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I am more of an audiophile than a video guy. But I was looking into HDTV. Everyone says "Plasma's the best". I see how this may be true, but why?I just looked over a good site someone mentioned here; plasma tv buying guide.com or something like that. They made some points such as size, weight, brightness, wider viewing angles, and no magnetic field problems.
But are there actual differences in the video quality?? How does a 50" Plasma monitor compare to a 50" regular HDTV? Is the picture quality more or less the same, or are there differences?
Basically, I'm looking to see if there are other reasons I should look into Plasma. Not that these mentioned reasons are not reason enough! But prices aside, I'm just looking to get the best quality.
Thanks for any comments or suggestions.
Follow Ups:
nt
Thank you all for your knowledge on this subject!
I've also been looking into plasmas. Overall, I think they offer the best picture. But, the models I like, like the 50" top of the line Fujitsu or the Pioneer Elite are very expensive. Even with these models, I find some problems with the image. First, I think the black level is adequate, a far cry from the earliest plasmas. But, in order to get that deep black and avoid a washed out look, it appears to me that a lot of shaddow detail is lost. Images in the darker part of a picture are turned to black. This is particularly noticeable on the Pioneer Elite. While I like the density of the images, vs. the almost ghostly quality of RPTV, sometimes the image has an odd, unnatural texture.Someone below mentioned the Sony Wega LCD RPTV. I liked the detail of that image, but the black level and low contrast image makes the set totally unacceptable for any low light images where everything appears to be awash in a light mist.
At a dealership with a small room, I notice that the plasma put out a lot of heat. Does anyone know if it puts out more or less heat than a comparable RPTV or a LCD front or rear projection set? My other concern with plasma sets is image burn-in since I watch a lot of 4:3 programming and I hate stretched images. If an RPTV suffers burn-in, the replacement of the CRTs would be expensive, but far less than the complete replacement of a plasma set.
I agree that Pioneer and Fujitsu (and Hitachi and Sony ) still have a ways to go with their plasma technology. I saw a Runco 60" that approaches the Panasonics (ok, it was great, but also three times the cost!) in picture quality, but i happen to know that all the sets in that store were re-calibrated and set-up properly and not just whatever the factory sent out. The difference between what this retailer has on display and everything else I've seen was enlightening. If you're lucky, you get what you pay for.That being said, it's likely that ALL of the video technologies you have seen suffer from either or most likely both of these afflictions:
bad signal
not calibratedOh, and while we're on the subject of "video standard", have you considered this??
"go right to the source and ask the horse..." -- Mister Ed.
EVERY HIGH DEFINITION VIDEO CAMERA HAS TO BE CALIBRATED, AND SINCE THIS IS ALL NEW TO EVERYBODY, EVERY SINGLE CAMERA IS SET-UP A BIT DIFFERENT FROM ALL THE REST, NOT ONLY AMONG EACH NETWORK STUDIO, BUT EACH CAMERA IN EACH STUDIO. THEREFORE: THERE IS NO VIDEO STANDARD.
This didn't matter much with the old color TV cameras, because the NTSC standard was rarely what you got on your set at home, and even then, the resolution of your set after all the attenuations all along the signal path was a far cry from what the engineers saw on their studio monitors...(wait till you see the NTSC standard reproduced on your new plasma! you won't believe how good the digital feed of the 6pm LIVE ACTION NEWS looks!)
with digital HDTV, you don't get any slack: what you see is what you get. period.
Have you ever listened to the orgional Stereophile Test Disk? If you haven't I strongly recommend you go to http://www.stereophile.com and order it immediately. Listen to H. Gordon Holt's seminal "Why audio reviewers can't agree". He reads his editorial into a dozen or so microphones, and even a stone can tell when he's switched from one mike to another. Ergo: THERE IS NO AUDIO STANDARD, EITHER!!
I spent several hours chatting with the video tech at a high-end audio store. He says you need about $50,000 worth of gear to properly set-up a video system, and that anyone who thinks they have a "plug and play" HDTV system is fooling themselves. If you buy from a dealer some of the mark-up should go to pay for the video tech to come out to your house and set-up the set for your viewing conditions. Or, you can just find a certified guy and spend a few bucks for the peace of mind--considering the investment...makes sense. After a while of lying and bullshitting he let loose with some of the things he has to do to "normalise" the pictures. My set is "commercial" (not for the consumer market) and so i'm able to get into the set-up programs usually only accessable to the video techs. This is a terrible thing---I have the power to totally fuck-up my set beyond all redemption...
the horror...
(but it's good horror)The problem is that the average customer goes into the store and picks a video monitor/technology based on what "looks best". But like the novice audiophile--he picks the one with the most bass bloom and skreechie highs, and when he gets it home it drives him right out of the room.
You have to teach yourself how to be a videophile--and the process is long and requires study and work and hanging around websites reading crap like what I'm dishing out now.
Before you spend ten large on a 50" plasma, you'd best educate youself on what you are looking at and how that differs from any kind of "video standard".
It's much easier to shop for a good pair of speakers because we've all heard what a piano sounds like.
What's suprising is that we don't really seem to know what "real life" looks like--judging from what the typical video retailer is trying to push on us everybody is radioactively glowing with white levels boosted to super-nova intensities...
and how many times have you been in a TV studio to watch them broadcast the evening news or "Saturday Night Live"? believe me, with the amount of lights they use in those "live" studios, you'd be glowing as if you were radioactive too! It's not natural. What you need to do is learn to see.
Have you ever eaten poisonous mushrooms?
That's what I'm talking about. If you see HDTV signals on a plasma and it looks like an acid flashback (your mind knows it can't be real but your body is either running away in horror or trying to fuck it)...it's properly calibrated for your room. The colors are that real, and yes, it's supposed to look like Alice will pop through that picture screen at any moment...following a white rabbit.
the horror...oh, and let's not hear any more of this talk about "dead pixells" and "burn-out" or "burn-in".
dead pixells is a dead issue. if you hear someone say "dead pixells in a plasma" run away.
burn-in/out is an issue. it's an issue with CRT's too. Remember the video game "PONG"? Lots of conventional TVs have PONG permanently burnt-into the screen--it's not just a thing with plasma.
and the networks are doing what they can to agravate the problem by burning their logos into the lower right corner of your screen. why don't you write the FCC to complain? Hey, if you know someone who can write software to remove the network logos from the feed signal you'd make BILLION$!
the plasmas have built-in doublers/scalers so you don't have to watch 4:3 aspect ratio TV unless you want to. The set will automatically rescale the picture to fill the entire screen. Yes this does cause image distortion because the side image is "stretched" (like a fun-house mirror) to fill-in the gaps, but it's not as bad as you might think--mostly unnoticable, and actually quite comical in many instances. You get used to it, and after a while you won't watch 4:3 television under any circumstances.
yes i've felt the heat that some brands of plasma put out, and i wouldn't live with that.
my 42" plasma has a lower heat output than the 27" Proscan CRT it replaced. i haven't noticed it at all--perhaps because it's mounted on the wall with nothing near it so the room air flows in the bottom vents and out the top (i've never hear the cooling fan come on) along the wall right to the ceiling...anyway there's just not that much heat to begin with. Compared to the amount of heat put out by the Sony HD100 (the cooling fan runs even when it's in stand-by) and the Denon AVR-5803 (sorta like a space-heater, only hotter) the plasma screen is a virtual ice box.
Pixel burn-out seems to be a big concern. I suppose if you leave the white balance at twenty times more intense than "normal" you might experience burn=out after 30,000 hours. or you can just run the automatic screen saver program when not viewing...i know, your dealer doesn't know about this--that's why i'm telling you to educate youself. You already know more about plasma & HDTV than 99% of the people who sell them.
but people need something to worry about...
have you ever thought that terrorists might have filled the trunk of your car with high explosives?
better check.
but i digress...don't get me started.
Like many, when I set out to build a home theater, I thought plasma would be the way to go. I wanted a screen larger than any CRT could provide, and I have never enjoyed watching rear projection sets.However, after many auditions, I concluded that the picture was just not crisp enough with DVDs (and with a cable or non-HD satellite feed was just unwatchable). Now, the above poster has me thinking that maybe the shops where I saw them simply did not have them set up properly.
HiDef on plasma provided the finest picture I have ever seen. For me (and probably most people) HD accounts for only a small percentage of viewing time, so that aspect of the plasma experience did not justify purchasing one. I could live with plasma looking lousy with cable or non-HD satellite feeds (I would just watch that stuff in another room on a CRT), but needed better performance with DVD for the theater.
Do those of you who love your plasma sets really find that in DVD scenes with movement across the screen, the edges don't get jagged and blurred (my biggest gripe)???
"Do those of you who love your plasma sets really find that in DVD scenes with movement across the screen, the edges don't get jagged and blurred (my biggest gripe)???"My plasma does not produce these annoying effects. Believe me I know what you are talking about. I'm VERY sensitive to those effects and a couple of years ago I used to laugh at people who bought plasmas; low contrast, smeary motion...not for me!
The latest generation of plasmas, especially the good 42" ones like the Panny, have solved that for me. My plasma search and subsequent experience with the plasma in my home taught me how source-dependant the image on these things are. The Panny 42" was terrific enough to make me buy it, but in the store I thought I'd seen some minor artifacts on some of my DVDs, such as some figures being a little pixelated, and a bit of softness here and there.
I can unequivocably state that in my home, on the same source material, those artifacts (so minor that I was willing to live with their occaisional appearance) are flat out gone. The clarity of the image just had me laughing out loud. Motion is cleaner and somehow strikes me as more natural than even CRTs (probably because of the image quality).I am still sensitive to motion artifacts, as even the latest generation of LCD screens have too much motion latentcy for my comfort.
The bigger plasmas, 50" and up, do have more latency for bright pictures, a symptom of how difficult it still is to control plasma emissions for larger screens (in a fast switch from a bright white shot to a dark one, the white shot lags a tiny bit, doing a fast fade out). Still, I do not notice motion-related artifacts on the good 50" screens. And, in store auditions it's tough to figure out artifacts related to the screen vs. those related to the source/feed.
When I viewed the amazing Fujitsu 50" plasma showing a hi-def feed of a soap opera, I noticed that there was a tiny motion smearing effect on the actor's faces, which only dissapeared when the actor stood perfectly still. I initially attributed this to the Fujitsu processsing. Then I found out that hi-def actually can produce these effects (still has some problems with motion). I viewed some DVDs on the Fuji and that smearing effect was completely gone. Lesson learned...be careful when judging.Anyway, I think if you saw a DVD on my Panny plasma at my place, you'd be amazed at the smoothness and lack of artifacts of any kind.
(My pal who just bought a pricey DLP projector came to see some DVDs on my plasma. He was blown away, and felt that it was a distinctly better image than his display was capable of.)But then, I'm one of the converted :-)
Rich.
i watch DVD from a Denon DVD5000 output through the component RCA jacks and let the 42" Panasonic do the line doubling and rescaling.the picture is absolutely stunning, and i've not seen the diagonal saw problems, motion artifacts, smearing or pixelation problems others have described. not all plasmas are alike, and you certainly can't go by price. Panasonic has done alot of work on these technical issues and it shows in their sets.
i have seen them occasionally with the satellite feed, and had considered a video processor from Faroudja or Runco, but was told by the tech at Overture that it wouldn't help a bad broadcast signal.
garbage in comes out as really big, stinky garbage...not much you can do.
I agree with Rich: the retailers are clueless about showing what the palsmas can do. best thing to do is try and see one in a home.
For the money, I am not sure it's better at this point. Eventually plasma or some similar technology will dominate television sales. I have been extensively checking out the best plasmas (Panasonic, NEC, Fujitsu, Sony, Pioneer) but I always find an artifact or color aberration that deters me from spending the money. The best and biggest picture I have seen for the money is the Sony LCD rear projector model KF-60DX100 Grand Wega for $5900. It has nothing to do with their Wega direct views but it is a very sweet high resolution picture.drobo
Good question. It seems you've become aware of some of the technical areas in which Plasmas excel (and hopefully the few were they do not).But the whole picture quality thing is still quite subjective, and there are lots of display technologies out there, so obviously you should let your eyes decide.
HOWEVER, that said, I can give some subjective comment on the picture quality of plasma vs. other types of screen (I just bought a Panasonic 42" plasma).
A/V magazines tend to evaluate every display device along a common set of technical parameters, and then tell you how the screen "performed" on a technical scale. What the magazines normally fail to convey is how each screen technology looks different from the other. Each produces a different "feel" viewing experience, which is obvious to anyone who strolls through a well-stocked AV store. (Coming from an audiophile perspective, this really annoys me about the Home Theater gear reviews).
Anyhoo...I found that a good plasma offers a wonderful, new viewing experience - one that I'd never encountered before seeing a plasma.
"Organic" is the best way I can describe it. The picture can be so clear, so clean, so naturally smooth, and so vivid and *dense.*Compared to Plasma: CRT screens look softer and fuzzier to me. RPTVs look soft too, more washed out, less punchy and dense (although they can look nice and cinematic). I also intensely dislike the hot-spot illumination of RPTVs, as it feels like the projector light is being shone into my eyes. As far as Video Projectors, excepting the most insanely expensive set-ups, most strike me as a sub-par version of a "real" film projection experience. Also, cinematic as video projectors can be, they can never offer the incredible "looking through a window at real, solid objects" vibe that I see on good plasmas. I was watching Shrek on Panasonic plasma and it was amazing how tactile the image looked; like I could reach out and touch Shrek's spongy bald head. When the dragon blew fire at the screen in the movie, the fireball approaching me was so vivid and dimensional I swear my skin flushed, as if it were bracing for the fire to wash over me. I've just never really had such amazing viewing experiences with any other technology.
In my case, I'm a movie nut. But it was plasma and only plasma that convinced me to spend my hard earned bucks to upgrade from my (very good) CRT. It boiled down to this: all the other technologies offered to my eye a visual experience that was a below-par substitute for "real film projection." Plasma doesn't necessarily look just like projection, but it offers a viewing experience that in *some ways* even betters what I see in the movie theater. (And this comes from a very dyed-in-the-wool movie theater nut - I have until now always dismissed the home-theater experience).
There ya go. A personal testimonial. Get out there and look at a plasma with your own DVDs. Maybe you should hope you aren't impressed as I was...they are still expensive :-)
Another thing: if you think the plasma (or other display device) looks good in the store, it will likely look even better once you get it home, with a good feed and properly tweaked picture. Stores usually have their screens set-up with crappy split feeds and poorly calibrated screens.Rich .
Rich,Hey glad to see you got your Plasma! I've been following your posts ever since you got your first view of a "good" Plasma screen in NYC. Which I'm assuming is the one you purchased. It was kind of cool seeing your progression from someone who thought Plasma was weak to someone who enjoys it. And I'm sure you did a lot of research along the way before purchasing.
I thank you for your thoughts.
I've got a question for you: What source (besides DVD) are you feeding the monitor with?? Such as for viewing TV; satelite, cable, HDTV tuner? I'm just curious because I'm a cable service technician and I'm always in people's homes and see a lot of what our cable service looks like on HDTV's. 90% of the time it looks pretty crummy because of the source. Cable TV is just not high resolution. Although in a few cases, the image was fantastic. I'm assuming that this is where line-doubling comes in. I'm not too sure, I'm really an audio guy. But in most cases it looked very digital, with loads of artifacts. But I have NOT seen a plasma screen with cable.
And also, are you viewing any TV material in HDTV such as CSI or Jay Leno (I think he's in HDTV) How much material are you seeing broadcast in HDTV? I'm hearing that there is a lot now, but I'm just curious how much is retrievable with just the HDTV tuner without satelite. This may be a whole seperate topic of it's own. Becasue it sounds like you're mainly using it for viewing DVD's.
Again, I thank you for your time!
haven't seen the new digital cable feeds because i dumped my cable service years ago--the signal quality varied from just OK to horrible, with all kinds of audio bleeding into the system (ham operators and hot-rodded trucker CBs ), and went out of service frequently for hours at a time especially when there were thunderstorms, but sometimes for no reason at all. They don't give you a rebate if you lose service for a day, nor do they apologise.so i went to Directv and have never had a problem, except for the occasional very brief (1-2 min) loss-of-signal when a particularly thick thundercloud was directly between my dish and the satellite, but that is quite rare. most thunderstorms do not block the signal enough to lose the lock.
for network stations i use a UHF antenna in the attic and take ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and a few PBS stations right off the air (and it's FREE!!) in the digital bands. The networks occasionally broadcast in HD, like for the olympics (FANTASTIC PICTURES!) or some feature film event, otherwise you get a very good digital picture in 4:3 format (with the gray sidebars). Some shows like "The West Wing" are broadcast digitally in "widescreen" (not high definition), but the taping of that show is done on 1/2" used VHS tape and has the worst lighting and resolution ever broadcast for TV. The show looks like it was taped underwater and dubbed six times then suffered signal jamming on the bounce from LA to NY. So I watch it on the satellite feed and adjust the parameters--even then the color is so bad it's better in black and white.
The PBS stations are great. They have an all HDTV demo channel with music that is mesmerizing--this is the stuff that will show you why the plasma phanatics have gone bonkers about the light, colors, and 3D quality of their sets. When you see an "off-the-air" HD broadcast on a plasma you will understand what all the fuss is about.
I too have the 42" Panasonic. It has a built-in scaler/doubler that upsamples your input to 480x756. You don't need a 480p DVD player to get the best picture with this model. The high-definition 720p and 1080i signals are down-converted to 480p, since this model is not HD capable (that's why you want a 50" set!).
That being said, a 1080i HD feed looks much much better than a 480p feed--don't ask me why. Even though the 42" Panny is not HD capable, it's awfully close--to me it wasn't worth twice the price to have certified HDTV.
I'm using the 18" round dish with the single LNB that i had installed a while back, but upgraded from the Sony SAT-60 to the HDTV capable Sony HD100 tuner/sat receiver. This unit will take off-the-air, cable, and satellite feed and output every format currently in use around the world: it is the "universal translator" of television. Very highly recommended. To get HDTV from the satellite I'll have to intall the 24" x 18" dish with dual LBNs. I'll be doing that in a few weeks. So far I think the only HD signals from the satellite come from HBO and the HD network, both of which are premium ($$) options. But the regular digital broadcasts on satellite are very good quality, although it does vary from network to network--C-span is consistantly the best quality signal and the Republican-affiliated stations (Rupert Murdock, etal) are the worst.
BE WARNED that a bad signal looks really really bad on a plasma, and no amount of rescaling and line doubling will help that. There will be times when you wonder if you were nuts to spend so much more to get a plasma screen, and then you'll switch to the PBS HD channels and go WHOLLY SHIT THIS IS FARKIN AMAZING!!!!!! Yes you keep forgetting how good HDTV is, and other amazing things too--like the extremely good picture and color of the old television shows like the origional Star Trek as compared to their "new and improved" counterparts on pro video tape, like "The Next Generation"--which looks horrible on the big screen (pro video tape is no match for film).
Perhaps that is another reason the networks are so slow to switch to all HD broadcasts--it makes their post 60's syndicated videotaped shows look so bad--and yet The Beverly Hillbillies and The Three Stooges look fantastic!
Also, I love the fact that you can hang this TV on the wall like a fine work of art, and get rid of all that TV furnature you used to have cluttering-up the room. Mine is mounted low (at couch-potato height) with all the wires hidden between the studs behind the drywall. Even when it's off it looks fantastic. Visitors don't know what it is. How cool is that?!
You must have the set re-calibrated. They come from the factory way way too hot so they look good in the store. Since you've spent so much to get a 50" plasma you should hire a professional video technitian to set-up and re calibrate for you in your home. If you leave it as delivered you will burn out early (on some models you can access the set-up menu and turn down the white level, but then you have to adjust the black levels too so you might as well hire a pro to be sure you don't screw yourself)--and you won't be seeing everything you paid for.
then again, if you wait a week or so something new in plasma will happen--the price keeps dropping and the quality keeps getting more awesome, if that's possible.
usually they release the next generation about a month after you buy one.
Bruce tells me about the 43" HDTV Pie-in-ear set right after i bought the 42" EDTV Panny...
the horror...
Pete,Two things:
1. Have you had your Panny calibrated? I figure I'd like to get around to it, but I'd appreciate a little report on the results from you. Is it all pluses, or any minuses to a calibrated Panny? I sheepishly admit I'm a little afraid of loosing the amazing dimensionality of the out-of-the-box picture (what with those stratospheric contrast/brightness settings - although a tamer brightness setting would likely be more soothing in the long run).
2. I evaluated the HDTV Pioneer 433HD before going for the Panny, and still chose the Panny. Pioneer is great: sharp, vivid, punchy, and even has pretty good black levels. But it still lags behind the black levels produced by the Panny. When viewing dark movie scenes on the Pioneer I found myself wishing for the Panny blacks (instead of the pretty dark "gray" of the Pioneer). Also, the Pioneer tended to fling digital/video artifacts in my face. So, while the Pioneer can be spectacular with the right source, the Panny offers to my eyes a smoother, "deeper," more pleasing picture on a wider variety of sources. (And with the Panny blacks I never get that feeling like I'm making a trade-off, moving from CRT to Plasma).
Rich H.
Tom S linked me to a FAQ Panasonic site that was a great help in getting my 42Panny back to "normal". I can't get the link to work now but the address is: http://www.creath.net/plasma/faq.htmlemail me if you can't get it and i'll see if i can send you a copy of the instructions.
I spent several hours chatting with Jamie at the Overture store in Wilmington and he convinced me that I need to hire him for the final calibrations. I'm moving to a new home in a few weeks so I thought I'd wait 'till the audio/video room is done before I have him come out. (and...well...don't tell the wife but....((the horror)) ).
But yes I did give up alot of the wonderful glowing color and contrast that you see with the "factory" settings, and yes, it wasn't easy. After a while you will "see" that the correct settings are much more real, and going back to the factory settings will make you insane. Do you like the sound of Bose? Cerwin Vega? Know what I mean? You have to do this Rich...you can't stay high forever (do you hear me Timothy Leary?)
gotta go Rich...be back later
pete
... but how can i reach that hidden menu stuff?
I would like to know how to reach it, to see if i could enhance my image, but i don't even know if the service manual is sold at Portugal.
Can you tell me if there is some kind of key combination at the remote control? or else...Thanks.
Pedro.
Thanks Pete.Rich
I'm basically an audio guy too :-)Sorry, but I'm not in a good position to enlighten anyone in regards to plasma performance with cable/sat. Mine is so new I haven't even had it installed yet. So, I have not hooked it up to my cable box (I'm going to experiment with cable vs sat at some point). I have seen quite a few plasmas run with cable and SD and the pictures were all over the map. Some poor, some good, some great, depending on the station signal. Frankly I hate digital compression artifacts more than analog distortions. A local store has the Panasonic plasmas (mine model included) hooked up to cable and they look pretty good. I can say that, unlike many of the "digital/HDTV-ready" CRTs I've seen, the Panasonic plasmas don't seem to add annoying digital artifacts to the signal. It all depends on the signal itself.
I'm very curious how my cable is going to look on my plasma. However, as you noted, I bought the thing to watch movies on DVD, as I do not watch much broadcast TV at all. So, for me if I loose some signal quality on broadcast the compromise is still worth it.
Of course, I have hooked up my DVD player to the plasma and run through most of my DVD collection...entranced. I was very happy to find that the little qualms I had with this plasma in the show room (I thought I'd spotted pixelation here, softness there, poor de-interlacing there) are virtually absent in my home. Combined with my Panny RP-91 DVD player I just cannot believe how clean, sharp, smooth and artifact-free the image is - like nothing I've seen before.
Best of luck on your plasma education :-)
Rich.
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