LCD/Plasma/CRT/DLP - questions

[H-Man]

I'd run my tv in for about 250 hours before returning it. Maybe another 500 hours would have made some difference, but I wasn't prepared to wait that long. I'd also asked on various forums the difference between consumer and commercial panels in terms of response time and they seem to be the same (around 4ms on the Pannasonic screens). This was my main issue, I had no trouble with freeview at all.

My mates Pioneer is meant to be the dog danglies, but the problems were just as obvious on this screen too. Unless the commercial screens are a whole lot better than than the Pio 436 I don't think i'll bother.

I guess it all comes down to how much these things bother each person, or how much they notice them.

[gIzzE]

Response time etc. is not what causes smearing etc. in the case of plasmas, it is all the processing that is added to help improve the built in freeview and tidy up low bitrate digital broadcats. Not being able to turn all this processing off is just annoying, so going with the commercial screen which doesn't have all this going on makes the difference to me of having a flat panel I can actually watch and one I can't.


As for the Pioneer screens, I just don't know why they have this cult following, for some reason all the UK and US press rave about them, but then there is an advert for them in every magazine that is reviewing them.
In Europe the screen gets OK reviews but nothing special, personally I think they are nothing short of ****e! Most unatural colours, black levels that are either grey or crushing detail and they frame rate convert pal which I persoally can't stand.


Pansonic or Fujitsu plasmas are the only flat panel I could live with, I have a Panny LCD for the kitchen 26LXD60, but that is the only place I would put one, 4x smaller than my plasma and still can't get a picture anywhere near as good!

[H-Man]

Interesting.

I would consider trying another plasma but the budget won't stretch that far. ?1500 was already tacking the mick for what was essentially a gaming screen. Getting an HD commercial panel is going to cost around ?2000 grand once all the input cards, stand, and speakers have been bought (no 5.1 system at the mo) - and that is far too much for me.

I'm definately going to demo a few, though. If there's no smear or green/yellow flashes I may pick one up a year or so down the line.

Are you sure the difference in smearing is that much? I haven't heard about processing causing these issues, and i've done a crap load of reading up over the last few months. It would seem ridiculous if only a small percentage of plasma screens suffered in this way.

[gIzzE]

Interesting.

I would consider trying another plasma but the budget won't stretch that far. ?1500 was already tacking the mick for what was essentially a gaming screen. Getting an HD commercial panel is going to cost around ?2000 grand once all the input cards, stand, and speakers have been bought (no 5.1 system at the mo) - and that is far too much for me.

I'm definately going to demo a few, though. If there's no smear or green/yellow flashes I may pick one up a year or so down the line.

Are you sure the difference in smearing is that much? I haven't heard about processing causing these issues, and i've done a crap load of reading up over the last few months. It would seem ridiculous if only a small percentage of plasma screens suffered in this way.

Yeah, getting into panels in not cheap, I have a 50" Panny and a Crystalio II video processor and that was around ?7,000.00, so really not cheap, think I am mad sometimes, but then you look at it and realise why you spent so much on it. I tried the Pioneers, NEC's etc. and non of them came close.

Different screens are designed for different uses, just a shame these manufacturers didn't listen to their customers and see what they want. They might start to get it right!
It is processing that causes so many problems, get a screen pixel mapped so you bypass its cheap internal processing and it becomes obvious what is doing what. When you have an external processor adding noise reduction etc. and cause the same sort of effects you get from the demostic screens you can see what is doing what as you have control of turning it on and off.

[andrewfee]

Hmm, I was sure I had posted here last night, but it doesn't seem to be here anymore. I just typed out a big reply and then had my browser crash for the first time there, but I guess that's the price you pay when using beta, grr. (flock)

It is processing that causes so many problems, get a screen pixel mapped so you bypass its cheap internal processing and it becomes obvious what is doing what. When you have an external processor adding noise reduction etc. and cause the same sort of effects you get from the demostic screens you can see what is doing what as you have control of turning it on and off.

How does it compare when you're just hooking up an RGB cable directly though, rather than going through a scaler / image processor? It's certainly a lot more money to effectively pay and get things removed. (speakers, have to buy the input boards etc) While I'm sure it's much better, I think most people just want a TV basically, although I may consider a panel for my next purchase - I just don't think I'm ready to go for one yet myself.




Anyway, I got my TH37PD60 on Monday, and I think it might finally be a screen that's staying. (other than the 17" LCD which basically had to stay, or I'd have been without a display at all)

Firstly, the look of it - I have to say, I was pretty worried it'd be an ugly TV from what I had seen of it online, but my fears were put to rest once I got it out of the box. I'd prefer it without a speaker bar, but it's not ugly. Surprisingly thin too - about the same as an equal sized LCD.

The stand is fantastic though - absolutely rock-solid, but unlike all the LCD ones I've seen (including the 37PF9830) it's not incredibly low down. in-fact, it's just the perfect height for my room. When I had decided on a TV, I was planning on wall mounting, but was worried that these walls wouldn't take it; now I don't even have to consider it.

Image quality overall is, without a doubt, better than anything I've personally seen on LCD, or even any other technology, so far. I thought the BRAVIAs were good with black levels, shadow detail, and motion, but this is something else.

Unlike older plasmas, when you've got brightness set right, there are no mis-firing pixels - black is completely solid and noise free. There is some dithering though in dark areas onscreen, but past 3ft, you can't see it, and it looks perfectly smooth. (and who would want to be sitting 3ft away from a 37" TV?) There are a lot of subtle details in the dark areas of an image I never even knew existed, even with the brightness on an LCD raised too high.

Pretty much no banding either - I've always found the PS2 memory management screen to be a good test for this, and it's better than I've seen on most CRTs even, really nice and smooth.

Contrast is interesting though - when there's a lot of light in the room, plasmas look crap, which explains why I've never been impressed when I've seen them before. Basically, black turns grey pretty quickly when the ambient light level is increased, and there's a big drop off in shadow detail. Reflections don't seem to be a problem though. (better than a glossy LCD) LCD is far better with blacks in this situation. (you can't tell if the BRAVIAs are on or off in a bright room, although there's not as much shadow detail)

In the dark is where plasmas really shine though - the darker the room is, the better the blacks seem to be. I didn't expect this, and while I knew contrast wasn't so good in a bright room, I figured they'd still be better with at least a low light on. I'd say they get to about the level of a calibrated CRT in a dark room - not totally black, but if you were to set a CRT to the point where black is essentially off, you would lose a hell of a lot of shadow detail.

It looks great regardless of how bright a day it is, as long as my blind is down, but if I open it, even on a dull Glasgow day (like yesterday here) then it's not pretty.

There's far much more depth to the image than any LCD though - it's no contest, even with BRAVIA's totally black blacks in a bright room, or when compared to a glossy LCD panel.



Colour is far richer and deeper, yet more natural than I've seen on anything, not just LCDs. (including BRAVIAs and their WCG-CCFL)


Deinterlacing is good, and it handles motion pretty well, but it's perhaps not quite as good as the BRAVIAs were. But it could just be that it's more obvious on a larger, lower resolution screen like this, rather than a 32" LCD. The upscaling process quite likely hid much of it too. It's not bad by any means, it's very good, but not the best I've seen, and obviously, being interlaced, a CRT is still a little better with motion from interlaced sources.



I can't get over how good this looks with everything though. With SD/ED, there's no contest between this and an LCD - the plasma wins hands down. It's by far the sharpest thing I've seen with Freeview - not even a CRT is this good, as they have geometry and convergence issues.

This is a very natural looking sharpness though, unlike LCDs where it looks very artificial. There's virtually no edge enhancement, and compared to LCD, there basically isn't any. I'm amazed that a 37" screen can look this good when I'm only sitting 5ft back, (can't move it any further back until I get another component switch, or I wouldn't be able to change what's being used) and a 17" LCD at 7ft didn't even look this good and it was less than 1/4 the size.

I was just channel hopping on Monday night to see if anything was on before watching something my PVR had picked up, and ended up watching 20 minutes of football. (I can't stand it normally) I just had to stop and watch it, because it looked so damn good. I've never had that before really, at least not with the same impact that this did.

Interestingly, I get a sharper / better picture from my Freeview PVR (160GB Topfield TF5800) than I do from the internal tuner. I'm not sure why that is, but normally it would be the other way around. I have found the Topfield to provide a better image than most external Freeview boxes, so perhaps it's just that the internal one on the Panasonic isn't that good. (or it just handles RGB really well)


So how does a panel with an 852x480 native resolution handle high definition? Well, I figured it was a load of crap when he said it, but a while back, gIzzE said he would rather take an SD plasma over an HD LCD for HD content any day, as it would look much better. Well, he was bloody right, and I agree with him!

Images are just as sharp and crisp as I've seen with any LCD, but it keeps this sharpness with motion, for the most-part, unlike LCD. You don't seem to lose as much resolution as you might expect, as Panasonic uses sub-pixel rendering when downscaling. (I can tell the difference between 480p and 720p from my 360, for example) Unless you were really looking for it, I doubt many people would know it wasn't HD though, it looks so good.

60-fps games seem quicker than on an LCD too, presumably due to the quicker response times. I should mention that I've not been babying the TV by turning down the settings really low, turning off HUDs, or only playing 15 minutes at a time etc. I've just set things to how I like them, and been playing as I normally would. I'll probably be a little more cautious once the return period is up (7 working days) but I figure if it can last me the week using it as I normally do, then it'll be fine.

I tried out Marble Blast Ultra on it the other day (while it's not much of a looker, it's really nice and crisp) and paused the game to go get a drink. Well, I got talking to someone, forgot about it, and came back over half an hour later. Not a hint of image retention, not even for 5-10 seconds, and this was within an hour of getting the TV set up.

I also watched lost with E4's bright white logo for 45 minutes (skipped the ad breaks) and that was fine too.

I've got a couple of episodes of Battlestar Galactica recorded off Sky Three (just started, and I head it's good) so I'll be watching them one after the other most likely, so that'll be a good 90 minutes or so of the same logo to test it.

Panasonic claim the 9th gen panels are as burn-in resistant as CRTs now, and after this, and the fact that the phosphors last 60,000 hours compared to CRT's 30,000, I believe them. I'm not worried about gaming on this at all now.



It isn't perfect though, but for a screen this size and for overall image quality this good, for £845, I'm pretty sure I can live with the problems it does have. I still can't get over the fact that I paid over 3x the price for a similarly sized LCD that was nowhere near this good looking. Not even close. This is orders of magnitude better.


So, the issues:

#1 - Buzzing. While I haven't noticed any fan noise from the set, it buzzes based on the amount of overall brightness onscreen, similar to a CRT, but not as obvious. This seemed really bad at first, but was because I had turned the power saving on. After turning it off, it became much quieter. I can't hear it over any of my consoles running, or when watching TV with the volume at a decent level, but do notice it now and then at night when I've got the volume down so I don't wake anyone up. (but I've pretty much tuned it out now)

#2 - Flicker. I wasn't expecting this one at all, but it was immediately apparent after coming from LCDs with a rock-solid image that there was some flicker. It's nowhere near the level of a CRT, but definitely there. After turning down the contrast to my preferred setting (around 85cd/m2) and watching a couple of days, I don't notice it at all now.

#3 - Image settings. There's not a whole lot to adjust here, unlike the BRAVIAs, for example, but it doesn't really need it. There are three presets, and just like my Panasonic CRT, they each have their own gammas, and amounts of edge enhancement. (although still barely any at its "worst") Dynamic's gamma is far too high, leaving the image with too much contrast, and just looking unnatural, so it's basically useless.

Normal seems good, and has very little EE, and is perfect for games. Cinema has a lower gamma (probably too low tbh, but I like it) and seems to have the least EE. (virtually none)

The only thing is that these appear to be global settings, rather than per-input, which even my Panasonic CRT had. (hopefully I've missed a setting somewhere to switch between global and per-input, but I find that unlikely)

However, it seems to be doing something dynamic to the picture, as it looks fantastic despite this. (nothing like the dynamic adjustments you get on LCDs) I can use the same settings for DVD and TV, and the same settings between all my consoles, and it seems to have the proper black level for each. I haven't seen any black level shifting with anything on, it just seems to adjust the lowest brightness to about the same level.

#4 is the worst; green trails and blue/yellow flashes. With bright objects moving across the screen, there are sometimes green edges/trails to them, and while not as bad as LCD response "smearing" it's perhaps a bit more obvious, due to always being green, rather than "blending in."

With white objects, or big contrast changes, I see an occasional flash of blue & yellow, even with stationary full-white things I often see it when blinking / moving my head/eyes. Lowering contrast to zero seemed to help this, and left me with a surprisingly watchable image, but it was just a little bit too dull, and I've now got it set to around 2/5ths of the way up (panasonic don't give values for their settings) which is about 85cd/m2 according to my Spyder2 sensor. (that was in CRT mode, which I assume is what I should be using on a plasma)

I definitely seem to be noticing this a lot less than when I first turned it on, perhaps due to it getting better as it runs in, or just me getting used to it. No-one else could see it though, unless I cranked up the contrast to max, made it black & white (colour at lowest) and made them look for it. I guess I'm just sensitive to these things.

I know that most DLP owners say that they stop seeing rainbows after a few weeks - is this the same with the plasma ones? Does it get better as the panel runs in? It's not a deal breaker though, because despite this, it's still the best looking TV I've seen, and I'm sick and tired of returning displays.

It seems to be much more obvious with games rather than video/film content though, particularly PGR3 and the Hitman demo so far.




#1 & #2 are pretty much non-issues, as is #3, although it could be. As I said, overall though, it's by far the most natural looking image I've seen, and this is without any proper calibration - colour / brightness are done by eye, and contrast was done with my Spyder to get it to 85cd/m2. (what a display should be at in a dark room)

I've tested out pretty much everything now, and these are my only issues so far, so unless something else comes up, I guess you can consider me converted.

[gIzzE]

Andrew, great write up mate!

Hooking up RGB straight to the screen is definitely sharper, that was my whole point.
What I was trying to say was I can recreate the processing found in the TV range with my scaler, by turning on sharness, noise reduction etc. I can get the PHD to look like the Viera, and as I start turning these things off the Panel looks more natural, more CRT like and generally alot sharper. However, some things like low bitrate sport etc. actually benifit from the Noise reduction etc. built into the TVs, but I prefer having the abiility to tunr them on/off when I want to.

The trails you say about get better after around 800 hours, what you find is the whole screen calms down, I had contrast on about 15% for the first 100 hours, then 25% for another couple of hundred hours and so on until it is now at around 52% after 1000 hours. Once you get to 800 hours the things that are annoying you tend to almost disapear. The viera SD set is more prone to this effect than my PHD set is, but then my PWD6 showed it more than this one too, so maybe the SD sets whether Viera or panel just show it more?

Stick with CINEMA mode, gamma is almost 2.2 in this mode, also warm colur temp is closest to D65 as well. On the Viera when you go into the service menu to adjust RGB values I beleive the TV goes into DYNAMIC mode, which is a real pain in the arse.
The adjustments are global so when you change anything in DYNAMIC in the service menu it is changing it in CINEMA mode too, it just means you have to come out of the Service menu to take any readings.

Glad you are liking HD stuff on it, I have had a few stunned faces round mine before when showing them HD on a 480 line panny plasma, the Pioneer boys nearly cry, and the LCD lads just drop their shoulders and sulk!
HD is not all about resolution, it is a small part of it, get the rest right first and then worry about resolution.

[andrewfee]

Andrew, great write up mate!

Hooking up RGB straight to the screen is definitely sharper, that was my whole point.
What I was trying to say was I can recreate the processing found in the TV range with my scaler, by turning on sharness, noise reduction etc. I can get the PHD to look like the Viera, and as I start turning these things off the Panel looks more natural, more CRT like and generally alot sharper. However, some things like low bitrate sport etc. actually benifit from the Noise reduction etc. built into the TVs, but I prefer having the abiility to tunr them on/off when I want to.

Fair enough - I really love the idea of a panel, but most people seem to combine them with a scaler, and the whole reason I was interested in trying this plasma was how cheap it was. (and apparently how good it was)

I figured that seeing as everyone I've read about with a panel gets a scaler, they didn't do a good job if you just hooked it up via RGB.

Are you sure about the noise reduction thing though? There's an option to turn it off/low/mid/max in the picture menus, same with the colour processing. Aside from a tiny bit of EE - which is basically nonexistant after the displays I've had, I'm not sure what processing there is. (unless there is something dynamic going on as I suspected - but if there is, it's very unobtrusive, as I haven't spotted it yet)

The trails you say about get better after around 800 hours, what you find is the whole screen calms down, I had contrast on about 15% for the first 100 hours, then 25% for another couple of hundred hours and so on until it is now at around 52% after 1000 hours. Once you get to 800 hours the things that are annoying you tend to almost disapear. The viera SD set is more prone to this effect than my PHD set is, but then my PWD6 showed it more than this one too, so maybe the SD sets whether Viera or panel just show it more?

800 hours seems like a long time - I"ve only got a week to decide if I'm keeping it or not. (although I've let Gotham TV run on it all day with the HUD off, and I'm definitely noticing it less now)

My guess would be that due to the lower resolution, each pixel is basically lit longer with the SD ones, whereas it'd get moved over to another pixel quicker on an HD one, if that makes sense. I didn't think they would be worse for it though, hmm.

It could just be a 9th gen thing too, if they've improved the other phosphors more and distanced them from the green even more or something?

Stick with CINEMA mode, gamma is almost 2.2 in this mode, also warm colur temp is closest to D65 as well. On the Viera when you go into the service menu to adjust RGB values I beleive the TV goes into DYNAMIC mode, which is a real pain in the arse.
The adjustments are global so when you change anything in DYNAMIC in the service menu it is changing it in CINEMA mode too, it just means you have to come out of the Service menu to take any readings.

When I had my Spyder on it to set the luminance, I did notice that the white-point was reading as 0.313, 0.329 in warm - perfect D65, but while the white-point may be correct, the rest certainly didn't seem like it - far too warm overall, but I couldn't be bothered checking the greyscale and gamma, as I'm really happy with the image as-is.

After trying to calibrate other displays, while I'd say I have improved them, the main thing was getting the D65 white-point, I really think I might just leave this alone unless I pick up a scaler. I know that a scaler + TV doesn't go together so well, but I'm thinking my upgrade process might be TV > Scaler + TV > Scaler + HD Panel in a few years time. If you've only got the cuts and gains to work with, that's basically just two point calibration (right?) and you'll never get great results like that, especially compared to the 11-point greyscale and gamma calibration Lumagens offer.

Now that I know I like plasma, it's almost tempting to just return it and now go and get a panel, but from what I've seen, I'm looking at £1500 or more, and I'm really happy as-is. The 9th gen ones only have a 42" SD panel, there isn't going to be a 37" one, and I really don't want any bigger than that.

It's also easy to forgive these faults when it was only ?845 - that gets harder to do the more I spend, and all plasmas suffer from the above. (apart from the options)

Glad you are liking HD stuff on it, I have had a few stunned faces round mine before when showing them HD on a 480 line panny plasma, the Pioneer boys nearly cry, and the LCD lads just drop their shoulders and sulk!
HD is not all about resolution, it is a small part of it, get the rest right first and then worry about resolution.

Honestly doesn't surprise me. I'm still amazed at how good everything looks on this, and it's not even a panel.

[gIzzE]

The Viera is still a ****in' awsome set mate, I was not putting it down at all, and I would take the set you have over just about any other set out there. Yeah it still has some minor niggles, but when you sit back and watch it there is just so much it does right you sort off let it off the other things!
The gain by going PWD8 from your screen is about 5% I would guess, going to the PHD8 would be about 15%. So is it worth 60% increase in value to get 15% increase in quality? I doubt it!

I got my grey scale within 200 at every point from 10ire to 100ire just using the cuts and gains, it is so spot on that I havent bothered adjusting on the Crystalio II yet, even though that has gamma correction for each channel in 5ire steps. As you say, when you are enjoying stuff you forget about the tweaking and start using it.

[andrewfee]

The Viera is still a ****in' awsome set mate, I was not putting it down at all, and I would take the set you have over just about any other set out there. Yeah it still has some minor niggles, but when you sit back and watch it there is just so much it does right you sort off let it off the other things!
The gain by going PWD8 from your screen is about 5% I would guess, going to the PHD8 would be about 15%. So is it worth 60% increase in value to get 15% increase in quality? I doubt it!

That's good to hear, thanks. For the price, I don't think you can beat it really, it's just amazing that you can get this kind of quality and size for this sort of money. I mean I expected it to be fairly good after the way you were talking them up, but nothing like this.

I got my grey scale within 200 at every point from 10ire to 100ire just using the cuts and gains, it is so spot on that I havent bothered adjusting on the Crystalio II yet, even though that has gamma correction for each channel in 5ire steps. As you say, when you are enjoying stuff you forget about the tweaking and start using it.

Ah, excellent. I'll maybe give it a shot later - I tried switching over to warm again and I'm liking it a lot more now - it definitely looked better with a greyscale image. Still seems perhaps a little on the warm side for maybe 70-90 IRE, but overall it's looking better. For me, I find that I have to adjust to changing from "out of the box" settings first, lowering the contrast etc, and then the temperature later. I've done it with every set I've owned for some reason, I don't know why it is. (I guess because most start out cool, and even going to normal can look "wrong" at first until your eyes adjust)

And 20 (21?) point gamma correction for each channel with your Crystalio II? That's insane! No wonder you haven't done it yet.

One thing I didn't like about my Panasonic CRT is the way cuts and gains were adjusted on it - it seemed that everything below 40 IRE was totally under control of the cuts, and over 40 was gains, but it always seemed to end up with an "s-shaped" spike, going from too warm to too cold at 40 and 50, then going back to normal. (or vice-versa) I was never able to sort that, although you didn't really notice it at all when watching. Seemed like it was some sort of digital processing going on there screwing things up or something, because nothing I did could ever get it any better. Very strange.


Anyway, after letting it run PGR3 all day when I've been doing other stuff it seems much better. I watched the next couple of races and barely spotted the flashes/trails at all this time, compared to this morning when they were pretty obvious.

I'm too scared to let it run overnight as I sleep though - knowing my luck, the 360 will crash and something will get burnt in etc. While I'm not worried about playing games on it, I'm not up for having an 8-hour marathon on it just yet.

Something else I forgot to mention is that it's actually running a lot cooler than any of the LCDs I've had, even though it's bigger, and I'm not sure if I mentioned that there don't seem to be any fans in it, unlike many other plasmas. (I hear the PX's do though, but the panels are passive?)

[sj33]

Need some help guys.

The TV in the living room is about to pack up, and the parents want a new one.
My mother is unimpressed with LCD's, saying they look grainy (suppose she only has seen SD on them), so CRT it is. Besides, at the price range they're looking at, maybe a CRT is better.
Trying to at least encourage them to get a CRT HDTV i.e that Samsung one. May not be that nice a set, but it'll do for the parents who don't have the eye we all have, and I would like the set in the living room HD compatible so I can get Telewest HD.

Where's the cheapest place to get one? Anything I should know about it?

[themanwithapc]

Need some help guys.

The TV in the living room is about to pack up, and the parents want a new one.
My mother is unimpressed with LCD's, saying they look grainy (suppose she only has seen SD on them), so CRT it is. Besides, at the price range they're looking at, maybe a CRT is better.
Trying to at least encourage them to get a CRT HDTV i.e that Samsung one. May not be that nice a set, but it'll do for the parents who don't have the eye we all have, and I would like the set in the living room HD compatible so I can get Telewest HD.

Where's the cheapest place to get one? Anything I should know about it?

Why don't they try the plasma andrewfee has just got? Seems like a very good screen, and you'll save a lot of space with a flat screen.

[sj33]

Well I think I'm REALLY pushing it with the ?440 the price of the Samsung CRT HDTV tbh. They can't afford to splash hundreds on a telly like me and you can

[andrewfee]

Well I think I'm REALLY pushing it with the ?440 the price of the Samsung CRT HDTV tbh. They can't afford to splash hundreds on a telly like me and you can

I'd take a good SD CRT over the Samsung slim-fit any day - as I found out with my plasma, higher resolution doesn't mean better.

The geometry on these slim-fit CRTs is unbearably bad, in my opinion, and no, it's not a case of being badly set up out of the factory and being fixable via the service menu - it's just not possible to get good geometry and convergence at those kind of angles.



I'm really impressed with this plasma now - I've been leaving it running games (ridge av player / gotham tv) when I've not been using it, and just found the "screen cleaner" in the service menu (white bar that wipes across the screen) so I left that on overnight at max contrast, and things are looking much better.

It's been running ~63 hours now, and overall, the screen is much brighter now (had to knock back contrast a bit) and black levels have improved as well.

Under the current lighting conditions (dull day, with my blind down and closed, so it's rather dark in here) I've just done another quick brightness & contrast calibration (I'm doing it daily to keep brightness around 85cd/m2) and tested out how well it would calibrate from my Mac via HDMI. Well, things looked excellent after letting the Spyder software do its thing, but surprisingly, it barely changed from what it was already at. (means it's really good out of the box, basically)

I wish I could get a high res one of these to use as a monitor though, because it looks so good. After doing a run through with the Spyder software, I was very surprised at the results - black point 0.17cd/m2 and white-point 85.9cd/m2 (my target was 85, as that's what I prefer to watch in a dark room) these are on/off values though, but it gives a very impressive contrast ratio of 505:1.

I then figured I should try ANSI contrast ratio, which is more indicative of real-world performance. So I created the pattern and loaded up the jpeg on my PVR. (it's basically 16 boxes, alternating black and white, with four on each row)

I measured all 8 black, all 8 white boxes, and got an average for each - white averaged at 85.507cd/m2, black at 0.19925 cd/m2, giving an amazing 429:1 real-world contrast ratio when calibrated for shadow detail. (I did not just have brightness all the way down)

To put this in perspective, none of the CRTs we have in the house (including a great Panasonic one) can produce that well when calibrated for shadow detail. Not only that, but there is more detail visible on the plasma when set up like this.


EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention that I've pretty much stopped seeing the green trails / blue & yellow flashes with television and film content now.

[Rossco]

I would love to get a plasma like that but I need a high res screen for my PC as I have everything through the one screen and couldnt stand going back to just a tiny 19" style screen or something for PC.

[andrewfee]

I would love to get a plasma like that but I need a high res screen for my PC as I have everything through the one screen and couldnt stand going back to just a tiny 19" style screen or something for PC.

I had really wanted to do that too, but I figured I would rather have much better television, film, and game performance than have the ability to use it as a large monitor at the expense of image quality. While it's nice to be able to do that, I've got a 17" Powerbook, so I'm not exactly starved for screen real-estate anyway.

After spending nearly a year finding a display I'm happy with though, what I've come to realise is that you're better off to prioritise what you're going to be using the display for now, and of those things, what is the most important to you, rather than buying something based on specs or "future proofing." (unless you intend on keeping it for 5-10 years or more)

Case in point - people buying HDTVs for their Xbox 360. I, like quite a few people on the board, bought a Samsung LE32R41BX with the Xbox 360 in mind, putting up with perhaps a worse picture than we had previously for most other things, and by the time the Xbox 360 was finally released, Samsung had already released updated televisisons with a number of improvements.

Looking further back, there were people who bought HDTVs towards the begining of last year, or even earlier than that, with the intention of using them for HDTV broadcasts and HD-DVD / BluRay. Many of these people are now finding out that they can't even use their televisions for those purposes, or at least not at their best, as they don't have HDCP or digital connections.


While I have an Xbox 360, will be probably be getting a PS3 (at launch, no doubt) and will eventually be getting BluRay / HD-DVD & HDTV Broadcasts, to me, it's more important that I can sit back and enjoy watching Freeview (I don't really watch many DVDs) and of the next-gen consoles, I would rather have Wii looking at its best, rather than X360/PS3.

Because I don't really watch/buy many DVDs, BluRay / HD-DVD players won't be getting purchased any time soon, and while I'd love to have HD broadcasts, I'm not paying £50-£60/month to Sky for what, six channels? If it was possible to, for example, buy an HD box and pay £15/month to just get the HD movie channels, I'd be considering it, but I don't want all the rest - Freeview has a big enough selection of regular TV for me. (and with FilmFour coming in a month's time, things are going to be getting even better)

So while I have some hardware capable of HD, it's really only 10-20% of my overall usage that's in HD, which is why I went with an ED Plasma. In 3-5 years when hopefully a lot more of my usage will be HD, rather than SD (HD-DVD / BluRay prices down, Freeview HD perhaps starting to broadcast) then I'll consider an HDTV.

I get the feeling that a lot of people are in this situation though - they mostly watch Sky / Cable / Freeview, don't want to spend £300 on an HD box and an extra £10 over their current subscription, so until HD is standard, other than the Xbox 360 / PS3 that maybe gets a few hours a week use, they don't need it.

I have a friend in that exact situation. They have a grand to spend on a new TV - he has Xbox 360, but that's not going to be hooked up to it (it's used on an LCD monitor in another room) and won't be getting anything like Sky HD / TV Drive. I've recommended this Plasma TV to him, and while he's interested, loves the size, and the price, he'd rather spend £100 more on a 32" LCD because HD is the latest buzzword.

I've explained that he won't see any benefit from it - in his situation, it's going to be a definite drop in image quality (as nothing hd will be hooked up) and it doesn't matter that it will accept 480p, 576p, 720p and 1080i, all that matters to him is that his new TV must have the "HD Ready" logo on the box.