Video Asylum

Posted by Rich H (R) on May 21, 2002 at 08:06:12

In Reply to: Re: Why is Plasma better??? posted by djlackey5 on May 21, 2002 at 05:36:49:

"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.