New Plasma TV

wprager wrote:

shabbs wrote:Dude, it's the better tech hands down.

I also have a plasma and a full array LED in my house.

So I speak from experience and the almighty truth.

What model (full array LED)?

Brah. Sharp Aquos Quattron LC-70LE732U.

But you knew that already didn't you?

Yes you did.

shabbs wrote:

wprager wrote:

shabbs wrote:Dude, it's the better tech hands down.

I also have a plasma and a full array LED in my house.

So I speak from experience and the almighty truth.

What model (full array LED)?

Brah. Sharp Aquos Quattron LC-70LE732U.

But you knew that already didn't you?

Yes you did.

Massive. I'm a bit surprised though that its black levels aren't better with the full array. I assume it implements local dimming? It *should be* better. Of course exactly what constitutes "full array" is not clear -- they don't have an individual LED backlight for every pixel, of course, so who knows.

Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing TV and the picture is incredibly sharp and vibrant, but it still has issues with very dark scenes and sports like hockey and football. It took me a very long time to tweak it to get it right, like several months of fiddling with settings and time on avsforum.com with other owners. All that "motion enhancement" crap actually makes the picture worse. I got it at a Boxing Day Sale price and could not say no. Was too good of a deal to pass on for this TV. Heh heh. It is huge. This one is in our great room which has a lot of bright light and windows so it works well there.

My plasma is a 42" Panasonic TC-P42U1 and is in our bedroom. Incredible picture, amazingly true colours, black blacks and amazing for sports and fast action. Love it.

shabbs wrote:Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing TV and the picture is incredibly sharp and vibrant, but it still has issues with very dark scenes and sports like hockey and football. It took me a very long time to tweak it to get it right, like several months of fiddling with settings and time on avsforum.com with other owners. All that "motion enhancement" crap actually makes the picture worse. I got it at a Boxing Day Sale price and could not say no. Was too good of a deal to pass on for this TV. Heh heh. It is huge. This one is in our great room which has a lot of bright light and windows so it works well there.

My plasma is a 42" Panasonic TC-P42U1 and is in our bedroom. Incredible picture, amazingly true colours, black blacks and amazing for sports and fast action. Love it.

Have you considered spending $300 to have it professionally calibrated? There are service menus available which, when not tweaked right, could permanently damage your set, but when done by someone trained/experienced could really improve the picture. I assume the set has a local dimming setting (mine is edge-lit and it still has local dimming which works marginally well; with a full-array it should kick Donkey).

Local dimming is a tricky feature, if it's not done right it can make things worse and introduce a "halo" effect. Very few TVs actually get it right. With edge lit systems it is pretty useless because it cannot dim only a specific part of the screen. This is something that plasma's don't have to worry about of course.

I used these settings for my TV and it just seems so yellow at least for hockey. Should I just leave it be and get used to it, since these were the professionally calibrated settings?

Every TV is different, even among similar models, so using someone else's config is no guarantee to work for you. Professional calibration is a great idea if you don't want to spend the time yourself and can make a huge difference from out of the box.

Not just tv but also the room.

Ev wrote:I used these settings for my TV and it just seems so yellow at least for hockey. Should I just leave it be and get used to it, since these were the professionally calibrated settings?

I found for my plasma, I wanted to turn up the "blue" and leave everything else around normal. Also, I see the colour temp is set to "warm". You might want to dial that back to normal or whatever. Just play with it and get it to your satisfaction...don't give a Dung about the "pro" settings or whatever, set it up to YOUR liking. And for Diddle's sake don't pay to have it calibrated.

Yeah man, I changed it to Warm1 and it looks great.

No chance I'd pay $300 to have it calibrated lol.

I did buy a Disney WOW disc to see what it looks like based on their calibration tests

OK. So I have the bug now.

I'm looking at the Panasonic P65ST60 plasma (if I can find one)($1999). That or I'll go the Melnyk route with the Samsung 65" LED cheapo special on Thurs/Friday for $999.

This is replacing a circa 2007 Hitachi 65" CRT RPTV monster. (which still works ok, but not the sharpest pic out there)

If you have the budget for the Panasonic plasma, don't cheap out with the Samsung LED.

Hell, get a LG plasma instead for under $1000. I've had a LG plasma for two and a half years, and it's fantastic.

Really happy with mine so far. Love that it's not as bright to be honest.

If you ever have a set "professionally" calibrated, you'd be shocked at how dark it looks. But 99% of people like them a little brighter for better "pop".

FWIW, a "bright" screen does not necessarily mean better/more accurate picture quality, it just means you have the brightness cranked.



Panny Plasma FTW!

So, I too must buy a new TV (well, the house burned down so I need to buy everything, all over again). one of the things that I get a lot about plasma TV's is that they don't work well in a bright room ... instead, I'm considering an 8000 series Samsung LED. Does that sound like the right decision?

Sucks about your stuff burning.

The brightness of the room isn't as much a concern as the glare on the screen might be. So you need to determine if you'll have any light sources (lights, sun, etc) shining directly at the screen.

Shiiiiiit that sucks brother... sorry to hear that.