Video Asylum

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on October 10, 2009 at 13:46:32

In Reply to: RE: Went to Costco to buy the New Vizio locally dimming LED LCD, BUT walked away with Plasma posted by Jon L on October 10, 2009 at 09:09:27

About the best I've seen online for the 58" B550 (next model up?) is $1700 + $100 shipping.

"...but my room is not light-controlled enough for plasma, not to mention the $$$ I don't want to spend on 60+" plasma."

It sounds like it was just too good a deal to pass up for almost 60 inches of glass, considering you mentioned that your room was light-challenged. What most people fail to realize is that the average person works during the day, so the majority of viewing will not be under poor conditions (lots of light). Now, on the weekends that changes for some people with lots of windows or life with others who think every light switch in the entire house must be in the ON position.

"Same HD signal was feeding all of them, and by God, the Samsung plasma had so much more depth of colors, almost scintillating realism, and I just "felt" better looking at it. In particular, the moon-lit small ocean waves just looked alive, and I felt like I was actually there!"

Like its forefather, Direct View CRT, the "realistic/like being there/like looking through a window" presentation is due to the emmisive nature of plasma. Using phosphors, these two technologies actually make their own light, rather than trying to change the properties of a light source (which creates the artificial look) or by forcing light through a barrier to light transmission in order to get the picture to you. With plasma and Direct View CRT, the picture starts at the glass -- it doesn't have to pass through a filter (LCD, LED LCD) or screen (LCoS, DLP) to get to your eyes.

I wanted to get a new plasma last year, but then I learned that some new technology was going to be implemented with this year's models. Unfortunately not all of it was implemented, so next year may be the year. It will definitely be at least a 65" plasma: I just don't know if it will be the consumer or broadcast version.