LCD/Plasma/CRT/DLP - questions

[andrewfee]

Just to let you know, I would not recommend the Philips 37PF9830, Amazon will be collecting mine for a refund today.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad screen - infact, it's arguably the best LCD available to buy, however its price is not justified, in my opinion, and it has as many flaws as it does good qualities.

I have an extremely long post/review in the works, but fell asleep writing it last night, and haven't felt up to going back to it yet.

Normally I take a lot of photos of new gear, but after being without a display for over 4 months thanks to my Samsung going bad, I was just desperate to make use of it.

By the time I had decided it was going back, I wanted to get as much use out of it as I could, so I only have a quick snapshot taken just before it was boxed up, and a short video showing the range of colour and how saturation / brightness of the ambilight can change.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewfee/91557195/

The video is 10mb, and I don't have hosting for it. (my site has rather limited bandwidth)

[gIzzE]

gIzzE - surely that's going to depend in no small part on how good the upscaling inside the TV is? I suspect that people being most impressed with the Oppo player have got lower-end sets like the Samsung, while you've got a TV with relatively good scaling abilities, and so can get a set that spends its efforts making an SD signal as good as possible.

Very true.But I am still a believer that sending a digital panel progressive is always better than sending it and upscaled image, because your panel will only upscale again anyway, and you don't want two lots of scaling going on.
Just look at resolution petterns and you can see you loose detail when this happens.

With regards the Oppo vs Samsung thing with DVD players, anyone who recommends the Samsung has not got a clue about image quality, the Oppo is very good player, and is one of the true bargins of the moment. The Samsung on the other hand is not, I will say no more than that!

[MJ]

the Oppo is very good player

What is this Oppo I keep seeing mentioned in various posts?

[sj33]

What is this Oppo I keep seeing mentioned in various posts?

www.oppodigital.com

[MJ]

www.oppodigital.com

Thanks!

[andrewfee]

Philips 37PF9830/10

Just to say, I started typing this post on Wednesday, but ended up falling asleep when writing it, and haven't had the energy / will to go back to it until now, so things referenced at this point, are of my experiences of the set on my first day with it. The post is probably quite convoluted - it was not all written at the one time, so I likely go off on a tangent a few times.


Written on 25/01/06:
After finally getting a refund for my Samsung LE32R41BX last week, having been without it for four months, and saving up money over that time, I put in an order for a 37PF9830/10 on Amazon.co.uk. (I've had nothing but great customer service from them in the past, and they had a reasonable price)

Well, it finally arrived today, and I have to say that I am utterly disappointed in it.

I should probably start with some good points. I love the size of this thing, after a 32" LCD. Not only is the screen itself much larger, and in my opinion, more suited to my room size, but everything about this TV seems better. The build quality is phenomenal. Unlike the Samsung which, in my opinion, felt like a cheap display (because it was, really) and had a terrible stand. (it was far too light, and the television wobbled on it whenever anyone walked in the room) this screams quality. The base weighs a ton - which is a good thing. I've only tried the motor without the TV on it, as I won't be making use of it, but wanted to check it was working. The base attaches on much more securely, and supports a wider area, unlike the thin plastic column the Samsung rested on.

The surround is made of very good quality materials, and feels extremely solid / well made. This detail carries on to the remote which has a nice weight to it, but doesn't feel heavy. You're really getting your money's worth here.

This feeling of quality doesn't stop there though - with the panel itself, all 6,220,800 sub-pixels are working correctly, not a single fault. The backlight is the best I have seen - black scenes are perfectly smooth with no "hot spots" or "backlight leakage."

I sit rather close to my display, around 6-8ft, as the majority of its use is with HD material. (primarily my Xbox 360) Even this close, I can't make out the pixel structure, as it seems to have a finer dot-pitch than the Samsung, even though it is a larger display. (as it has over 1 million more pixels)

At this distance, the screen fills up just the right amount of my view - it doesn't completely fill it, but unlike the Samsung, I never feel I want to be sitting any closer. I was considering bigger at one point, and wall-mounting, but I feel that I have made the right decision on size. An extra 5" makes a huge difference - I think it works out around 30% more area.

The speakers are great for what they are - I only ever really use television speakers late at night to keep things quieter, but they sound very good. Of course some may complain that they are lacking in bass, but who would expect that from any television, let alone a flat-panel?

And Ambilight 2.0 - I love this technology. When the 9986 was shown with Ambilight, I dismissed it as a "gimmick" to try and sell their televisions, but it was only after purchasing my Samsung that I saw its potential. Firstly, LCDs are not known for their good black levels (more on this later) and having a light on in the room, preferably behind / beside the set should help "cancel out" the backlight, making blacks appear darker. Secondly, Philips are advertising it for uses reducing eyestrain. I admit that I like watching television in a darkened room, even if it's not good for your eyes, and I can often suffer from eyestrain - but I don't enjoy watching with the room light on - it pulls me out of the film too much. Ambilight not only helps with this, but can actually improve the image.

Unfortunately, it seems that for every good thing about this television, there is an equally bad thing. With 550cd/m2 output, the 9830 is a very bright display - and this can be a good thing to look for when buying a display - it means that it should last longer, as it will take longer to dim to the same level as lower brightness displays, and that it is more watch-able in very bright rooms. Unfortunately, Philips did not seem to think a backlight control was necessary - I guess they threw out "sense" and just went with "simplicity" here. This means that it has the worst black performance that I have ever seen on a display. Don't get me wrong, it does a very good job with "blacks" - there is plenty of detail in there (although not all of it, but most sets seem to do some clipping) and as I said earlier, it is a totally uniform "black" which I love; the Samsung had less shadow detail, and a far more uneven "black" than this, however, blacks are never more than a dark blue here. Turning on amblight barely makes any difference to black level performance, because they're so bright. If it wasn't quite so bright, then the ambilight might have done a better job to help improve things as it should have been able to "cancel out" some of the backlight.

There is an "auto" backlight if you have "active control" set to maximum, however this affects other aspects of the image, and is "unpredictable" making it hard for calibration. (I had planned on doing a full calibration of the set, but am now not going to bother)

While I don't like active control changing various aspects of the image, I find "medium" to be a reasonable compromise, as it adjusts the intensity of ambilight quite well. At first I was liking the "action" setting for ambilight, but this was causing me more eyestrain, not less. I've changed this to "movie" now, as it is still fairly dynamic, but not too quick to change.

I really like the effect ambilight has on the image - it doesn't "bring out the colours" or "enhance contrast" as Philips say, but really draws you into the picture. I am in a fairly small room, and it seems fill it with light and colour. Turn it off in a darkened room, and the picture seems a lot less... dynamic.

Unfortunately, there are more issues I have with it. Normally, it does a pretty good job choosing colours - they reflect what is in the image quite well, and have the desired effect. Some colours though, don't seem to show up that often. Greens onscreen often end up with a yellow ambilight, unless they are very dark and taking up most of the screen. Blues often end up close to white, and again, only if there is loads of it onscreen. Dark scenes that are mostly black & white / very dim often shows up as a dark reddish pink. Red / orange seems to be very common in general, even if there is not a lot of either colour in the image, or any at all! The good news is that, for example, showing yellow when it's mostly green onscreen, is that you only notice it if you're actually comparing the two- it still does a good job drawing you into the image if it's just out of the corner of your eye and you're concentrating on what's going on with the programme/film.

Separation has issues too - I have tried all the settings, and like medium the best, but my problem with all settings is this - if there is a bright object that determines the colour for one side (for example an orange light) and it is near the middle, it completely lights one side, and lets say the other is blue. If that orange light moves to the other "half" of the screen, there is no transition, just an abrupt change from one side to the other, and it seems to do this on all the "active" modes. (not ambience / colour)

This one's a biggie though, and for me, a deal-breaker. I don't know what kind of lights they're using for ambilight, but it's this that ultimately ruins the system. The lights seem to be refreshing at a very low rate compared to the TV (probably 50/60Hz, compared with thousands for the backlight in the display) meaning that there is a very slight, but noticeable flicker to them. The worst thing of all about this kind of light? The closest I can relate it to is looking at a flat-bed scanner when the lid is up - you see red/green/blue "rainbows" from them. So now, along with DLPs having this problem, you have an LCD with it too. (albeit slightly different in practice I imagine)

I notice this all the time when watching shows, not just looking at the lights themselves. It is particularly obvious when blinking, or turning my head to speak to someone.

I'll still be leaving it on for as long as I have the set, as I like the overall effect it has, but this is a severe disappointment.



The processing. Any digital photographer should know the benefits of "unsharp masking." This processing can, sometimes significantly, sharpen an image and bring out lots of extra detail without any side-effects such as "ringing" when used correctly, so you should be aware that I am not adverse to sharpening / detail enhancement if done well.

I didn't have any high hopes here to begin with, as no TV's processing has impressed me. I had read that the "Pixel Plus" system was modular, and that you could enable/disable the parts that you did / didn't want from it, and I suspected I would have the majority of it turned off.

This was only partly true, it seems. While most of the processing can be turned on / off, it is done so in "groups" and the descriptions for most are useless.

It starts with "digital options" in which my choices are Standard, Movie Plus and Pixel Plus 2. The description says that it allows me to set the different modes for flicker reduction, motion compensation and resolution enhancement, but I don't get informed of exactly what it's doing, and what each setting does. By turning on either of these options I have also seen unwanted contrast changes and the "sharpness" increases. The only difference I have noticed between Movie Plus and Pixel Plus 2 has been more artefacting with PP2 enabled. Despite its description, I have actually seen more "flicker" / "shimmering" with these two turned on, due to the unwanted sharpness "enhancements" that leave noticeable "rings" around objects - this is not the same as the motion compensation "halo" artefacts, as it appears on static images as well.

The motion compensation this set does is amazing - it does an incredible job making everything look very smooth. I wasn't too keen on the look at first, everything looked too "fast" but I stuck with it for a half-hour, and when I turned it back off, things just looked terribly jerky. I wish I could turn this on without the other stuff PP2 or Movie Plus do though. Unfortunately, this isn't perfect, and movement often causes "halos" around objects with fine detail, such as hair, and the image can get jerky when there is both horizontal and vertical movement on-screen at once. (for example, the credits scrolling at the end of a show with small clips of people doing something elsewhere onscreen)

Dynamic contrast is useless. At the higher levels, all it succeeds in doing is throwing away detail. It's not as bad as Samsung's implementation, but is still worthless. If it doesn't end up throwing away detail, at best, it makes the image too contrasted, so even then it's no good. Film-makers make sure that the image has the proper "contrast" level to begin with, and deviating from a Gamma of 2.2 can only make things worse, especially with "curve" adjustments like this. It attempts to correct for flaws in the (LCD) technology but has always looked better with it off on any display I have ever seen.

Digital Noise reduction is fairly useless. Normally this will remove things like film grain from DVDs which, personally, I like to see. (as it means my display is capable of that sort of detail, and it's more true to how it should be) I have read about their system being able to take care of "mosquito noise" as well as performing mpeg artefact reduction, but there was no noticeable change on BBC Freeview channels (always a good example of both problems) going from Off to Maximum reduction. I just leave this off.

Colour enhancement claims to "improve the resolution of details in bright images" in the menus, or "controls green enhancement / blue stretch," if you read the manual. I'll go with the latter on this one from what I've seen. All this does is succeed in making any foliage look unnatural, and make scenes that perhaps had a very slight blue cast look terrible.

"Active Control" - another ambiguous title here. "Constantly measures and corrects all the incoming signals in order to provide the best picture possible." This is another "group" of controls, which I wish were separate. I know that medium seems to affect the brightness / saturation of the ambilight system, and maximum also adjusts the LCD backlight with this (to far too low a level, in my opinion) but I'm not sure what minimum does. I just know that with this turned on, image quality suffered. As the auto backlight control is useless, I would prefer to just be able to turn on the ambilight auto-adjustments on their own, without having whatever side-effects there are from having this on medium.

Even when disabling all accessible processing / sharpness controls, the set still seems to be adding a lot of sharpness, which is very disappointing. Seeing as there is quite a lot you can adjust, I don't see why you can't just disable it altogether. This was a major annoyance of mine with my previous Samsung set and its DNIe processing.

For some reason though, with all the processing that this set can do, it doesn't seem to detect a Widescreen Switching Signal, and as such I have to keep manually changing aspect ratio when watching television. I also seem to be unable to change aspect ratio in 720p / 1080i, which is another big disappointment. (I know these resolutions are supposed to be widescreen only, but some sources will stretch 4:3 to fill this, and I need to be able to correct it.)

For some reason, changing to my Freeview box keeps resetting to the terrible "soft" preset, when I have it set to "personal." I can't seem to change this behaviour at all, leaving me to go into the menus and do it manually every time I switch over, or turn the set on.

Freeview brings me back to another point about the processing too - the de-interlacing; it seems to be a bit rubbish. Maybe they wasted too much processing power on the unnecessary / pointless aspects of processing, but this seems far behind the rest. I have seen countless half-frames tonight, particularly with subtitles and menus. There's been a lot of aliasing / "stair-stepping" caused by it too. This seems to happen regardless of the processing going on, which surprised me when it can do great things with motion compensation, for example.

I wish they hadn't spent development time working on pointless things like MP4 playback, slideshows, music playback etc, and more on the "essentials" like this and WSS.

[u]Continued on 28/01/06[/u:
I have now boxed up the set, and have contacted Amazon to collect it. Unfortunately they sent out the wrong courier yesterday, so it won't be going until Tuesday now.

After spending more time with the display, I have to say that, other than the motion compensation, the processing on this set is utterly useless, and Movie Plus / Pixel Plus 2 have too many other drawbacks to use it.

Image quality aside, I have had other issues with the set which, even if the quality had been amazing, meaning that it had to go back.

A lot of my time is spent playing video games, and some of my favourite games are rather old now. I have my Playstation 2 connected up via component cables for the best quality, and tried putting in a PSone game. When first turning it on, I had no image at all.

The Playstation 2 is a bit strange in that you have to manually set which mode RGB is output in - YPrPb, or RGB, it doesn't detect the cable type. As it had last been hooked up to a CRT this was set to RGB for a SCART cable. Normally a television will still display an image if it is in the wrong mode, but the colours will just be wrong. The Philips doesn't display anything, forcing me to hook up my RGB SCART cable to change the setting to YPrPb. (which then cut out the image until I turned it off and plugged in my Component cables again)

Upon turning it on, whilst loading, there were several red flashes onscreen for some reason, which made ambilight go crazy. However, upon loading a PSone game, I was greeted with a completely garbled image which was scrolling vertically.

Unfortunately I only took a video of this with my camera, and not any photos, so the image I have of this fault is rather low quality:



This alone was enough to force me to send it back, but the problems didn't end there.

While the fault is noticeable elsewhere when watching television / films, it is particularly obvious with games - there is a terrible amount of "ghosting" with certain colours. The Xbox 360 menus are the perfect example of this though - black text on an orange background results in large "ghosts" (about 1cm) all around the text, which should not be there. (there is a slight grey "shadow" that is supposed to be there though, but this was not visible, either due to some processing going on, the excessive sharpening, or the ghosting. This made it harder to read, and in some games, gave the effect of them looking very low resolution, which is totally unacceptable for a ?2500 television. I have seen less ghosting with composite signals on other televisions, and this was in 720p via component!

I have an "Oppo Digital DV971H" upscaling DVD player, which is regarded by many to be one of the best DVD players around in terms of image quality - it really did look superb on my Samsung. I stuck in Avia first, to do a quick "calibration" of the settings, and as I believe I mentioned before, even with all the processing off on the TV, noticed a significant amount of sharpening being applied.

What's worse though, is that over DVI, or HDMI, I could not get an image with a PAL signal, regardless of which resolution was chosen. If I set the player to convert to NTSC, everything was fine, but it wouldn't play any PAL discs properly. (on the good side, Pixel Plus 2's motion compensation did a great job cleaning up the conversion, so motion still looked perfectly smooth - at least I assume it was that, as I haven't really tried the PAL > NTSC conversion on the player before, but hadn't heard great things)



When Philips have been discussing "ClearLCD" they have often mentioned a "sample and hold" effect that LCDs have which causes your eye/brain to "see" motion blur, even if the panel itself wasn't blurring at all. I didn't really believe them, and figured it was just marketing talk to try and "sell" ClearLCD.

This panel has the best response time of any LCD I have seen - it is the only one I have ever seen that has not had any "smearing" or "trailing" of colours, or had the edges of colours change with fast motion. (on most LCDs, a fast moving red object will often have an orange edge to it, for example) It was really nice to see an LCD for once that didn't trail in dark scenes, or when dark objects moved over something light.

However, with one LCD problem gone, another shows up. The lack of any sort of "smearing" on the panel really makes the "sample and hold" blur effect noticeable. More-so than panels which actually smear the image a little; somehow this "hides" it. This resulted in an image which, to me, was unwatchable at the price.



I'm sure there was actually more I wanted to talk about, but I honestly can't remember what else was wrong with it, as I have had it off and sitting in a box for a day or so now.

The image quality, at times, when everything "worked" was incredible, some of the best I had seen before, and I'm sure it would have got even better if I had done a full calibration on it. (greyscale adjustments etc)

However, at ?2500, I really thought this would be "it" and I would have been able to stop searching for a display I'm happy with. Unfortunately, as I have probably mentioned several times now, for everything good, there is at least something equally bad.

It is the best LCD I have used, but in doing this, it has also highlighted a flaw in the technology that I had not really noticed before.

Now, I know that no display will be perfect, but I do not feel the television in any way lives up to its ?2500 price-tag. After boxing up the television, I watched a couple of DVDs on my Powerbook. The 17" LCD is far from being the best around, but it is fully calibrated, and the backlight is adjusted to an "ideal" 100cd/m2 output, resulting in far blacker blacks than the Philips ever had. The viewing angle is pretty crap, but the images looks great when you're sitting in the "sweet spot."

I actually enjoyed the films more, and was more drawn into them on this "tiny" screen at about 50" away than I ever was on the Philips. While it does trail a little on some colours, it does not show up the "sample and hold" effect which looks worse, in my opinion, and the unfiltered, unprocessed image showed up far more detail and resulted in a "sharper" but more natural image than the Philips ever did.



Now, don't get me wrong - this is still probably the best LCD television available right now, and if you have one and enjoy using it, then that's great! I want to love it, but it's just not for me. If you do like yours, and are happy with it, then I envy you, as I'd love to be able to sit back and relax, and get totally immersed in films / games on this beautiful big screen. It does have many good qualities, but I wasn't happy with mine. ?2500 is a lot of money for a television, and while I wasn't expecting perfection, even at that price, I did expect a lot more.



Unfortunately, this leaves me with a bigger problem now. As I said, I really thought that this would be "it" - I thought that perhaps spending this much money on a television would mean that I'd get an image I was happy with, but it's only made things harder now. It has now completely put me off LCD televisions due to "sample and hold" and the ambilight has shown me just how little I can tolerate 50/60Hz flicker now. (but I'm really going to miss the overall effect of ambilight if I get another screen)

DLPs are said to have better blacks than LCDs, but are out of the question, as I see the "rainbow effect" all the time when watching. Ambilight also showed to me that I would not "get used to it" as many DLP owners claim.

As I spend a lot of my time gaming, Plasma is out of the picture thanks to burn-in / image retention. I understand that they are much less susceptible to this now, but it would always be in the back of my mind when using it, and there is no cover against it if it does happen.

I can't tolerate the flicker on CRTs now, or the processing that goes on in 100Hz "flicker-free" ones. After seeing high resolution images on a display, and the difference progressive scan makes, I do not think I could not go back to 480i / 576i either.

Projectors are out of the question, as my room just isn't suitable.

So I have ?2500+ to spend on a display, and there just doesn't seem to be anything I'd be happy with. Unfortunately I don't have any sort of display now (gave my old 28" Panny CRT to my parents) and really do need something but I don't even want to spend a couple of hundred on a CRT, as I feel that money would be wasted, because I would not be happy with the image.

[Roost]

I don't even want to spend a couple of hundred on a CRT, as I feel that money would be wasted, because I would not be happy with the image.

No disrespect intended, but i'm so glad i'm not you!!

I noticed a few times how you said certain things were bad on the phillips or ok yet bad on the Samsung. I don't notice any of these things at all, downloaded a 720P trailer of Narnia on 360 today, i just sat there in awe.

Goodl uck finding a screen you will be happy with, but by the sounds of it you may need to be a little less anal as it doesn't sound as though you'll find a creen out now that will impress you enough

Good luck.

[Leon Retro]

Thanks for the impressions Andrew

I have had my eye on the Phillips for a few months. After reading a lot of negative things on the AVForums I decided against buying one, and your post reaffirmed my feelings. It's no doubt a good tv, and can display some impressive results, but it has far too many bad points for the price.

I don't see many new 37" lcd's coming out over the next 6months, so I am thinking of getting a JVC 37DM6B. This is the same as the DS6B but with a fast response panel driver, which is said to improve motion quite a bit.

Andrew. Have you used the JVC DM6? If so, what do you think of it?

I really like JVC, and their range has received great reviews. Even though the resolution is bog-standard, I think it's a solid performer!

[andrewfee]

I haven't seen the JVC, but as I said, with its 6ms response time, there is no longer any trailing / smearing on the Philips, but once this goes away, you still see blurring from the "sample and hold" LCD effect, which is there on all LCDs, but is normally "hidden" by slower response times - there aren't any "typical" LCD motion problems here. (especially with Digital Natural Motion enabled)

Personally, I'm not going for another LCD due to this though. I'm sure it's fine if you're happy with LCDs - I'm not saying that LCDs are bad, they just aren't for me now, after seeing this.

As a gamer though, they are probably still the best compromise. (as no tech is perfect)

[gIzzE]

Mate if you have ?2500 to spend get a Panasonic Commericial plasma, you can get one with stand and input boards for ?2k, and the 42" will have a smaller footprint than the 37" philips screen too.

The commercial screens are bomb proof when it comes to screen burn, and they are the only flat panel that looks like a CRT. You have pointed out everything I hate about LCDs, I do have a Panasonic 26" by the way before anyone tells me I don't know what I am talking about, they are great for a take home and plonk down TV set for people who want an easy life, but if your are serious about image quality they are not there just yet!

If you are anywhere near Norwich you are more than welcome to see a well set up plasma. And one that I have left with game menus on for 12 hours at a time without any image retention, let alone screen burn!



CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE.

[andrewfee]

It really is tempting to go for something like that, but every time I start researching plasmas, I keep coming about posts with people having burn-in / image-retention issues, and there's no protection against it. (eg warranty cover)

I'm not a fan of the way plasmas under 50" have weird resolutions, and at 42" isn't that a bit low resolution? I'll only be 6-8 ft away - I wouldn't have considered the Philips if it had "only" been 1366x768. While the set itself might be smaller (the Philips bezel is huge) I don't want bigger than 37" anyway.

Don't the Panasonic plasmas have something similar to "dynamic contrast" built in that you can't disable though? I keep hearing about "shifting black level" problems.
And how obvious is the plasma equivalent of the "rainbow effect" on the Pannys? (blue / yellow flashes - I've seen it on a few displays, but am not sure which ones, as I wasn't considering plasma at the time)

I'd also want to be able to use whatever display I get as a PC display. (something else the Philips wasn't suited for - I was told it could do 1080 without overscan)

[gIzzE]

Panasonic commercial plasmas at 42" are 1024x768, or 864x480, however the 864x480 gives a better image than any LCD I have seen, and beats just about every other flat panel display when fed with true hi-def let alone SD material. It is not about resolution, all things being equal then yeah, having a higher resolution is great, but the rest needs to be correct first.

I am not praising plasmas in general 99.99% of them are absolute ****e! But from what you have said above I think the Panny commercial series is what you want from an image.
Screen burn is a none issue on these sets, I have left the singstar menu on mine from 2am through to the next afternoon with no effects at all, try doing that with a Pioneer screen for 30 mins!!

Some people have said they see fluctuating black levels, but on the PV500 range it is more of a problem as you can't turn the feature off in the service menu, you can on the PHD8 though. And it really is not a problem anyway and I am an anal ****er when it comes to displays. I could not live with the Samsung and that was only for watching the news in the morning whilst eating breakfast.

The rainbow effect, more like a coloured ghosting when say a persons face moves across screen against a dark background, is there occasionally with the PW8 range, however I have only seen it a couple of times with my 50PHD8 in just over 900 hours of viewing. Again a none issue.

Problem everyone has at the moment is they want resolution, I agree, and an LCD you need as many pixels as you can get, if it is too low it looks blocky and full of artifacts, plasma is different though, the panny has such small gaps between the pixel array that it looks very smooth and crt like, very film like infact.
A lot of guys from AV Forums have come and seen my set up and they were all really impressed, out of everyone who has seen it, probably 20 odd, they have all apart from one, gone and bought a PHD range plasma. The only one who has not is a Pioneer 435XDE owner and he admits if he could get something back for his screen he paid ?4k for last summer he would swap tomorrow.

Do yourself a favour and go and see one running, don't Stereo Stereo in Vincent Street have the Panny set up and running in their store??
I know alot of dealers now only do the Pioneer as the margins are better and you can only get the commercial panny screens through Panasonic business which makes it a pain, but worth giving them a bell and asking.

[themanwithapc]

Mate if you have ?2500 to spend get a Panasonic Commericial plasma, you can get one with stand and input boards for ?2k, and the 42" will have a smaller footprint than the 37" philips screen too.

The commercial screens are bomb proof when it comes to screen burn, and they are the only flat panel that looks like a CRT. You have pointed out everything I hate about LCDs, I do have a Panasonic 26" by the way before anyone tells me I don't know what I am talking about, they are great for a take home and plonk down TV set for people who want an easy life, but if your are serious about image quality they are not there just yet!

If you are anywhere near Norwich you are more than welcome to see a well set up plasma. And one that I have left with game menus on for 12 hours at a time without any image retention, let alone screen burn!



CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE.

Must say, that is a lovely pic. Is that a DVD or Sky feed?

[gIzzE]

That is Sky going into a Crystalio scaler and then back out RGBhv (VGA).

DVD, sdi into scaler and then back to screen RGBhv is simply stunning, and when you put D-Theater 1080i in it gets even better.

[Lyris]

Unfortunately, Philips did not seem to think a backlight control was necessary - I guess they threw out "sense" and just went with "simplicity" here

Leaving out a backlight adjust on a 2000+ pounds LCD is unforgivable. Are the manufacturers really arrogant enough to think that a one-size-fits-all approach is good enough for showing black properly?

LCD tech isn't good enough yet to allow for deep blacks, it's about time they stopped denying this.

I know what you mean about wanting to love something but not being able to - I had that dilemma with the Samsung budget LCD as well. But if you're spending that much money, demand the best and nothing else.