Still at a loss....(HDTV)

[ShadowDancer]

Well, at last, i'm finally in the final stages of having the money for a 42" HDTV, since the end of last year i've read so much, i was going to go budget and get a 1200 set, but this can be stretched to about 1400.

I really don't know what set to buy, it is primarily for gaming, i seldom watch television, i guess i'll have stuff hooked up via RGB, but it is for gaming.

Please believe me when i say i have read loads because of i have, right now i'm looking for people to throw 42" sets at me, please not literally, and maybe tell me about them (just a short paragraph)

The one thing that worries me is the responce time to do with motion blur, i can't seem to find this detail on sets i have looked at on the net.

I don't mind plasma or LCD as i'm told there is little difference in the two (presuming i was told correct)

Thank you

[gIzzE]

If you want to use it for gaming than get a Panasonic, they are pretty much burn proof, just a bonus that they also give the best image.

The viera range are good all in one TVs, but the 42PHD8 is even better, no tuner or speakers but the quality is amazing.
AV-Sales.com are doing a www.avforums.com special at ?1500 I think it is for the 42". This really is as good as it gets 42" wise.

[angelx]

I'm interested in this thread too, you mention the 42PHD8, is there an equivalent to this with a tuner built in?

[gIzzE]

I guess it would be the PX60, however the procesing in the TV range is not quite as good, but still better than all the other plasmas out there.

http://www.avsales.co.uk/PANASONIC-TH42PX60-33-16.htm


42PHD8 blk

http://www.av-sales.com/TH42PHD8BK-AVFORUM-PK-278-.htm

42PHD8 silver

http://www.av-sales.com/TH42PHD8BS-AVFORUM-PK-278-.htm

[ShadowDancer]

Thank you Gizze.

[mr_sockochris]

If you're not insistant on getting a flat panel TV....

http://www.currys.co.uk/product.php?sku=891049&camp_id=froogle

This Sagem has far the best HD picture quality I've seen to date. Annoyingly it was ?300 more than the Samsung I bought last summer but now it can be found for under a ?1000. There's a 50" version which is just as sexy too. Check out your local Curry's, every one I've been to near me have had one of these set up playing HD footage. The speakers are **** though so make sure you've got a decent sound setup.

[ascender]

I've got a Panasonic 42" plasma which is giving superb results for gaming, I'm using a 360 and a GC on it.

[gIzzE]

Are you serious about the Sagem?

A friend bought this as it was a good price and we both absolutely hated it!
It was obvious it was a rear projection system with all the inherant flaws that go with it and it only ever looked even half watchable when feed decent HD. For TV you can forget it.


linktpthepast, I hope you noticed av-sales are doing buy now pay later?
I would strecth your budget to ?1600, put your ?1400 down as a deposit and save the other ?200 ver the 9 monhs and get into the panny. They really are a different level to everything else.
You will never see the difference in a shop, they all look pretty much the same, whether it be the Pioneer, Samsung, Philips, Panasonic etc. It is only when you get them home and start doing basic calibration that the Panasonics start to really show the others up.
I have been through loads of plasmas and set up loads for other people and the pannys are just so much better picture wise, plus if you want to play games on it the fact it is virtually burn proof makes a hell of a difference too.

[gIzzE]

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showt...316890&page=44


Panasonic PX60 at John Lewis for ?1500 with stand and 5 year guaruntee.

[ascender]

Also, check out eBay, that's where I got my Panny from after speaking to a couple of other guys who'd bought from a particular seller. Saved a good few hundred quid over the cheapest website I could find as this guy was buying plasmas in their hundreds and just selling them on eBay.

[ShadowDancer]

All this is appreciated, Thank you. (Thank you Gizze, appreciated mate)

[gIzzE]

No problem, I am an anal sod when it comes to display devices, I use a 50PHD8 and a Crystalio II video processor which I am still paying off!
But I have had a few including the Pioneers, NEC's, LCDs etc. etc. and although some have more features, none of them come close picture quality wise.

Best to get it right now as most people keep their TV's for at least a couple of years, it's probably just me that changes every 12 months!

[ShadowDancer]

Hey Gizze, may i ask, do you know the screen refresh rate that is spoken about to do with motion blur, is it good with the panny? Thank you.

[Kotatsu Neko]

The Panasonics aren't HD though, they're only 1024 pixels wide - minimum for HD is 1280. No idea why a company as big as Panasonic would struggle to hit the HD minimum.

The Samsungs are the best I've seen for LCD, and Pioneer make great plasma sets.

[gIzzE]

Horizontal resolutuon is not part of the HD spec, and seriously the Panny PW8 with only 864x480 looks better than just about every other brands so called 'HD READY' sets when fed HD material. There is so much more to a good picture than just resolution.

When people talk about refresh they are generally talking about Vertical refresh and what it can handle.
Vertical refresh is 50hz for the UK and most Pal regions and 59.94 for most regions that use NTSC, they have stuck with this when moving to HD as well for some reason, it should have been a good time to jump to 60hz worldwide imho.
Anyway, most digital displays have a native rate, this is the resolution and the refresh they were designed to run at, ie 800x600@60hz, or 1024x768@75hz or maybe 1920x1080@60hz, whatever it may be this is the resolution that the screen will run at best.
Feed any LCD monitor native rate and it will look sharp. Feed that same screen a different resolution and it will look blury. Why? Because it has to fill the screen, so it scales the pixels you are inputting to match the pixels on screen. Now I think most of us know that and undertsand that nearly everything we through at a screen will not be an exact match, this is where an outboard video processor comes in, it can scale the image to a very, very high standard and bypass the cheap and poor processing built into the screen.
What alot of people do not realise is how many screens also have a native refresh rate, so whether you feed it 50hz, or 59.94 or 72hz or whatever, most screens have to convert it back to their native refresh. In the case of Samsungs, philips, LG and Hitatchi this is 60hz, and in the case of Pioneer this is 56.25 or 75hz. However the Panasonic screens can take 50hz and not convert, it shows 50 at 50 and the same with 60hz. It will also take 48, 72 which is great if you watch loads of NTSC stuff and use a scaler as you can get rid of the judder on NTSC film stuff too.
More important for us though is this, if you watch alot of TV you don't get it convcerted from 50 to 75, or even worse 60hz like a lot of sets do, you get a really smooth CRT type image. Now most people wouldn't even know their display was frame rate converting until they saw one that doesn't. I have had so many people from avforums come and see my system that use Pioneer plasams and the first thing they all comment on is how smooth it looks in comparison.
Being able to display an image at its native refresh is a big plus and makes a hell of a difference.

Hope that helps.

Oh, and you are lucky, I did type out an answer that was about 4x the length and then we had a power cut, so this is the condensed version!