LCD/Plasma/CRT/DLP - questions

[gIzzE]

I still prefer the Panasonics, really like the commercial screens still.

I have dumped my Kuro, just too noisy for me, which in turn made the image look far too soft.
I still had a Panasonic PHD8 in the other room, and every single person that saw then both preferred the Panasonic image.
On paper the Kuro beats it hands down, better blacks, more accurate colour, brighter, better greyscale, more calibration options blah blah blah blah blah....

However, I prefer the image from the 4 year old Panny, so I have fecked the Kuro off and hung the Panny back in the main room.
The KRP500M is a great set, and I am not knocking it, just felt the image I preferred was not from that.

[Lyris]

so is V10 a better buy apart from lack of 3D which I have ?

The V10 is last year's - the V20 is the 2010 version which incorporates the product feedback from the V10. It is a very nice display.
I just reviewed one.

The most important part:

The only question left is whether or not the TX-P42V20 is worth the extra money over Panasonic’s already-excellent TX-P42G20, which arguably represents the sweet spot in terms of price and performance in the company’s 2010 Plasma lineup. If you watch TV primarily in a light-filled environment, then the answer is yes, because the TX-P42V20’s ambient light filter helps prevent the picture becoming washed out when faced with stray light. Dark-room performance is improved over the G20 too, measuring at just under 0.01 cd/m2 compared to the G20’s 0.02 cd/m2, although this improvement, whilst remarkable, is less noticeable.

[Spatial]

BWARGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

->Open Spoiler<-

That's the sound of me (still) having a breakdown over what TV to buy

[Lyris]

To make it easy, here are quick and dirty summaries of my experiences with most of the brands right now. Special emphasis on input lag added for gamers. Treat this loosely as a ranked list.

Panasonic (Plasmas):
the best TVs currently on the market. Everything can be set up for high picture quality thanks to them listening. Low input lag. No sign of the blacks going bad on the 2010 models (if they do, take it back to the store - a lot of places are doing 5 year warranty). Phosphor trails will annoy some people.

Samsung (LCDs):
Probably the best LCD TVs out there. For an LCD the mid-range and up models have very, very good black level and the viewing angle and motion blur isn't too bad either. Input lag situation is not wonderful for gamers. Do not bother with the ultraslim "LED" ones - the picture quality is poorer than the standard LCDs and you pay over the odds for "style".

Samsung (Plasma):
I've not managed to review any of the 2010 models yet. 2009's were great overall with low input lag, but they had a 50hz video flaw which made them not good for use with 50hz (PAL) video. If they've fixed this then they could be a bargain. Unfortunately, all of the best models are 50 inches and above, which might be too big for some.

Sony (LCDs):
Overpriced, but not bad displays. Quite famously they use the same LCD panels as Samsung's (Super PVA) which is the biggest point in their favor. However, the black level is not quite as deep as the latest Samsungs and they have fewer features. Input lag seems about the same. Nice displays, but they are no longer the best in the LCD world: not because Sony got bad, but because Samsung stopped sucking and learned how to make mostly excellent TVs VERY quickly.

Panasonic (LCD):
Panasonic's main focus is with Plasma. The LCD models used to be a bit bleh, but they've improved a lot with the 2010 models and have a "True Cinema" option which cuts out the processing and gives you a high quality, gimmick-free picture. Input lag is worse than the Plasmas, but not awful. Black level is a bit greyish. Their selling point is that they use IPS panels which have, by design, better viewing angle than the VA panels in use by Sony/Samsung. But, the picture still does change when you watch from the sides. Personally I think the wide viewing angle of IPS is over-rated.


Special situation: Toshiba (LCD): HIGHLY variable.
Some of the models have nice black level and low input lag, others less so. This is one brand where generalisation really is hard.


Philips (LCD):
The British tabloid AV press have hyped up Philips' video processing up to high heaven. Unfortunately, these are all the sorts of controls that we want to shut off if we want high picture quality and low input lag. Ignoring the hype, these are fairly nice displays. The black level is good (not amazing, but good) and colours can generally be set up to be nice and accurate. Fortunately they have a "PC Mode", which cuts Input Lag down to decent-ish (on par with most LCDs right now) levels and also solved some tiny picture quality issues. I haven't looked at the prices lately, but I don't think they can compete with the value for money coming out of the mass-manufactured Japanese and Korean brands.

LG (Plasma):
They were going on the right track in 2009. Their black level was not very good, so pictures lacked depth compared to the likes of Panasonic. But they led the way with calibration controls which was great. In 2010, they introduced a video processing flaw which adds edge enhancement to everything (yech) and high input lag, even on the Plasmas which are typically free of that. Last I heard their engineers were working on the Sharpening, but no fix yet, so avoid for now.

LG (LCD):
Black level is bad, especially from the sides, which is a damn shame because LG led the way with calibration controls which allow you to get very high picture quality except for this.

Sharp (LCD):
Low input lag! Other than this, pretty unremarkable overall. The new Quattron technology (which adds a yellow subpixel - you've probably seen the George Takei commercials) is a gimmick which is no good unless you have content made just for it - and there isn't any. The Quattron model I reviewed recently had a really nasty colour error, see the HDTVtest review for more.

[Spatial]

Thanks for that Lyris, that nicely sums up the pro's and con's to help focus my mind a bit better.

It's almost like there's too much information out there and you end up getting lost amongst the jargon, model numbers, varying opinions and outright fanboysism that's seems to be as much a way of life as it is in gaming

I think I'm going to have to make a decision and then stop reading around the issue.

[Lyris]

It's surprising that there are fanboys of television brands. How sad. I guess it's just a form of purchase validation. All I can say to them is "talk to the measured data" - the charts and graphs soon tell you who's red, green, blue and white are correct, and who's blacks are the blackest.

There is WAY too much information - and MIS information from the tabloids and marketing departments (which are sort of the same thing). Manufacturers like to complicate things with yellow sub-pixels and video processing gimmicks, but for gamers, this really is just about all it comes down to. When you cut out the guff, there are actually too FEW choices.

1. Input lag: the most important thing for gamers. Everyone here knows about it already I think.

2. Contrast: how black are the blacks, are they deep? Are the whites dulled at the expense? Or can both appear vivid on-screen at the same time?

3. Motion resolution - does the picture blur up when the screen moves? If you own an LCD, the answer is yes. On an LCD, the picture drops to about 300 lines of resolution (about half that of SD TV) whenever anything moves. That's just in the moving areas, not the whole screen, so it's not as bad as it sounds, but put on paper it's pretty bad. 100hz/200hz LCDs avoid this, but introduce input lag, so these modes are pretty bad for gaming (see #1). Plasmas have their own motion flaws, but are generally less irritating to me personally, but not for everyone.

4. Greyscale - a fancy shorthand way of saying "is the colour of white actually white, or is it biased towards green, red, or blue?" When you first get a TV, the colour of white is usually skewed hugely towards blue and needs to be equalised. The "Cinema" mode usually gets you 90&#37; of the way there.

If you've not had your TV calibrated with a measuring probe, your white isn't white. If you've left the TV set up the way it came, your whites are almost certainly blue. If you're using the Cinema mode, they are probably very close to white.

5. Colour: reds, greens, and blues (and the secondaries inbetween) should be in-spec. Red should be red, not orangey, not purpley, just red. A few years ago, manufacturers liked to mess around with this sort of thing. The problem is largely solved now.

The top entry of the list above aces every single one of those points and they've even gone as far as to mass-manufacture them to the point where you can get them for bargain prices. The question really is: do phosphor trails annoy the hell out of you or not, and would you be happy to trade them for weaker black levels, more input lag and more motion blur?

[Number45]

http://www.televisions.com/tv-articles/20-Common-Home-Cinema-Mistakes-Mistakes-1-to-10.php

Some nice pointers on what/not to do when setting up a home cinema.

[Baseley09]

http://www.televisions.com/tv-articl...es-1-to-10.php

Some nice pointers on what/not to do when setting up a home cinema.

Sensible tips there, though i'm not convinced about their viewing distances, too close in real life situations, imo 32 - 37 should be nearer 6 ft.

[Spatial]

So due to size limits of my AV unit (more accurately the size of the bookshelf speakers which limit the space I have), it looks like I can't go any bigger than 32" - which tbh that's fine for me given how close I'm sitting.

But that does rule out Plasma now it seems since 32" sets are non-existent any more. So now I just have to find an LCD that has a little input lag as possible...

[Lyris]

Spatial: I just got a phone call from one of my HDTVTest colleagues (hate that word, but it's accurate). He's very happy with the Samsung LE40C580, apparently the input lag is only 17ms and all the other picture quality aspects are excellent. The review should appear sometime next week.

It's also available in 32" so should share the same traits. If so, it looks like there's finally a TV to fill the "low input lag and high quality at 32 inches" category.

[Spatial]

Nice one Lyris, once again a big thank you.

Now I'm off to have a look at some prices - after reading the review, of course

[Spatial]

Lyris, any idea when that review might be going up? There's not much by way of accurate reviews on the web and I'm interested to see how it performed after your last post

[Lyris]

Next couple of days I think. It's mostly good news from what I've been hearing. Apparently there's some slight judder with 24p film material, personally I'm quite tolerant of that sort of thing. Seems like it will be a very good small display for gaming on.

[Shozuki]

I have a Pioneer in my 'main' living room set-up and picked up a 46" Samsung C750 for the bedroom - which ive yet to set up. looks very stylish though.

It was well priced @ around ?1100 and is 3D so thats a nice bonus...

[dvdx2]

just wondering what colour teperature settings on your TV you guys use for gaming?