Video Asylum

Posted by Rich H (R) on April 09, 2002 at 19:06:01

In Reply to: Just one persons opinion.... posted by Joe S on April 07, 2002 at 09:28:00:

Joe,

You've summed things up real good-like.

I find myself in agreement with almost every observation you've made - particularly those about Plasma screens. Ever since seeing the Panny 42" I've been smitten.

What I really enjoyed about your post is your description of the difference between the Plasma picture vs. "all-that-has-come-before-it." I agree with you about the amazing natural quality that a plasma can produce - a quality I'd never experienced before encountering that technology. But here's what puzzles me: It's rare that A/V people actually get around to describing that fundamental difference in quality between plasma and other screens.
In the Home Theater mags, for instance, all monitors are rated along a set of "objective" tests. The monitor either passes the tests, "does well” or is given some numerical rating on each parameter. Plasma screens are put through the same tests, of course.
Yet so little prose is spent trying to impress upon the viewer what the "experience" of viewing the monitor is like.

Same goes for the A/V forums. There is much more specsmanship, and very little discussion of the subjective effect of viewing each product.

I guess I come from the touch-feely world of audiophiles, were we are always trying translate our subjective experiences to other audiophiles. And look: I had to come to an Audiophile site to finally see a decent description of video monitors!

Well done Joe. I completely agree about that unnatural "CRT-Glow" you talk about vs. the Plasmas more natural illumination. A local high-end A/V store had an HDTV feed of a baseball game playing on every type of screen, all within eye-shot (CRT, RPTV, LCDPTV, Projection, LCD, PLasma...). The HDTV feed looked great on all of them - sharp and clean. But every monitor still looked like "TV." Except the Panasonic 50" plasma. It looked more like watching a real-life game through a window than I'd have imagined was possible.

So, like you, I went through the same torturous, head-spinning regarding what to do/when to buy. How did I stop the pain? I bought the Panny 42" plasma :-)

Rich H.