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In Reply to: Re: here's the buzz posted by Rich H on January 06, 2002 at 21:04:13:
first let me correct myself on the noise claims I made above:last night i had another insomnia session and stayed up intermittantly reading David McCullough's "John Adams" and watching the Weather channel. with the amps off (no audio) i could hear a faint buzzing at my listening seat ~12 feet distant, comming from the panasonic. be advised that it is an order of magnitude lower in volume than the buzzing from the 27" CRT I had there before. the sound is only detectable when you are perfectly still in a very quiet house, and even then you must concentrate to detect it.
the set is on a dedicated line with a technical ground, but there is a 500 watt halogen torche lamp in the room--i can't be certain why i was able to hear the tv last night--because the snow outside made the background noise even lower than normal, because of the halogen lamp, or some other interference...
it would be fair for me to wait and life with the set for a few weeks before i post hyperbolic performance claims.
there are no dead pixels...and since i haven't seen any i'm not going to look. the build quality is what you might expect for a set that costs $5500. but in all seriousness, you can't honestly think of the plasma viewscreen as a machine: there are no speaker grills, knobs, buttons, lights or wires--it truely is a free-standing work of art--nothing like a television. It is art, pure art. It is entirely new. It is the future.
I have not yet received the component cables or wall mount bracket from the company i ordered the set from. The video input is from a Monster Silver S-video cable feed from the Sony SAT A50 digital satellite receiver.
There is an enormous variation of signal quality in NTSC broadcasts. Despite the fact that satellite transmissions are all digital and should not suffer from the kinds of transmission degradations to which analog signals are prone (some digital cable transmissions are analog--"digital cable" is a marketing term, not a fact of life), this wide variation in signal quality is readily apparent with a satellite feed, and viewing these signals with a high-fidelity monitor only makes this even more annoying.
C-span and PBS seem to have the most consistant quality of signal, and the FOX network is consistantly the worst signal, though any "live" broadcast tends to be the best quality of which NTSC is capable. NBC has the widest variability--going from the best to the worst at any given moment. A live C-span broadcast is a sight to behold--deep blacks and crisp borders, with colors that make the French impressionists look like monochrome. The movie channels TCM, AMC are very good, especially when they send a cinemascope or "letterbox" signal. Very satisfying! Some of the commercials are broadcast in widescreen with amazing fidelity...I hadn't realized what a wide variation there is.
Since I don't have the componant cables yet I can't say what the 480i signal from DVD looks like and how well the de-interlacer in the panny works. The S-video feed from DVD is wonderful...I'm trying not to get ahead of myself before I run out of superlatives. I can say that the 3:2 pulldown is wonderful! I love black and white films, and viewing film noir on the panny is a royal treat!
In summation, based on 480i DVD and NTSC thru S-video, I can say that the major problem with the panny plasma is "garbage in, garbage out".
it does a great job of scaling, de-lacing and 3:2 pulldown, but when you see a good signal displayed it raises the bar far too much for the kind of crap you too often get with NTSC (how many transmissions even are in 240i? some of them look like 50i !)
Follow Ups:
Thanks Pete.One last question (I think):
I'm sure you must have done some plasma research on the AVS forum (?). Given all the possible problems associated with the Panny - which it seems you've happily dodged - how did you end up deciding on buying it?
Did you look at any other brands? (The NEC 42MP3, perhaps?).
(Sorry, I'm taking time away from your viewing time here :0)Rich H.
once I'd decided on a plasma it wasn't hard to find the best one: the 50" panasonic with a 1080i source looked so much better than anything else even a blind person could see it. The technology is the same in the 42" model--with fewer pixels, hence the not-ready-for-HD designation (no 42" model is true HD--they just don't have the pixels to qualify--the Achillies heal of fixed-pixel displays. the only true HD plasmas are 50" and above).models I auditioned: Sony, Pioneer, Fujitsu, NEC, Hitachi, Philips
of these the NEC was second best (by a considerable margin, in my opinion, but priced $thousands less). I didn't like the styling of the Sony, as I prefer a black bezel, which is more neutral and blends well with any decor.
the Fujitsu had the worst picture. the Pioneer was the least expensive (they can't give them away). the Philips was the most overpriced (value/cost)
the NEC 42" you mentioned is a great value/cost, but it's picture is not in the same league as the panasonics, and the arrangement of the input board (on the side) means you have a bunch of cables dangling along the edge--which ruins one of the coolest things about plasma.
the panasonic input board is in the middle and arranged so that you can hide all the cables behind the set--thus giving that very cool
"art on a wall" picture frame look.so the decision of which plasma to buy was a no-brainer: there really is only one brand (today--next week somebody may discover the next technology breakthrough). in fact, many plasma manufacturers share the sourcing for the glass and even the electronics, and just slap on the name of their company as it's being loaded in the boxes.
panasonic bought the glass technology company and does their own electronics, so their set is all in-house technology--and it shows.
the real decision was whether to buy the 50" HDTV or the 42" EDTV.
as I mentioned previously, I simply drew the two sets on the wall and sat in the listening chair to see how it felt. The 50" set really dominated the wall of the family room, which I thought would cause endless battles with the wife (I could live with it). And I knew that most of the programming I'd be watching would be NTSC broadcasts, which have such unpredictable signal variation (from OK to unwatchable) that I'd have to get the Faroudja Native Rate video processor (which is built-to-order for your fixed pixel display: can take a bad NTSC feed and make it "good", takes an excellent 1080i HDTV signal and makes it "AWESOME!!!") which would add another $5000 to the price. Add the cables and HDTV satellite box and whatnot and you're at $20,000 easy.but the real reason: I couldn't get the 50" panasonic because every distributor I called was out of stock and on backorder. I couldn't get one for love or money. They had one at the Bang & Oldson store in the mall but wouldn't sell it for any price. People will do anything to get them: there's a blank spot on the wall of the Tweeter's in Wilmington because somebody broke in the place at night and stole the plasma right off the wall. It's the only thing they took. I understand.
I'd been calling around for weeks and finally got one guy who said a shipment of 42"s had just arrived would I like one of them today because they'd be gone tomorrow. so I said hell yes. hell--I honestly believe I got it the same week it was built!
Anyway...I just love it. I really really love it. It's beautiful.
Here's an interesting review of the 42" models from Sony and Panasonic:
"...I didn't like the styling of the Sony, as I prefer a black bezel, which is more neutral and blends well with any decor."I agree Pete. With light colored bezels I find myself constantly aware of the bezel; that the image has been framed and contained. This adds another layer of visual distraction to the experience. I find the Panasonic bezels are the best, being extremely dark (which is better with letterboxed images, so the bevel does not contrast sharply with the dark bands), and the fact that they are extremely thin bevels. When I see the Panny, I'm aware of the image and only the image, like a big wonderful picture cast in the air.
I'm glad you pointed out the cabling issue with the NEC vs. the Panasonic! It's been almost impossible to find someone who has seen both those models. (BTW, can you confirm that it was the newest NEC MP3 that you saw, not the earlier MP2?).
I agree about the Panny 50." Nothing really touches it. My local stores have 42, 50 and 61" models spanning brands from Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Marantz, Pioneer and Fujitsu. The Panny 50" is the clear winner to me. It simply has the clearest, creamiest, most noise and artifact free picture of all. When looking at a shot of the blue sky on most plasmas I'm aware of pixelization and processing errors. On the Panny it's like looking at...the sky.
I'm in exactly the same decor situation as you regarding cabling/size of plasma/size of wife's temper. I find the extra pixels of the 50" definitely make a difference in the way sharpness is extended to the smallest of objects in the picture - something the 42" models have a bit more trouble with. However, the 42" inch looks so bloody awesome it's easy to forget such quibbles. Besides, the 50" in Canadian dollars is only for rich guys.
BTW, Pete, do you notice something about reviews in the Home Theater world? They don't really talk about the viewing experience the way we audiophiles get into the subtleties of how various equipment effects the listening experience. In a HT mag review, all products, especially display screens, either pass a similar set of A-B-C-D tests or they don't. A plasma or LCD projector either has black levels "as good as" a CRT or they do not. As if these tests told the reader just what the screen looked like. There is very little prose devoted to how the differences between displays actually affect the perception of the picture (like publishing only the specs of an SS amp vs. a single-ended 300B tube amp, without any mention of how the sonic experience contrasts with each amp). Any display can be "clear," "rich," "colorful" ...but Plasma pictures look decidedly different - smoother and more organic - than other designs, yet I rarely see such things discussed in these terms.
Anyway, have fun.
Rich.
what's puzzling about the whole business of High Definition video is how little anyone seems to know about it. After all, High Definition has been around for 20 years, 30 even (I do believe that HDTV has been announced as "comming" every single year since 1970, which by the way was the same year we were told that "In 20 years all the oil will be gone!"Well, here it is 30 years later, and you still can't get HDTV (except in Japan) while gasoline is more plentyful and less expensive than at any time in it's history (in the US).
So I suspect there's a fraud, a vast Right Wing conspiracy to prevent the far left Liberals from seeing The West Wing in 1080i.
Take the high-end retailers for example. It used to be that automobile salesmen were the kings of not knowing a damned thing about the products they sell, but today, here in the 21st century, it's the people who sell audio/video. They are the most clueless bunch since the Republican Congress that thought they could force Bill Clinton out of office (only Bill Clinton himself could do that, and even he had a hard time of it).
And the entheusast magazines and websites...even worse! They spit and foam and spew as if they know what the hell they are thinking, but if you look behind the curtain, what you'll find is a direct connection to the advertizing/marketing consultants of Madison Avenue.
Their knowledge only goes as far as the colorful brochure, if that.None, I say again, NONE of these (pardon the expression) salesmen have this gear in their homes, and they wouldn't dream of trying to install/hook it up themselves. They know better. There's probably only three people in the world who know how to dial in an HDTV antenna, cable and ground it properly, figure out the best way to wire the DVD, VCR, Satellite, preamps, monitor, video processor, amps and speakers with the video in such a way that you can get by with only 65 remotes, and two of them never leave Japan.
I've been to every audio/video store within 2 hours drive of my house and not a single one has a single person who knows more about audio and video than I do, and I don't know shit.
Need any more proof? OK, check out the inputs on the Panasonic TH42PWD4: there are two High Definition inputs: RGB/component on BNC, and the 15pin sub D.
Now, check out the Panasonic TU-HD20S HDTV satellite receiver: it outputs component video on **** RCA JACKS **** and doesn't even have the sub d output. WHICH MEANS PANASONIC'S HDTV SATELLITE RECEIVER/DECODER IS INCOMPATABLE WITH PANASONIC'S BEST TELEVISIONS!!!!!
No wonder everyone in the asylum is insane.
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