Dear Blog Reader(s) (Brett):
I may or may not have some money to buy a high definition TV, and I am looking for some guidance. The two main questions In my mind are: 1) should I get an LCD or a Plasma? and 2) Should I get a 1080p or a 720p?
I'm leaning strongly towards a plasma. The drawbacks to plasma compared to LCDs are that they are heavier, break easier, subject to screen burn, and use more electricity. The pluses are that plasmas have better refresh rates, are cheaper, and have darker blacks.
I'm also leaning towards a 720p, mostly because of price. Obviously, 1080p means a lot more pixels, and potentially a much sharper picture. Apparently, however, it's really hard to tell the difference between the two, and nearly impossible if you sit far from the screen. I'm eying a 50 inch, which is pretty big. Still, in our upstairs room, we currently sit about 10-12 feet from our 22 inch TV. To get the effect of the extra pixels in a 1080p, you are supposed to sit no further than 1.5 times the diagonal from the screen. With a 50 inch TV, you are not supposed to sit further than 6 1/4 feet from the TV. Pretty unlikely. Thus, I am not sure higher resolution will even be discernible, and with a TV that big, I'm not sure I'll ever want to sit that close. Also, most HD sources, like broadcasts (which I don't have in HD now, and which I don't want to pay for) and video games, aren't in 1080p, although blue ray is.
My basic thought process is: darker blacks, plus bigger TV, plus less money, equals the best deal. That said, I always have this fear that I'll discover there is just some feature, (like resolution) that I must have after I buy the TV. For now, though It seems like 1080p is not worth paying an extra $300-$500.
Dear reader(s), do you have any experience with this? any advice? Is there anything I should be considering that I am not?
9 comments:
I really haven't looked into TVs much as I haven't purchased one myself, so here's my uninformed opinion.
I do remember reading at one point that many of the differences between LCDs and plasmas have been largely minimized (eg screen burn isn't much of a problem anymore), so with that in mind I would go for whichever is cheaper.
As for the resolution, I think that many consumers are rather obsessed with having the best even if there's no noticeable difference, so I would consider overcoming the hype and buying a 720p a personal victory.
That being said there's an off chance that some new technology (1440p?)that comes out in the next 5+ years might be more compatible with 1080p than 720p. But who knows. At that point you can buy a new LED TV and give my your old one.
If you don't have one picked out yet, dealnews.com is a nice little site to help you find one.
I have a 1080 LCD. A few warnings: do not buy an HD tv unless you are willing to pay for HD cable/blu Ray/download HD stuff, everything not HD sucks after you have HDTV to prove it. 2. Don't hang it on the wall, even if you can, its really not that great and the mounts/holes in the wall are not worth it. Plus your living room is stuck with that configuration forever.
Plasma vs LCD.. the only thing that really matters is refresh rate. When I watch basketball on my TV and they move really fast, it can get blocky.. so if I could do it again, I would basically only look at that.
720 vs 1080 - pretty tough to tell the difference. the closer you get the easier it is to tell. So this depends on the size of your house and the size of your future tv. Even if you can tell, you wont have a 1080 sitting right next to a 720 in your house, so who cares?
in conclusion, 1. refresh rate 2. size of tv (get a flat panel not a rear projection). 3. power consumption. 4. once you go HD, you will never go back, make sure your really ready for all the ramifications.
I've had a number of people show me the difference between HD and non-HD broadcasts on their HD tv's and the non-HD just looked terrible. I always wondered what was going on. Watching low def tv even with rabbit ears didn't seem as bad as what they were showing me. But I just chalked it up to the fact that now I was holding it up next to something better and the contrast showed me how bad it really was.
Turns out my initial skepticism was right. The terrible quality was due to the poor ability of HD TVs to upconvert the low resolution signal to be compatible with the HD display. To get an actual comparison you'd need to see an HD tv next to a traditional tv set. HD is noticeably better, but not by quite as much as I thought.
That being said, Danny's point about needing HD media is even more important. If you are still using a non-HD on your HD tv, you're actually getting a downgrade.
http://gizmodo.com/5412450/the-5-best-hdtv-deals-under-1000
The first TV is the one I'm thinking about now. Any thoughts on this particular model?
apparently this tv has refresh rate of like 600hz, which is far superior to LCDs, and should address Danny's problem.
Brett makes a good point. Maybe I'll look into what it costs to upgrade my cable too.
Wow, that's a pretty good price. A couple of places I go when researching electronics are:
Cnet for professional reviews -
http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/panasonic-viera-tc-p50x1/4505-6482_7-33490593.html?tag=mncol;lst
and good old amazon usually has the largest number of user reviews -
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-VIERA-TC-P50X1-50-Inch-Plasma/product-reviews/B001SN7QUU/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
On the cnet review be sure to check out the "Update" in the full review. Apparently the faint diagonal line problem was fixed.
Where did you read that it was fixed? I only see that the engineers don't know what to do with it. Now I'm concerned.
I see that update now, right at the top. There is another update further into the article that says the engineers had not fixed it.
Bought the panasonic. Thanks for your help.
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