Video Asylum

Posted by Rich h (R) on November 22, 2003 at 13:41:45

In Reply to: "Best" 50 inch plasma screen type trauma posted by peter earnshaw on November 21, 2003 at 13:33:47:

Peter,

Joe, as usual, covered pretty much everything beautifully.

I'll just add a bit of my experience:

It is really, tough evaluating displays in store set-ups. I have never, ever seen a plasma, or any display, look as good as it can in a store -- even in "high end" AV stores. They just don't set them up with the care of the coconscious home owner.

Whenever I audition a display, and I've auditioned most of the best CRT tube sets, CRT RPTVs, DLPs/LCD RPTVs, and almost every plasma out there, I make sure I have control over the picture settings, that it's in a dedicated set-up (no split-feeds to other displays) and when possible control over the surrounding lighting. Not everyone is as pushy as me :-) So I think I have a pretty good handle on plasma vs the competition.

If you saw one of the better plasmas (Fujitsu/Panasonic/Pioneer) and were not impressed something was wrong with the set up or picture settings. I own the Panasonic 42" ED plasma and it displays one of the best DVD images I've ever seen in terms of richness, clarity, depth, dimensionality, smoothness, lack of artifacts and sheer realism. Virtually every guest who watches a movie on the thing, and that includes quite a number of my fellow AV geek pals, are just awe-struck at the impact of the image. (The Panasonic model, and the Fujitsu that use the Panasonic glass, have deep black levels that allow the picture to look even better with the lights out. Whereas some other brands with less stellar black levels look more washed out when you lower the lights. But you'll never see how good these things look until you see them "home theater style" in dark lighting, were the detail, vividness and dimensionality take on another level).

So...yeah, plasma definitely can dish out the goods picture-quality-wise, and they are worth pursuing.

BTW, here's a link to screen shots I took of movies playing on my plasma:

http://www.pbase.com/chunkofunk/screen_shots_gallery

Rich H.