New Plasma TV

Thanks. Everyone is fine. It happened Sunday afternoon 2 weeks ago. It was a chimney fire. We live in a bungalow (finished basement). The basement (where the wood stove was located) is fine but the main floor is destroyed. Everything is charred. The whole house must be gutted, down to the structure and rebuild (and a new roof).

We were not able to save anything from the main floor. Clothing, electronics, appliances, furniture, flooring, etc had to be junked. It's all "stuff" though and most of it can be replaced.

We had made copies of our digital pictures on various hard drives to protect ourselves from hardware failure but we had no offsite backups. We were pretty shaken up by all of our hard drives being melted but it turns out that we were able to retrieve the contents from one of the drives.

We stayed in a hotel for a couple of weeks but we have now rented a house. This means that life can start again. The insurance and restoration companies estimate that we should be able to move back in around May or June.

Number Twenty Nine wrote:I know plasma is 600hz, but I really don't like the look.  We'll see what happens this Thanksgiving.

Should be some sweet sweet deals...

Try and check out the TVs in an audio/video store that has dedicated setups/rooms and have calibrated their TVs. You get a much better idea of what they TVs can do. Then go find the cheapest place to buy the one you want on Black Friday and enjoy.

shabbs wrote:The 120Hz vs 240Hz is an often discussed and debated subject. Both will handle judder properly and do a 2:3 pull down nicely on film sourced as 24fps (assuming your BR player will send it at 24fps). In my opinion, the 240Hz is not worth the extra $$$. Save some and spend it on some BR titles.

I have seen talk of going to 240Hz if you want to use 3D. If that's something you are thinking of doing, consider the 240Hz. I don't care for 3D, nor do any of my TVs support it. The reason for this is that the 3D signal gets split into two I believe, in a phase shift, and thus the rate gets halved, so having 240Hz gets you 120Hz for each side of the 3D signal. Not totally sure about that, but I'm sure a bit of Googling can clear that up.

Plasma is 600Hz.

Yes, you need 120 Hz to be watch both 24 fps and 30 fps sources, and double that for 3D.

EDIT: Oh, and Plsma's 600 Hz, who cares if the firmware doesn't do anything with it. All that 600 means is that it can switch the pixel on and off 600 times per second. It doesn't mean that you can actually go from 0 to full bright and back 600 times a second. Plasma still uses phosphor so there it is never instant-off.

The newer LCDs/LEDs have similar *real* refresh rates. What plasma give you that LCDs/LEDs do not is truly wide viewing angles (horizontal and vertical).


And they keep you warm in the winter.

I might get the Sharp LC70LE650. Deal too sweet to pass up.

Number Twenty Nine wrote:I might get the Sharp LC70LE650. Deal too sweet to pass up.  

Sharp does make very good LED TVs.

wprager wrote:EDIT: Oh, and Plsma's 600 Hz, who cares if the firmware doesn't do anything with it.  All that 600 means is that it can switch the pixel on and off 600 times per second.  It doesn't mean that you can actually go from 0 to full bright and back 600 times a second.  Plasma still uses phosphor so there it is never instant-off.

The newer LCDs/LEDs have similar *real* refresh rates.  What plasma give you that LCDs/LEDs do not is truly wide viewing angles (horizontal and vertical).

And they keep you warm in the winter.

Heh. The 600Hz is for Plasma is not directly comparable to LCD/LED TVs 120/240Hz, I'll give you that. At the end of the day, Plasma's don't have motion blur, LCD/LED TVs still do, even at 240Hz. I see it on my Sharp LED and have learned to just live with it. When you watch sports or movies with a lot of panning action etc... you can notice it. And once you notice it, you can't un-notice it.

And the energy consumption argument is a load of crap, unless you're Prager (insert image of guy falling over finding a penny on the ground).

Didn't say anything about energy consumption, did I? Said they kept you warm in the winter; that's a good thing

And the "load of crap" really applies to the older LCDs which used incandescent bulbs for the backlight. Yes, their power consumption depended on the brightness of the scene so on average they could use even more energy than plasmas, whose consumption was constant. LED backlight uses a lot less power.

If you are seeing motion blur it could be some setting on your set (for example some "advanced" settings that are meant to improve picture quality -- including motion blur reduction settings -- often do quite the opposite. Anyhow, here is a good article from way back in 2009! http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/73172-lcd-motion-blur-fact-and-fiction

And here is a fairly recent comparison of LED and Plasma: http://www.rtings.com/info/lcd-vs-led-vs-plasma

I've minimized the motion blur on my LED as much as possible through painstaking tweaks. This set is as good as it will get for my viewing habits and preferences. There will always be some sort of blur in a LED/LCD set. It's just a fact of the technology behind LCD/LED TVs. You can't avoid it.

When I first got my Sharp LED unit, all the motion enhancement stuff was turned on and yeah, it is odd, but you need turn all that crap off to get the best picture. When it's turned on, the picture looks so sharp it hurts and actually is a distraction. I remember watching The Hunger Games and it was just too much. No one could watch it.

Good link in the comparison between LCD/LED and Plasma.The backlight uniformity issues can be major. I've seen LED sets that have HUGE blotches all over the screen. When you watch hockey on them, the white ice makes it very apparent. Horrible and very distracting. My Sharp set does not have that, thankfully. The limited viewing angle seems to be getting better with the newer models, but will never come close to Plasma. If you have a big wide room with seats at sharp angles, may be a factor.


Heh heh - love this comment:

"Q: Why does a LED TV looks so much better in a store than a Plasma TV?
A:The lights in a retail store are usually really bright so to compensate and sell more TVs, the store brings the brightness of their TVs to the max. A very bright TV in a store will make it "pop", which translate into increased sales. Because Plasma TVs cannot be as bright as an LED TV, they will often look fade in comparison to an LED TV in a store. Keep in mind that in a retail store environment, you cannot see the LED TV biggest flaw: poor blacks. Once it is in your living room at night and you turn down that brightness, you should start seeing the difference."

Too true.

Diddle I keep changing the color temperature. I can't settle.

It can take some time to find the right setup for what works for you. The source will also affect the settings you use (ie: broadcast cable that has a wide ranging mix of SD and HD; HD from Blu Ray or HD-DVD sources, Media Center etc...). If you have them all on separate TV inputs, you can usually tweak each input separately to tailor to your source.

lol HD-DVD

Ev wrote:lol HD-DVD

Heh. My player still works just fine... and the movies look great on my 70"...

Ev wrote:lol HD-DVD

My brother was pretty hardcore about getting the latest consoles back in the day, I think the X-Box HD-DVD debacle turned him off for good.  

200.00 off 13.3 inch MacBook air at Staples on Friday.

SeawaySensFan wrote:

Ev wrote:lol HD-DVD

My brother was pretty hardcore about getting the latest consoles back in the day, I think the X-Box HD-DVD debacle turned him off for good.  

Heh. That was a debacle. I still think HD-DVD was the better technology. But, as it always happens in business, the deeper pockets (ie: Sony and co.) won and not the better technology.

shabbs wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

Ev wrote:lol HD-DVD

My brother was pretty hardcore about getting the latest consoles back in the day, I think the X-Box HD-DVD debacle turned him off for good.  

Heh. That was a debacle. I still think HD-DVD was the better technology. But, as it always happens in business, the deeper pockets (ie: Sony and co.) won and not the better technology.

It certainly was. This whole java-based menus are a pain. 1-2 minutes to start watching a movie sometimes. Ever accidentally hit the stop button on the PS3 (they should really change the remote so that a single press does pause)? Kicks you right out and then it takes a while to get back to the Resume option. Remember VCRs? Sweet, almost instant on.

shabbs wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

Ev wrote:lol HD-DVD

My brother was pretty hardcore about getting the latest consoles back in the day, I think the X-Box HD-DVD debacle turned him off for good.  

Heh. That was a debacle. I still think HD-DVD was the better technology. But, as it always happens in business, the deeper pockets (ie: Sony and co.) won and not the better technology.

He was one of those line up and/or pre-order and/or drive to the States if you have to guys up until then. Hasn't been that way since.

I did get to experience the mighty Dreamcast thanks to him and I am forever grateful.