LCD/Plasma/CRT/DLP - questions

[importaku]

Well after 7 years my 42" rear projection tv is starting to die on me the red gun started flickering tonight so im looking at a new tv. Decided i want plasma over LCD as i'll be connecting it to a variety of consoles from gamecube to 360. Plus plasmas are at a point where most of the downsides have been ironed out.

Found this one
Samsung PS51D550 51" Full HD Plasma 3D TV

It will be pretty muched used only for gaming with a bit of dvd watching, anyone know if that tv is any good or theres some glaring faults??

[JazzFunk]

I'm looking for a new TV - budget is fairly tight, ?500 max. Ideally 40" - I've been looking at the Samsung 40C530 which can be had in Richer Sounds for ?350 which seems like a good deal. Any thoughts? Will be mainly used for TV (Sky HD) and Blu-ray, with some PS3 gaming on it. I was going to PM Lyris but his inbox is full!

Secondary question, what's the deal with dead pixels nowadays? How frequent are they? If I find one on a shiny new TV will Richer Sounds happily replace it or do there need to be a certain amount of them?

I reviewed the 32" version of the C530 on HDTVtest, I gave it Highly Recommended largely because of the cheap price and low input lag. I think the 40" version should be as good.

I'm actually more used to seeing Dead/stuck pixels on Plasma displays these days. It's not really an issue anymore with LCD. (More troubling is brightness/RGB uniformity across the screen... gahhh...)

Weeell, on Lyris's recommendation I *finally* got the 32" version of this telly (the LEC32C530) on Bank Holiday Monday and I am very impressed with it.

I'm certain as time goes on, I'll want to make a few 'tweaks' to how my older consoles look on it (any tips'd be welcome, Lyris!) but my PS2, Xbox and Wii look way better on this than they did on my last HDTV (a 24" 'Luxor' cheapie from Asda) and look more than acceptable, plus pretty damn nice thru prog scan (on the games that cater for this option, never realised Ghost Hunter on PS2 looked that good!).

[Lyris]

Well after 7 years my 42" rear projection tv is starting to die on me the red gun started flickering tonight so im looking at a new tv. Decided i want plasma over LCD as i'll be connecting it to a variety of consoles from gamecube to 360. Plus plasmas are at a point where most of the downsides have been ironed out.

Found this one
Samsung PS51D550 51" Full HD Plasma 3D TV

It will be pretty muched used only for gaming with a bit of dvd watching, anyone know if that tv is any good or theres some glaring faults??

The Samsung PDPs have quite a lot of image retention and also not the best black level on the market.

Also, they have a (nearly) undefeatable system which blurs the film grain out of movies and ends up making some Blu-ray Discs look pretty processed and unpleasant. It's a real pisser because other than this they are excellent value for money. We keep asking them to let the user control this themselves but no dice so far.

My favourite Plasmas are the Panasonics. They aren't perfect but most of their limitations are things that couldn't be helped rather than designed-in annoyances. What's your max budget?

Glad the LCD worked out, JazzFunk. I shared the settings I used on my 32" review sample here:
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/samsu...0100813815.htm (search for the comment added on 13 August 2010 11:40 am).

[Oh_Mutants]

In the market for a new TV, previously had a 40'' Toshiba LCD which I was pretty happy with, but developed a fault and Sainsbury's refunded me with no quibbles at all which was nice Have ?400 burning a hole in my pocket, but could go up to ?500 for the right set. Mostly be used for gaming, with some DVD/Blu ray watching and a little TV...

Any advice greatly appreciated

[Oh_Mutants]

Any thoughts on these two?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004OYVBTC

http://www.richersounds.com/product/lcd-tv/samsung/le46c530/sams-le46c530

I know people generally rate the Panasonic plasmas, but ideally I'm after a minimum of 3 HDMI and, more importantly, I have a lot of light coming in the room from the conservatory and I'm reading the Panasonic plasma has a very reflective screen

[fahrenheit]

Any thoughts on these two?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004OYVBTC

http://www.richersounds.com/product/lcd-tv/samsung/le46c530/sams-le46c530

I know people generally rate the Panasonic plasmas, but ideally I'm after a minimum of 3 HDMI and, more importantly, I have a lot of light coming in the room from the conservatory and I'm reading the Panasonic plasma has a very reflective screen

Any panasonic plasma with 'U' in the model number is pretty much a giant mirror.

I'm not sure about the C530 but I loaned a 360 to a friend with a C650 the other day and I could not believe the lag that thing has with HDMI. 6 whole frames of it. I went home and got my VGA cable which took it down to 4 frames, but still pretty poor imo.

Edit: I see now that lyris has reviewed and recommended the 530 so nothing to worry about it seems.

[Lyris]

Any thoughts on these two?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004OYVBTC

http://www.richersounds.com/product/lcd-tv/samsung/le46c530/sams-le46c530

I know people generally rate the Panasonic plasmas, but ideally I'm after a minimum of 3 HDMI and, more importantly, I have a lot of light coming in the room from the conservatory and I'm reading the Panasonic plasma has a very reflective screen

I've not seen the Panasonic Us but I imagine they're similar-ish to the S-Series. I haven't reviewed the 2011 S-Series though.

32" C530 here: http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/samsu...0100813815.htm

I don't recommend PDP - especially entry level PDP - if you have a lot light hitting the screen directly. LCD is the way to go for conservatory. At least then you can pump the Backlight setting up to compete against the sun. You can't do that with Plasma.

[Oh_Mutants]

Thanks gents, the C530 it is... shall be picking it up on tuesday

[k0pp0]

Thanks gents, the C530 it is... shall be picking it up on tuesday

I've got the C580, and it's lovely, apart from a problem with the 24fps (or whatever it is) video option (does terrible things to upscaled dvd and normal Blue rays)

Oh and the speakers are a bit naff without tuning.

[SmokeMeAKipper]

Quick question on IR / burn on plasmas. I've recently bought a Panasonic 42" V20 which is great and I've been really pleased with it. Only had it a couple of weeks so no more than 100 hours use but I've noticed on white backgrounds the faint image of a logo in the top right-hand corner. It's not massively noticeable but now I've spotted it I can't stop looking for it and it's been there for a few days now so worried it's permanent. I put the tv in THX mode as soon as I got it with contrast and brightness both at around 50%. Any tips or reassurance for me?

[importaku]

Have a look through the screen options & see if it has a screen wash facility, basically it will bring up a scrolling pattern to remove image retention or it will bring up a white screen to fade away the image retention. If you don't have a screen option for washing the screen maybe showing a untuned channel with static snow on would do the same?

My tv has image retention but i find that leaving on the scrolling pattern that it clears it off after about 5 mins. Obviously if it's been etched in a bit more it will take longer to wipe, with a new plasma it's usually recommended that your more careful for the first couple of hundred hours or so as thats when they are most succeptable for burn in.

Chances are it's just image retention as to burn in a plasma nowdays you really have to go at it, the sooner you reverse it the better it will be.

[Lyris]

Quick question on IR / burn on plasmas. I've recently bought a Panasonic 42" V20 which is great and I've been really pleased with it. Only had it a couple of weeks so no more than 100 hours use but I've noticed on white backgrounds the faint image of a logo in the top right-hand corner. It's not massively noticeable but now I've spotted it I can't stop looking for it and it's been there for a few days now so worried it's permanent. I put the tv in THX mode as soon as I got it with contrast and brightness both at around 50%. Any tips or reassurance for me?

If it's not been on sky-high contrast and the logo wasn't on for too long, I wouldn't worry. If you want you can run the screen wipe overnight which excites the phosphors at full stimulus so will clear any retention faster.

For some reason, Panasonic Europe hid the screen wipe in service mode (they changed it for the 2011 models). So to get there:

Hold the down arrow key on the side of the TV
Jam the 0 button on the remote repeatedly
When "Start adjustment menu" appears, press Red
Keep pressing 1 (do not touch anything else) until you get to a black screen with a white bar wiping across it. Leave it like this overnight. Turn off the TV and on again to leave service mode.

I got retention from playing Trenched for so long (it has fully opaque HUD) but it's gone now.

[importaku]

Hehe Lyris you really are Mr TV, is there anything you don't know. Looks like i know who to come to if i ever get stuck

[SmokeMeAKipper]

Thanks guys - I'll try doing that tonight. As I said, it's not hugely noticeable but annoying ad I can't stop actively looking for it!

[SmokeMeAKipper]

Quick update - I followed the instructions and got into the Service Menu OK. Set it to the white bar wiping across the screen and left it like that all day Friday while I was at work (so maybe 10 hours or so)... it's possibly helped it a bit but it's still there I'm afraid. I tried taking a photo of it on my iPhone to upload but you can't see it, which shows how faint it is. It just looks like a slightly dark rectangle when you can see it.

I've figured out what it was now too - I had the F1 on today and the "F1 MULTISCREEN" for the red button popped up which it does on certain things. I watched quite a bit of Wimbledon when I got my TV so it must have been the "MULTISCREEN" red button logo for that. Like I say, it's not hideously obvious, you can't see it normally unless that part of the screen is light (e.g. sky / cloud).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed it will disappear completely in time but if it doesn't I can live with it. Just a bit gutted that it's happened to me, and if it is permanent, just goes to show that burn-in can still happen on modern plasmas, and I don't even have contrast or brightness above 50%!