Options
Plasma or LCD
turbo
Posts: 195 Forum Member
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I'm thinking of getting a 32" flat TV.
I saw in Richer HiFi a 32" Hitachi LCD and a 32" Hitachi Plasma.
Both were HDTV ready- but which would be be best?
What are the advantages/disadvantages of both?
The shop assistant didn’t give very convincing answers.
I saw in Richer HiFi a 32" Hitachi LCD and a 32" Hitachi Plasma.
Both were HDTV ready- but which would be be best?
What are the advantages/disadvantages of both?
The shop assistant didn’t give very convincing answers.
0
Comments
It's odd because you would expect that these state of the art LCD teles, which people are spending up to 1500 quid for even a 28 or 32 " one, would at the very least provide picture quality 'as good' if not superior to that old Ferguson/Phillips wooden-frame telly you've had since the 80s, but hey - the picture quality is far worse!
I'm not a fan of LCDs at all, not only does the picture look pixellated (unnatural, 'digital-like') but there is a noticeable judder/blur when there is movement on screen.. which makes it almost unwatachable if you are looking to watch sports, such as football.
As far as plasmas go, well its a different ball game out there. You've got the big players - Panasonic, Sony, Pioneer, Hitachi (not the most expensive around, but their plasma are classy) - who are now coming up with some seriously good plasma teles, with picture quality that is definitely 'watchable' off Freeview or Sky and pretty impressive from a good source like DVD.
I would definitely get a full demo of any screens you are interested in..
but yes, I suppose everyone has their own priortieis , some people don't care the least about picture quality, all they want is a flat, slim screen that looks good when its turned off, ie a decoration piece.
CRTs will always give you the best quality, but with either Plasmas or LCDs you will get a bigger screen whilst still saving space.
Which is exactly why I'm looking for one. But considering my 21" CRT set cost £280 and still works perfectly after ten years, I don't want to spend a fortune replacing it. Are the Toshibas (27 or 32WL56) any good because they're far cheaper than the Panasonic or Hitachi?
All types of TV have pros and cons. I'm looking to change from CRT to LCD next year, as even now you can get good LCD sets at 30" for around £1000.
The main thing to realise is that LCD and plasma give you a different type of picture compared to CRT, more pixelated and\or blocky at times and blacks aren't as deep as on CRT.
Try and see LCD and plasma in action, then you can decide what to go for.
Personally I'd go with LCD, as the picture quality is getting better all the time, the prices are coming down and the screen size is going up.
Whilst plasma can give you a big screen, I just didn't like the downsides.
Dunedin
Have to say that the upside of Plasmas or LCD (or any large screen flat panel TV) wont be here until HDTV arrives.
The bigger screen you have, the more the frailties of broadcast TV signals, and in some cases DVDs appear. Once Hi Def arrives the TVs really do shine out in picture quality.
I heard this also, its pretty pricey to repair also. It put me off getting a plasma
Plasma TVs use pixels containing a gas which is excited to produce the desired colours. (A quick search on google will confim this.) This in itself is an issue because eventually the colours will fade - 30,000 hours is a figure I have seen for a half-life.
As far as the debate on lcd v plasmas, lets be in no doubt here - the LCD panels currently out there are inferior in terms of picture quality - specifically when watching football - to in my view, even the first colour televisions maufactured back in the 70s... because at least the latter were 'watchable'.. but the LCDs you see at Dixons or Currys are so ridiculously poor in picture quality, that its amazing they even classify these things as 'televisions'.. more like toys, if you ask me.
I recently recorded a football match on DVD and had it tested out on a number of LCDs - the juddering, motion blur and pixellation of the picture was almost ridiculous. Never seen such unnatural television pictures in my life.
Its almost laugahble to think that there are people out there who will spend their hard earned money on such mediocre television sets, being told by salesmen at Currys that they boast 'state of the art' technology and will give better pictures - amusing, to say the least.
Plasmas have their share of problems too, but looking around at the market today, there are some very impressive plasmas available from the likes of Panasonic, Pioneer, Sony, Hitachi, which offer splendid picture quality and the newer models, screen burn is not as big an issue as it was in the past.
The pixellation issue is down to two things, the source material and viewing distance. Its most obvious on Sky via RGB scart (my worst connection that Im running at the mo). When I play DVDs through my hd upscaling DVD player the picture ranges from excellent to superb, depending again on the bit rate of the DVD source material.
Im still looking at buying a full 36" to 45" with HDMI in the next couple of years, and it will be LCD. The technology is there, its good but as usual it depends on your situation with the placement room and what signals you are going to feed the unit with.
Edit: One last thing, the other day I hooked up my PC to my LCD via DVI and played some hi def wmv files. Mindblowing picture quality.
Plasmas don't work on bulbs, it is gas in each of the 4 elements in each pixel. The estimated best quality till fade is around 32,000hours at least as it stands.
Plasma i'd say is far better than LCD for natural colours and brightness. If you decide to go for one, look for HDMI compatible, 1378*768 pixels at least, and don't cop out on a shitty TINY £999 plasma. You pay for what you get in this market, pay the little more of you'll regret.
Alternatively, hang on for a bit, i remember reading up about a new screen technology, same width as plasma screens, same brightness and quality as CRT, although it will probs be a while and expensive at trial!
Sorry Tony but don't assume that box shifting stores such as Currys take any time or effort to setup their LCD's and feed them a decent source.
I have no problems watching footy on my 32" LCD and believe me I watch a lot of High Def stuff and know what a good or bad picture is.
Given the limitations of the digital broadcasts used in this country I am very satsified with my purchase even if in your opinion I am haven't a mind of my own and can not make a decision without the guidance of a spotty tennage who works for currys:)
Simple solution.
Get Richers to demo both panels using one of your own DVD's hooked up via HDMI/Component and see which you prefer and if possible a DTT or Dsat source since broadcast TV will probably be the bulk of your viewing.
If they are not prepared to do that then go somewhere that will.
Also pop over to the AVforums and make use of their very active LCD and Plasma sections, more specialist knowledge over there:)
Just a little tinkering with the settings can improve things immensely.
As far as which is better between LCD and Plasma things are getting harder until very recently LCD was a great solution 30" and below while Plasma was most cost effective from 42" upwards.
Now that big LCDs are appearing it is a more complex issue and as others have said they are different and look different. The real joke I feel is that the complaints about pixelation I guess have nothing to do with the screen technology itself LCD or Plasma but almost certainly does have something to do with the cheap support electronics that convert interlaced images to progressive images for the display.
Finally as far as the life and fragility of Plasma goes if you are not planning on watching an enormous amount of one channel which has a big fixed area of colour (Sky News / BBC News etc) then burn in is unlikely to be a major problem even several hours of something won't cause a problem.
But 100s of house can cause burn in and it can be noticeable. As far as the life of a plasma is concerned the 32,000 hrs people quote is equivalent to 16 years watching every day for 6hrs a day and the reality is that there will probably be other reasons to change your screen before then.
People come up with lots of reasons why you shouldn't buy a plasma and most of them seem to be old wives tales and mis information - not sure why this had grown up.
You can get a 45" HD Ready DLP television for £1500. 40" LCDs are now available from around £1700. However, you'll be lucky to find a comparable HD Ready plasma such as the 43" Pioneer PDP435XDE for less than £2300 (the 42" Panasonic TH42PV500 is slightly cheaper at around £2100.)
Unless they offer more competitive pricing plasma manufacturers are going to see their market share continue to slide.
Surely the point is that the picture and resolution on these TVs is so good that it badly shows up the limitations of the source material? I had a similar reaction when I bought my last TV (32" flat wide, 100HZ), because Sky actually seemed to look worse than on my old TV, but I soon realised that given the right source material, picture quality was much much better.
A DVD I make from one of my old VHS tapes looks better on my CRT TV than it does on my PC TFT monitor, but no-one would try and argue that the CRT TV has 'better' picture quality as I can see in a second that the resolution on the TFT is miles better. It's just that the TFT shows up all the graininess and imperfection in the VHS material.
I'm looking at getting an LCD TV in the near future but I may wait until HDTV actually arrives as I don't think there's anything out there at the moment that actually warrants the extra definition (save downloads from the US which I have to convert to MPEG-2 to watch anyway!)
James
Ive spent the past few days Ive been downloading various hi def movie files and playing them through my PC. The picture quality is the best Ive ever seen and quite mind blowing.
LCDs and Plasmas will be the best TVs around when HDTV is out.
During last years Euro Championship the games looked terrible on a bog standard 28" CRT via digital and only became watchable via terrestrial analogue.
If a CRT can not handle a poor broadcast source then the much more demanding flat panels don't have a chance once the source is rescaled to match the native resolution of the panel.
However give a HD panel a good SD source you are in a whole new ball game and as for a HD source well the SKY is the limit:)
Some time ago whilst researching plasmas I sent an email to sky with the following question based on seeing plasmas at Paddington and Waterloo stations. The screens had the most dreadfull burn in's I have ever seen.
My mail (implying ownership) to customer services asked what system of recompense sky have in place for people who have spent thousands of pounds on plasma screens such as my self and also subscribe to sky and now have dogs such as skyone burnt in. Their reply was that it was not their problem and that I should take it up with the respective manufacturer. I asked them if they would make the dogs disappear after 3 seconds so as to prevent burn in and to address this, as it is along standing sky customer hate thing.
Of course they didn't have the balls to reply, as I suspected.
Pioneer are now saying the life of their screens are 60,000 hrs which is pretty good.
I did read an article somewhere that the next step is "organic" screens that are maliable and can even be rolled up. Now that would do my wall a treat.
Of course the plasmas used a public display panels running grahics 24/7 are at the extreme range of the burn in issue.
Most modern plasmas do have some anti burn technology nowadays such as adjusting the scan by a pixel this way and that in realtime.
With a bit of care screen burn is not that big of a problem now but it does still exist so has to be a consideration depending upon what you watch and who else controls the plasma.
Who exactly has to take the blame is a touchy issue:)
The broadcaster who sends a static image, the manufacturer for making the panels and of course the owner for not complying with the warning in the manual!
SKY of course are only responsible for their own channels so have no influence on the use of DOGS on ITV, CH4, Scifi, UKTV etc etc but thankfully an auto timeout for the "red dot" interactive graphic is now the norm on standard digiboxes and will be soon on SKY+ units.
That is the best that can be done unless OFCOM have the guts to class DOGS as advertising which would mean they would soon vanish:)
I could do with an organic flexible screen, what with my walls being so wonky and all
I think Jarrak has given some good advice (as usual)..... a properly setup screen should look pretty good, but it does seem that many people stare at the screen from 6 inches away and complain of all the blockiness and awful pictures... of course I'd agree, but equally I'd say that at normal viewing distance, many plasma or LCD screens are pretty good.
I set up a 42" Philips plasma recently for someone, the image was terrible and looked like lego blocks.... a little tinkering and sitting 10 feet back and it wasn't really bad at all (well except for the diabolical to use Philips DVDrecorder/Surround sound system that went with it!)
Presumably these digital artifacts (the future of antiques?
oh, cost... of course! lol
oh yes. The 're-gassing' urban myth. Plasmas and LCD televisions are given lifetimes 2 or 3 times as long as a CRT televisions. They dont need servicing. Ever. They might break down but what electrical equipment cant?
My last sony crt (2003) quoted 10,000 hrs average lifetime. My new plasma is 32,000 hrs.