffer from poor viewing angles. If you buy a DLP that uses LED instead of a bulb, you never have to worry about dumping $300 every so often on bulb replacements, as that is a thing of the past. I would recommend the Samsung 750 DLP series if you go this route.

If you go LCD, they are great for pretty much everything. Of course their blacks might not be as nice as the best plasmas, but they make great screens for PC use, as well as gaming and movies.

It seems like plasma might be your best bet. Panasonic and Pioneer are great brands. The Panasonics might be your best bet at that price range. Even the 720p ones will look great for movies and consoles. Not so much for PC use. If you can't grab a Panny, maybe look at some of the Samsung ones, unless of course you can grab a nice Pioneer for a good price somehow.

Just some basic ideas.
 
Forgot to add.

I have not noticed any screen lag when watching movies on modern LCDs. I own a Samsung 650 series (pretty decent LCD) and it has no problems. I've also owned a Samsung 550 series (you could afford on of these at a decent size with that budget) and noticed no problems with movies either. In fact, movies had no lag on a Westinghouse 1080p LCD either.

If you go plasma, you might notice green trails after some moving objects on black, called phosphor trails. Google it.

Best place to read about your options would be AVS forums, or audio video science forums.

Word.
 
I appreciate the input. I will be using a laptop/desktop on this monitor occasionally (or more).

If you go LCD, they are great for pretty much everything. Of course their blacks might not be as nice as the best plasmas, but they make great screens for PC use, as well as gaming and movies.
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I will mostly be watching movies in low light conditions so it seems plasma is best for that, although how do plasma's compare to LCDs in terms of use with a computer If I choose to purchase a 1080? Or are plasmas just inherently bad with computer use.

DLP's are priced great for how huge they are but I don't think I can fit one in my condo (but if the performance with movies and computers is comparable to plasmas I may be able to fit it in somehow).

Best place to read about your options would be AVS forums, or audio video science forums.
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I'll check the forum out, thank you.
 
I got the 42pz80u for ~850 and I can say it's a fantastic tv for the money you spend for it.

In my opinion, black levels and shadow detail are far more important than a little color accuracy, and I found that after a good deal of research that the plasmas will trounce an lcd in that category(DLP tv's were not really a consideration given my situation), so it turned out to be a much easier decision than I thought. A word about burn in and image retention would be that they're practically a non issue for the 80 series panasonic tv's, provided you use the pixel orbiter and conservative picture settings for the first 100 hours. For example, I'm using this tv as a computer monitor right now, and the day I received the tv I turned it on and went off to play some l4d for 3 hours straight with no perceptible image retention even on a bright white screen. Picture is still amazing on the conservative settings and will no doubt get better once the I'm over the break in period and use well calibrated settings.

Take it with a grain of salt, but I'm thoroughly satisfied with this purchase so far, and I don't expect it to change over time.
 
How do you think the plasma is serving you as a computer monitor? Is text readable as well or do you just use it for gaming? Also I've heard complaints about the brightness of plasma's, have you found this to be an issue or is this coming from people who watch TV in bright rooms.
 
Yeah that's a good question due to plasma's notoriety for being very grainy looking. I too thought it might be a problem for text and general desktop viewing, but it's really not. Straight out of the box I noticed the text wasn't very crisp and irc text looked a little wonky, but it all went away after setting the sharpness up to 70 and configuring windows cleartype to de-alias the text.

If I had to come up with one downside to this screen, it would be the fact that depending on how close you sit to the screen you may be able to discern the pattern of pixels on a white background. However, this isn't really noticeable in normal viewing conditions(and is certainly not exclusive to the plasma technology), but it may irk some.
 
Thanks for the input, it is much appreciated. I will probably go the 46PZ80U route as soon as I move into my new condo.
 
Glad to help. Also, like you said, there is a serious lack of information about plasma tvs used in conjunction with a pc on the internet(I pretty much made a blind purchase in that respect), but I found out it's great. Seems like there's just too much taboo out there against plasmas.
 
CJRP said:
Plasma VS LCD vs DLP...Usually the cheapest size to cost ratio will come from a DLP. They do suffer from poor viewing angles...
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I find the viewing angle limitations of most LCDs to be more objectionable than DLP. DLP gets darker, but LCD washes out. But I guess one has to go to the store, try to recreate the viewing angles that will be involved, and choose their poison. :)

This is indeed a huge topic. Very very generally, I think:

Plasma for best viewing angles and motion resolution
LCD for bright rooms and if static images (e.g., a computer task bar) will be viewed
DLP for the larger screens

LCD vs. plasma, I would say plasma for best picture quality head on, except LCDs, such as the Samsung A650, have caught up to many plasmas. It would of course be best to try and find some reviews with hard numbers (contrast, black level, color accuracy) to differentiate the final choices, because it's hard to make blanket conclusions with the recent advancements on all fronts...
 
Would using a computer on the plasma be completely unadvised? How long can I have a static image onscreen before image retention occurs? I will be using my computer on this screen for a few hours at a time.

If it is a major concern I could always make my vista desktop a movie and hide the taskbar.
 
melteye said:
Would using a computer on the plasma be completely unadvised? How long can I have a static image onscreen before image retention occurs? I will be using my computer on this screen for a few hours at a time.

If it is a major concern I could always make my vista desktop a movie and hide the taskbar.
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Traditionally unadvised and the manufacturers still appear to warn against it.

That said, check out posts by Nenu, who's using a Panasonic plasma with his computer and has been ok...
 
Alright, I really don't understand why everyone says not to use a plasma as a computer monitor. I've been using a 42pz80u for about two days(nowhere near the break in limit of 100-200 hours) now and even gaming with static huds and images on the screen for 4 hours straight(an mmo nonetheless), I have yet to see ANY image retention. I used to think panasonic's claim of plasma tvs being as susceptible to burn in and image retention as crt monitors were wasn't true, but now it seems like it's the truth. If there was no perceptible image retention after playing a game with a bunch of bars that never move on the screen for at least 4 hours in the first 100 hours, I really don't think anyone is going to have a problem with IR or burn in.
 
My understanding was that burn-in was a cumulative effect over time, due to how the phosphors age, not something that happens right away or overnight. I thought that if you spent, say, half the time watching 4:3 TV or 2.40:1 movies, the black bar area would age 50% more slowly than the rest of the image, and that was what is known as burn-in. So, I don't think two days would be nearly enough time to see it. I could be wrong about this though; maybe things have changed recently.

FWIW, I have seen image retention on my brother's plasma TV, and it bugs me. There's also some strange noise in the side bars area after watching 4:3 TV channels. I'm one of those people who can't stand to crop or stretch an image, so that's not an option for me.

One thing to consider though, if you do get a plasma panel, make sure it's not one of those "720p" panels that are actually 1024x768. Aside from just not being enough resolution, that non-square pixel layout could be difficult to work with on a computer, because if you feed it 1024x768 it's going to be stretched. I'm not sure what software you'd need to get it to look right - maybe Powerstrip?
 
Theoretically the image retention should be very noticeable now and get less and less later. If you just think of the phosphor brightness in terms of a half life, then the change in the beginning should be the most noticeable because you'll lose the most brightness the first time it's "halved"(hence the break in period for the phosphors burning their brightest in the beginning). True that this is all theoretical and really doesn't mean anything without hard evidence to back it up, but I will be using this tv as a monitor for a lot of time over the next week or two(primarily for gaming, so it's a real test) and I'll be sure to update on the state of things.

For the time being, what I can say for certain is that games do look amazing on this tv. The difference is really significant when compared to the old 28" HF289H I had before in all respects.
 
I bought a Panasonic 42PZ80U about a month ago. I am very pleased with it.
I used the SD Card to do my break-in when I wasn't watching anything, had about 50 nice backdrops loaded and just set to slideshow.
 
It appears I was misinformed over the phone. The $950 46" Plasma at Costco is actually a Panasonic TH-C46FD18... I can't find any information about this model.
 
As I was looking to buy from a local store so I could return if I had any problems it appears the 42PZ80U is no longer an option... I know nothing about the TH-C46FD18 and now I am unsure about buying any plasma's from Costco.

I am now looking at the Sharp Aquos LC-46D64U which is $1000 and some reviews say it has color banding issues while others say there is no banding.
 
melteye said:
As I was looking to buy from a local store so I could return if I had any problems it appears the 42PZ80U is no longer an option... I know nothing about the TH-C46FD18 and now I am unsure about buying any plasma's from Costco.

I am now looking at the Sharp Aquos LC-46D64U which is $1000 and some reviews say it has color banding issues while others say there is no banding.
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The banding I am familiar with associated with Sharp, is bands of brightness. (Vertical bands running down a dark screen, such that it's like looking through a mask when playing a dark game.) This is not a design feature that I am aware of, but a too common manufacturing defect with Sharps...

More along the lines of design, is that the Sharp does not render text quite as well as other displays due to their proprietary pixel structure...
 
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