TV Plasma/LCD/LED advice

[naughty]

Makes sense.

And 3D players ? Cost-wise, they go for around R2k + right ?

the sony ones are around R2200 - but there is a samsung 3D model that Rish_ZN got for R1500 - feature wise which is very similar to the sony models

[MazdaFan]

Bloody hell, I just checked on FotoDiscount's website, and they now have stock of the D550 TV. 

I called the guy to see if I could swop my D490 for the D550 and pay in the cash difference, as the only reason I bought the D490 was because they told me on Saturday that they would not be getting any more stock of the D550, as it was a clearance item.

Am I being cheeky in asking to upgrade to the D550, obviously if I'm willing to pay the price difference for it........ ?

Surely the Full HD capability is worth the extra R1800.

[LAV]

Am I being cheeky in asking to upgrade to the D550, obviously if I'm willing to pay the price difference for it........ ?

No, squeeze them, they gave you the wrong information.

[MazdaFan]

I called the Mall@Reds branch, where I bought it from, and they now say that the only one they have in stock is the display unit.

Ag well, I'm actually happy with the HD Ready unit I have, so I guess I'll just keep it. *shrugs*

[naughty]

Surely the Full HD capability is worth the extra R1800.

this depends - on what your primary source is - if its blu-ray all the time then yes the 1080p would be marginally better because you would not make out the downscaling to your naked eye but it definitely will be a little better

if your source is primarily TV then IMHO the HD ready is quite substantially better - here in that instance when the low res TV signals are upscaled it is easier to see how pixellated and blocky they become at extremely higher resolutions so for TV i am more of a fan of HD ready but for blu-ray i would prefer "Full FD"

so its not an easy answer unfortunately - and to make matters worse i think that 3D will probably look better in 1080p as well - so its a complicated situation at best and depends mostly on what your source is going to be

Ag well, I'm actually happy with the HD Ready unit I have, so I guess I'll just keep it. *shrugs*

well i was happy with my HD ready version and im also happy with the full HD version that replaced it but to be honest as an all rounder functionally i really really thought that the HD ready had the advantage since it lost minimal picture quality in blu-rays but was vastly superior for TV and i really really enjoyed TV with that advantage ..... for now im getting used to the worse TV picture on the full HD but watching blu-rays definitely justifies having the higher end TV even though its only slightly improved .... then again in this industry sometimes slightly improved can be a matter of spending twice the amount of money so any improvement has a to be regarded as a good thing

[kay]

Just to throw my 2c in there, we've had our Samsung plasma for over 5 years. We don't watch any broadcast TV, just a fair amount series/movies and gaming. The ratio of gaming to video content is probably close to 1:1. So far no issues and definitely feel disappointed after watching a movie on any of my friends' much newer LCDs. A high end LED-lit LCD is another story, but then if you're spending R40k there are some killer plasmas in that price range too.

Ours doesn't have particularly great black depth and yet the perception of contrast and colour saturation is far better than run of the mill LCDs. Motion handling is another strong point, as is very good handling of SD material. There's something slightly fuzzy to plasma pixels that gives it a very film-like look; something I don't see in anything but the very latest high-end LCDs. Ok, ours is only 720p, but Blu-ray still looks incredible at 3m or so. I've only ever noticed the resolution limits from interference patterns / jaggies on very fine textures. This is a natural effect of the square pixel grid and sampling, going high res just changes the frequency at which it occurs. Maybe with 4K we won't notice it anymore at regular viewing distances...

Would love to upgrade to a current-gen 55-65" plasma this year - there's some great deals out there.

[perfectionist]

well i was happy with my HD ready version and im also happy with the full HD version that replaced it but to be honest as an all rounder functionally i really really thought that the HD ready had the advantage since it lost minimal picture quality in blu-rays but was vastly superior for TV and i really really enjoyed TV with that advantage .....

Naughty, one thing you need to remember is that your 720p plasma was one of the few that were around at the time and the technology on it was different. When you had your plasma were LCD's on the shelf? I think they were still in their infancy back then and i am convinced that the manufacturers have lower the light output on the new plasma's sothat it makes the LED/LCD displays look more attractive.

[naughty]

Naughty, one thing you need to remember is that your 720p plasma was one of the few that were around at the time and the technology on it was different. When you had your plasma were LCD's on the shelf? I think they were still in their infancy back then and i am convinced that the manufacturers have lower the light output on the new plasma's sothat it makes the LED/LCD displays look more attractive.

the LED/LCD displays may seem more attractive at first glance but for some reason or the other the instant the picture moves i see only blur - and my eyes are supersensitive to the motion blurring so the only time that LED/LCD looks much good to me is on still pictures - and who watches a Movie on pause 

so despite the lower light output on the plasma's i reckon i still wont shift from plasma to LCD until i am forced to ie when they make plasma totally obsolete

[gifs]

The lower light output of plasmas are only apparent in brightly lit areas such as the stores where they are sold.

This unfortunately gives many people the impression that they are inferior. But put that plasma in a normal lounge or TV room environment and it is more than bright enough.

[tmavf]

What no love for Panny Vieras?     I guess their marketing is not as good as Samsung.

You guys can't compare technologies at different price points... eg. entry level plasma with high end LCD/LED

FWIW I have a plasma.

[KennyR]

Hi

I'm not gonna mention price/cost of unit. A decent plasma a cheaper than a good LCD/LED.
Im gonna focus on main difference.

The Plasma
Positive points:
a) Refresh rates o are extremely high. Like 600Hz for example. So fast action movies and sports are brilliant.
b) Contrast ratios are extremely high. From blackets black, to the whitests white.
Almost No current LCD can beat these specs to date.

Negative points:
a) very reflective screens
b) not all of the are Full HD
c) used more power, and that means it get HOT..
d) those "burn marks" or artifacts on a plasma that you do get if a still image is on there for tooo long
e) but the main issue is, that the plasma cant handle its great performance, when there is too much natural light
a plasma works best when to room is dark to very dark. during the day when you open your curtains for some light and want to watch some tv, you will notice that, plus the fact
that the there are reflections on it.
If you read this thread, you will see that most guys here have a dark setup room or something....

The LCD/LED
btw.. the LED came out to try and compete with the plasmas on contrast ratios (colour depth)
you get 2 version of the LED. The Edge backlit LED and the new FULL LED.
Edge backlit = LED in the edge of the screen and the it projects the dark backlit to the center.
Full LED = LEDs all over the screen - This is the one you want!!!! But this screen COULD/CAN also have some strange artifacts on the screen due to manufacturing issues...

Positives:
a) Has very good performance during well lit or dark rooms
b) not reflective
c) will last you a lifetime.. (much longer viewing hours than a plasma
d) uses less power

Negatives:
cant compete with the plasma on the refresh rate and the colours....
....................
I have a 42" LCD from LG for a few years now. Their Scarlet range; LGs top of the range models, and now i think its call the "Infinia range" .
main specs: Refresh rate of 120Hz true motion, and 100 000: 1 contrast ratio. Paid R9000 at the time.
What a screen!! and works pretty well!!
..............

The plasma technologies are being pushed again. And Panasonic is leading the way.
I was fortunate enough to view one of their new plasmas of last year. the GT30/VT30.
Oh my... A bit thinner, a bit lighter, nice looking screen (not too fansy like samsung that looks pretty...)
But one can see they focused on the issue of plasmas.
Less reflective sceen, Less power hungry (maybe 30-40% less).
No wonder Panasonic won awards, 2 years running for their plasmas (the VT20/GT20 and now the VT30/GT30)

Now, we just need to find them in SA, we will ALL be winners!!!!!!!!!!!!...

[Shonver]

Sunday morning. Feeling a bit lazy, so I'm sommer gonna quote some post I made earlier. Here goes:

e) but the main issue is, that the plasma cant handle its great performance, when there is too much natural light
a plasma works best when to room is dark to very dark. during the day when you open your curtains for some light and want to watch some tv, you will notice that, plus the fact
that the there are reflections on it.
If you read this thread, you will see that most guys here have a dark setup room or something....

Uuugghh!!!

Nobody thought to mention how frustrating this thing can be!!!!

I finally shot for the Panasonic 42" plasma. I'm really happy with the picture... at night !!

The problem is that our lounge is rather bright, and during the day the picture is very much diluted by the ambient light. I may be returning the Panasonic soon, and swap for a full HD LCD (Samsung, 40"). This is gonna cost either R11000~12000 (50Hz) or R16000 (100Hz). Come on, guys: which one will be more worth my while? (Noting that I do not normally have this kind of cash to throw around; I've got to make it good). I've seen the problem with displaying SD on a HD LCD: it sucks. But it also sucks that the plasma's daytime viewing performance is nowhere near the R9999 value it cost me... your thoughts?

I'm not even talking stoep. Let's just say that in my living room that has a glass sliding door to one side of where the TV is (about 2.5m away) the plasma was outperformed by the old CRT TV.

c) used more power, and that means it get HOT..

I got a huge skrik when I first felt all the heat radiated from the plasma I brought home.

I first tried a plasma screen. My living room gets a lot of light, and it actually performed worse than the old CRT TV in these conditions (too much glare, too little brightness; must I wait for night time to enjoy my new acquisition?). Then, checking the LCDs in the shops, it always struck me how much better the LCDs always looked. I asked my self, "So, after following the superior wisdom of the techie geeks, what has plasma really got you?" and, I must admit, I did not like the answer. So, I duly swapped out the unit for a Samsung 100Hz LCD, albeit at significantly higher cost, and have not looked back since. I think now (almost a year later) an LCD of similar spec would probably cost no more than R10K.

[KenMasters]

The Plasma
Positive points:
a) Refresh rates o are extremely high. Like 600Hz for example. So fast action movies and sports are brilliant.

It's easy to understand the confusion, but the 600hz of a plasma is something completely different from the Hz technologies of LCDs. On an LCD they generally refer to extra frames inserted between the native frames, whereas with a plasma, the frames remain the same.  On an LCD the introduction of these transitional frames serve to improve motion resolution, plasmas don't have that problem.

What 600Hz on a plasma actually refers to is the sub-field drive, it's the number of scans the TV does to create each frame, so a 60hz signal at 600Hz means ten scans per frame. The reason for this is to improve on traditional weaknesses of a plasma, each of the sub fields renders the image slightly differently, but we percieve them as a single frame, creating smoother gradients, reducing posterisation and such.

[SAman]

Shonver and I appear to be the only guys here on this thread who prefer lcd/led?
 I'm fortunate that i'm one of those people who isn't sensitive to motion-blur. What I do however find very distracting are the plasma cells on plasma sets - I see them as a grid, quite similar to the chicken-wire/screen-door effect that used to plague the early lcd projectors some years ago. That and the heat generated by plasma sets put me off them.
I now have 2 lcd sets: a full HD for the sons PS3, and an HD-ready one for sd dstv in the dining area where there's a lot of light from the sliding doors (I also find the HD-ready provides the best picture quality for tv like some of the other posters.
My Sammy 55" 3d led in the bedroom tho is unbeatable - bests any plasma screens I've seen in all respects. Mostly everything it displays looks almost like 3d on it, and thats without turning on the pseudo 3d upscaler on it! Sure its expensive,  but you'd have to spend similar amount for plasma to get similar performance.
So my vote goes positively to lcd/led 

[Shonver]

To each his own, I guess. But I reckon the lesson to be learnt here is do the leg work. Each person has their own criteria (consciously or sub-consciously) that will satisfy him/her. Reading reviews and listening to advice will only get you so far. Get the set into your own lounge. Return it if you're not happy (in fairness, do advise the salesperson that you're finnicky and will return the goods if his advice was wrong).