Re: 7/28 - SONY attacks Plasma TVs in Full-page Ads (Sonv LCD vs Plasma)

Remember when Sony was crying because the prices of flat panel tv's was dropping too low?

I love it.

As far as LCD vs Plasma is concerned it all depends on various factors. I used to have a Sharp 52" LC52D62U which is an LCD TV. It had a nice image but also had a slight "banding" issue. It has 1080P, 4ms response and everything else but the blacks werent as good as I liked and the viewing angle sucked big ones when compared to Plasmas.

I now have the Pioneer 50" 1080i plasma 5080HD and this thing blows the Sharp in terms of picture quality. This thing blows almost every 1080P tv out of the water hands down! CNET.com gave this tv their editors choice award for best flat panel on the market...did I mention it's 1080i?

My advice is do some research and check it out with your own eyes. You be the judge as to what you like the best but I can tell you big stores like bestbuy may not be the best place to check out tv's. For one thing the place is HUGE, too much lighting and the sales staff know very little and give a lot of misinformation.

I guess since plasmas are so clearly inferior to LCD I should throw away me new Panasonic 58" 1080P Viera. I must have been blind when I thought I was seeing those bright vivid colours, deep blacks, and overall beautiful picture. Also, since my home theatre is set up in my basement I have never had the pleasure of all those reflections plasma screens are supposed to produce...
I guess I better buy a Sony LCD.

Hey all. I have a 50" 1080i, Panasonic plasma and an upconverter that goes up to 1080i. Will my SD movies look better in 720p or 1080i? BTW, I have an HDMI cable connected from TV to my cable box and one connected from TV to my upconverter.

And, while I'm playing Little Nell from the country and picking my nose...if I have $300 and want to jump into the new hi-def disc format, which should I buy, HD DVD or Blu-ray?

But really guys, pretend you don't work at Best Buy or Circuit City and have real and sensible answers.

Thanks in advance.

jswell said -

Quote:
"Hey all. I have a 50" 1080i, Panasonic plasma and an upconverter that goes up to 1080i. Will my SD movies look better in 720p or 1080i?"

720p probably, since the processing/deinterlacing is better in the DVD player (than the Panasonic plasma, from various reviews). Use the HDMI input obviously for the best image quality.

SD movies have a native 480p resolution, so going to 720p or 1080i is an artificial upconversion, so if it's set for 1080i you aren't really going to get more REAL resolution (1080i) from the disc, but the progressive signal processing of 720p is usually better than the interlaced processing of 1080i (and 720p upconversion closely matches the native resolution for 720/768 TVs, like your plasma).

However, IF you have a TV with native 1080p resolution, you may see better results by upconverting SD to 1080i, and let the TV handle the progressive/scaling of the signal, since it's "1080" on both ends, with no downconversion. Of course, this would depend on how good your TV's processing/deinterlacing is, as some don't deinterlace 1080i properly [picking up the 3:2 pulldown sequence of film signals].
So, your mileage may vary!

Because your Panasonic plasma has a native progressive 768 resolution (all signals are converted to 768p), I would upconvert SD to 720p for it (less artifacts and jaggies), than 1080i. Panasonic plasmas are great, but they don't deinterlace film signals as good as the DVD player will (see Cnet.com reviews), so it's best to send progressive signals to Panny plasmas, like 480p/720p/1080p, rather than interlaced (like 1080i), although most HD cable/satellite content is 1080i regardless.

Hope this helps.

-Love Hendrix! (The Loverboy)

[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on Nov 9, 2007]

just the kind of bs from a company that slagged off both lcd and the superior plasma (imho), then had to back peddle when no one was buying there tv's
and as a point of fact, burn in is worse on my lcd....i use it as a pc monitor and it takes days for any marks to go...have yet to see any burn in at all on my pioneer 50" plasma......
ill stick with plasma anyday of the week......short life span my ass

Thanks Hendrix.

The thing I hate most about plasmas is the reflective glare on the screen. That's why I went LCD and I'm glad I did.

hoodaguy said -

"

Quote:
The thing I hate most about plasmas is the reflective glare on the screen. That's why I went LCD and I'm glad I did."

But when viewing with the lights off (dark room), the plasma produces the most lifelike, realistic, almost 3-D image, with incredible contrast... LCD looks bad in a dark room, with very weak black levels (grayish blacks), and poor color accuracy compared to a plasma. I watch most of my movies with the lights off, and I'm tired of my Sharp Aquos [great in a brighter room], so I'm going to upgrade to a discounted 50" Panasonic plasma within the next month.

-Love Hendrix! (The Loverboy)

For your eyes health, it is better to watch tv with some sort of light on, or small dim light.....soyour eyes pupil wont work so hard

but for comfort, most people do it

Turning off all the lights still doesn't get rid of all the reflection though. In dark scenes I could still see the door to the hallway and the fridge - which drove me nuts.

Plus I'm not a big fan of burn-in either... on one of my older TVs I had burn-in from just the black bars at the top and bottom of movies!

Don't get me wrong, plasmas look great in the store and right out of the box. But they aren't the best for every household and they still do have a lot more problems than LCDs. It also depends on the quality of the LCD as some are MUCH better than others (i.e. the Sony Bravias are pretty sweet).