Buying a new TV

[Adieu]

No, seriously, *I* know all about good tvs. There still isn't a LCD (LED or not, doesn't make any difference in this regard) that can match plasma's motion resolution. It could be that it's not that much of a priority for you, but if you're big into movies (and modern tv series as well, it's all 24p), the ONLY truthful reproduction is possible on plasma.

 

I really know what I'm talking about. LCDs, even the ridiculously expensive, bleeding-edge tech ones, aren't capable of displaying the motion like CRT and plasma are. I'm not talking about black levels here, nor contrast, nor gamut coverage, nor (god forbid) 240+ Hz nonsense. LCDs are just slow at turning pixels on and/or off and that really shows when you try watching a good old movie.

 

I think you are referring to millisecond response time? Very important for gaming.

[jhonny]

UK-centric, but was in B&M Bargains today and you can get a 50" Panasonic Viera Plasma for £350 which is insane value, even if it's their bottom of the range one.

 

Plasma's don't suffer from screen burn anymore, and wifi is pointless if you have Apple TV or a PS3/Xbox which does all internet stuff but better than some internal TV software.

[kokoon]

 

No, seriously, *I* know all about good tvs. There still isn't a LCD (LED or not, doesn't make any difference in this regard) that can match plasma's motion resolution. It could be that it's not that much of a priority for you, but if you're big into movies (and modern tv series as well, it's all 24p), the ONLY truthful reproduction is possible on plasma.

 

I really know what I'm talking about. LCDs, even the ridiculously expensive, bleeding-edge tech ones, aren't capable of displaying the motion like CRT and plasma are. I'm not talking about black levels here, nor contrast, nor gamut coverage, nor (god forbid) 240+ Hz nonsense. LCDs are just slow at turning pixels on and/or off and that really shows when you try watching a good old movie.

 

I think you are referring to millisecond response time? Very important for gaming.

 

I'm not talking about gaming performance, I'm talking about what can be easily observed when watching any motion on screen. Yes, it's response time, but the industry is trying to obscure this inherent LCD's drawback to such an extent, that the numbers they're stating are completely irrelevant.

 

The fact is, plasma is able to show a frame of a motion like it should, black-white-black transition in a matter of milliseconds, while LCDs drag the grays for a very long time. And you can see that clearly, no special equipment or perfect vision are required. Sadly, some people have become accustomed to such blurry motion on screen, that they don't notice how much worse it is than 20 years ago on an old-school CRT screen.

 

It really is so, but you have to dig really deep on the review sites and you have to know what to look for, in order to find the evidence.

 

In the last month, I helped choosing a 1400eur 46" LCD and a 900eur 60" plasma. I personally set them both up and guess which one the LCD owner thinks looks better?

[kokoon]

Oh, I forgot to mention this vital piece of information - I'm in a search of a good LCD.

 

Because I know, with plasma on its way out, I will have to settle with another tech sooner or later, when I will be upgrading. OLED has the same responsiveness issues as LCD (I think it might be even worse) and every LCD I've seen so far (and read about) shows blurry/ghosty motion.

[oscillik]

I don't own a TV, haven't owned one since I was 14

[YEK]

so plasma doesn't burn images anymore?

 

also my landlord who pays for electricity is always going on about electricity spent and $

i leave my tv on quite alot, is this a big issue, how much power plasmas draw

[Braintree]

You're putting us on, Oscillik.

 

How many TV's have you NOT owned in the past five years?

[Joyrex]

i don't get it, why the opposition to tvs with wi-fi ? seems like an essential feature to me.

There's nothing wrong with a TV having Wi-Fi, except the standard (let's say wireless N) will be outdated before the TV is - and since it's built into the TV, years down the road you have to support a legacy standard just so your aging HDTV can connect wirelessly. Another problem until recently is most of the apps built into TVs just aren't that good, and depending on the quality of the processor in the TV, can be very slow. Again, better to buy an external box to stream to and hook it to the TV.

 

so normal lcd is better than led?

LED is just how the LCD is lit - you want LED as it consumes less electricity, as well lasting longer than CFL-style lighting older (and cheap) LCDs can use.

 

No, seriously, *I* know all about good tvs. There still isn't a LCD (LED or not, doesn't make any difference in this regard) that can match plasma's motion resolution. It could be that it's not that much of a priority for you, but if you're big into movies (and modern tv series as well, it's all 24p), the ONLY truthful reproduction is possible on plasma.

 

I really know what I'm talking about. LCDs, even the ridiculously expensive, bleeding-edge tech ones, aren't capable of displaying the motion like CRT and plasma are. I'm not talking about black levels here, nor contrast, nor gamut coverage, nor (god forbid) 240+ Hz nonsense. LCDs are just slow at turning pixels on and/or off and that really shows when you try watching a good old movie.

True - depends on what you watch, though - plasma refreshes at 600hz vs 120hz+ for LCD, so you do have better natural motion with plasma, but for gaming, LCD refreshes are superior (this coming from someone who games on a plasma), and typically look better on an LCD. Now, if you're not gaming, then you can still consider plasma, BUT - keep in mind the following:

• heat - plasma TVs give off a lot more heat than LCDs do.
• weight - plasma TVs are typically heavier than LCDs (something to consider when wall mounting as well when moving it from time to time
• size - biggest plasma you can get (that's affordable) is 60" - if you want 70"+ (like my Sharp I'm keeping an eye on), you'll have to consider LCD.
• burn-in/ghosting - like 747 mentioned, when gaming (or shows that have static images on the screen like the station identity logo in the corner), objects that stay on-screen for long periods WILL leave after-images (or ghosts), and will take a few contrast changes (going from a very dark to a very bright scene for instance) for it to go away. In some rare cases, (like the people that leave CNN on 24/7), those static images can permanently burn in. LCD does not suffer from that.
• Sharpness - I only mention it as because (IMO) LCD images seem crisper than plasma (to me), again, if you game a lot (or intend to), this might be a factor to consider.

The bottom line is everyone here is giving good advice - best thing to do though is go see a TV in person, preferably at a store that knows how to calibrate their TVs properly, and see for yourself what looks good. Then, unless the price is really good, go online and see if you can find that exact model cheaper and order it there versus in-store. Like I mentioned, I got my 50" LG plasma (with 2 pairs of 3D glasses) for 870USD three years ago - it's only until last year non-3D plasmas have gotten into and below that price range (it was around 1100-1300USD at the time I got it). Amazon in the US is a great place to get TVs from - dunno if that would apply to everyone reading though.

[kokoon]

Yek, it's really not an issue, it's like $15 difference yearly, quick googling brings up http://www.rtings.com/info/lcd-vs-led-vs-plasma/power-consumption-and-electricity-cost

[kokoon]

Yeah, like Joyrex says, "smart tvs" are usually so much worse than what you usually hook up to it (a pc, a console, ...)

 

As for 600/120Hz, it really doesn't make any difference unless you turn on the MCFI motion smoothing, which is a topic on its own. It's that ungodly soap-opera effect that makes every motion look uncanny and absolutely nothing like it's supposed to. It's what the industry came up with to try to make up for the bad pixel response times.

[eugene]

 

i don't get it, why the opposition to tvs with wi-fi ? seems like an essential feature to me.

There's nothing wrong with a TV having Wi-Fi, except the standard (let's say wireless N) will be outdated before the TV is - and since it's built into the TV, years down the road you have to support a legacy standard just so your aging HDTV can connect wirelessly. Another problem until recently is most of the apps built into TVs just aren't that good, and depending on the quality of the processor in the TV, can be very slow. Again, better to buy an external box to stream to and hook it to the TV.

 

N can do 100mbps, it can pretty much stream uncompressed 1080p, so if your tv is 1080p i don't really see a problem.

[Adieu]

UK-centric, but was in B&M Bargains today and you can get a 50" Panasonic Viera Plasma for £350 which is insane value, even if it's their bottom of the range one.

 

Plasma's don't suffer from screen burn anymore, and wifi is pointless if you have Apple TV or a PS3/Xbox which does all internet stuff but better than some internal TV software.

 

Not true. Plasmas do burn in but my burn isn't permanent and it caused by irresponsibly using the TV.

[lumines]

You can get permanent screen burn with LCD screens, i've seen it myself with a monitor in work that was left on for a while.

[kokoon]

That's true, plasmas do still burn-in, but hey know what, LCDs do too. Not as much as plasmas, but they do. OLED too.

 

You have to be a bit careful but it's not such a big deal if you can appreciate the strong sides.

[Guest Gary C]

 

Anything but plasma. Everyday I'm a little more infuriated by the horizontal-bleeds.

 

I only paid £80 for it though, so I'm not aggrieved about the quality just the annoyance. But when I do buy a new one, it definitely won't be plasma.

 

What do you mean bleeds?

 

For mine I have a slight burn in that shows up occasionally, but only is visible under specific conditions like a game loading screen.

 

 

There's a little screen-burn but I regularly try to 'clean' it.

 

The problem I have is... It's hard to describe. But it's a horizontal bleed/blend/ghost.

 

Say I'm watching South Park, and behind Cartman there's a horizontal line, a cabinet in the background. Well, the dark edges of that background element will seep directly through the colour next to it.

 

It's not unwatchable but it's fucking annoying.

 

Here, I drawed:

 

[Silent Member]

I've never seen that on my telly.

[Adieu]

 

 

Anything but plasma. Everyday I'm a little more infuriated by the horizontal-bleeds.

 

I only paid £80 for it though, so I'm not aggrieved about the quality just the annoyance. But when I do buy a new one, it definitely won't be plasma.

 

What do you mean bleeds?

 

For mine I have a slight burn in that shows up occasionally, but only is visible under specific conditions like a game loading screen.

 

 

There's a little screen-burn but I regularly try to 'clean' it.

 

The problem I have is... It's hard to describe. But it's a horizontal bleed/blend/ghost.

 

Say I'm watching South Park, and behind Cartman there's a horizontal line, a cabinet in the background. Well, the dark edges of that background element will seep directly through the colour next to it.

 

It's not unwatchable but it's fucking annoying.

 

Here, I drawed:

 

plasmashit.gif

 

 

Check your connections. I get these horizontal lines across my screen, but can be fixed by adjusting the plug a bit. Seems it is part of having a bad connection. It may not be he same issue you are experiencing though.

[Guest Gary C]

I've adjusted the plugs and googled it before. If I remember correctly, it could be a fault specific to my Samsung TV. Something about removing the whole backpiece and replacing a board. Fucuuuckk that.

 

But mostly, it's put me off plasmas for good.

[Joyrex]

 

 

i don't get it, why the opposition to tvs with wi-fi ? seems like an essential feature to me.

There's nothing wrong with a TV having Wi-Fi, except the standard (let's say wireless N) will be outdated before the TV is - and since it's built into the TV, years down the road you have to support a legacy standard just so your aging HDTV can connect wirelessly. Another problem until recently is most of the apps built into TVs just aren't that good, and depending on the quality of the processor in the TV, can be very slow. Again, better to buy an external box to stream to and hook it to the TV.

 

N can do 100mbps, it can pretty much stream uncompressed 1080p, so if your tv is 1080p i don't really see a problem.

 

N can theorhetically do 100mbps - I can assure you that you (and the majority of people) will never see speeds even close to that. You might also take a look at how big 1 second of uncompressed 1080P is, let alone compressed 1080P.

 

That's true, plasmas do still burn-in, but hey know what, LCDs do too. Not as much as plasmas, but they do. OLED too.

 

You have to be a bit careful but it's not such a big deal if you can appreciate the strong sides.

OLED fascinates me (the screen on the first-gen PS Vita is amazing looking) but I've read that OLED will 'decay' after a period of time (since it's organic). I need to look into it more, TBH.

[eugene]

 

 

 

i don't get it, why the opposition to tvs with wi-fi ? seems like an essential feature to me.

There's nothing wrong with a TV having Wi-Fi, except the standard (let's say wireless N) will be outdated before the TV is - and since it's built into the TV, years down the road you have to support a legacy standard just so your aging HDTV can connect wirelessly. Another problem until recently is most of the apps built into TVs just aren't that good, and depending on the quality of the processor in the TV, can be very slow. Again, better to buy an external box to stream to and hook it to the TV.

 

N can do 100mbps, it can pretty much stream uncompressed 1080p, so if your tv is 1080p i don't really see a problem.

 

N can theorhetically do 100mbps - I can assure you that you (and the majority of people) will never see speeds even close to that. You might also take a look at how big 1 second of uncompressed 1080P is, let alone compressed 1080P.

 

a blu ray is 50GB max /120(minutes of film)=416MB per minute = ~7MB per second=~56Mbit.

you can easily handle it with properly set up wifi n.

 

Sent from my Windows PC using Papatalk.

[oscillik]

 

 

 

i don't get it, why the opposition to tvs with wi-fi ? seems like an essential feature to me.

There's nothing wrong with a TV having Wi-Fi, except the standard (let's say wireless N) will be outdated before the TV is - and since it's built into the TV, years down the road you have to support a legacy standard just so your aging HDTV can connect wirelessly. Another problem until recently is most of the apps built into TVs just aren't that good, and depending on the quality of the processor in the TV, can be very slow. Again, better to buy an external box to stream to and hook it to the TV.

 

N can do 100mbps, it can pretty much stream uncompressed 1080p, so if your tv is 1080p i don't really see a problem.

 

N can theorhetically do 100mbps - I can assure you that you (and the majority of people) will never see speeds even close to that. You might also take a look at how big 1 second of uncompressed 1080P is, let alone compressed 1080P.

 

I recently turned on the 5GHz option on my router (Linksys EA4500) and this drastically improved the throughput over WiFi on 802.11n. While on 2.4GHz, the throughput never really hit above 30-40Mbps, but now I often hit over 90Mbps over WiFi. I dunno if any modern TVs support 5GHz access points, but if anyone here has one, it might be worth enabling the 5GHz access point on your router to see if it helps improve things.

[Joyrex]

 

 

 

 

i don't get it, why the opposition to tvs with wi-fi ? seems like an essential feature to me.

There's nothing wrong with a TV having Wi-Fi, except the standard (let's say wireless N) will be outdated before the TV is - and since it's built into the TV, years down the road you have to support a legacy standard just so your aging HDTV can connect wirelessly. Another problem until recently is most of the apps built into TVs just aren't that good, and depending on the quality of the processor in the TV, can be very slow. Again, better to buy an external box to stream to and hook it to the TV.

 

N can do 100mbps, it can pretty much stream uncompressed 1080p, so if your tv is 1080p i don't really see a problem.

 

N can theorhetically do 100mbps - I can assure you that you (and the majority of people) will never see speeds even close to that. You might also take a look at how big 1 second of uncompressed 1080P is, let alone compressed 1080P.

 

I recently turned on the 5GHz option on my router (Linksys EA4500) and this drastically improved the throughput over WiFi on 802.11n. While on 2.4GHz, the throughput never really hit above 30-40Mbps, but now I often hit over 90Mbps over WiFi. I dunno if any modern TVs support 5GHz access points, but if anyone here has one, it might be worth enabling the 5GHz access point on your router to see if it helps improve things.

 

Would the receiving device need to support 5GHz? I thought that was only the transmitting device that decided what band it uses.

[jhonny]

 

UK-centric, but was in B&M Bargains today and you can get a 50" Panasonic Viera Plasma for £350 which is insane value, even if it's their bottom of the range one.

 

Plasma's don't suffer from screen burn anymore, and wifi is pointless if you have Apple TV or a PS3/Xbox which does all internet stuff but better than some internal TV software.

 

Not true. Plasmas do burn in but my burn isn't permanent and it caused by irresponsibly using the TV.

 

agreed. my point was that screen-burn isn't an issue for regular TV use.

[Rubin Farr]

UK-centric, but was in B&M Bargains today and you can get a 50" Panasonic Viera Plasma for £350 which is insane value, even if it's their bottom of the range one.

 

Plasma's don't suffer from screen burn anymore, and wifi is pointless if you have Apple TV or a PS3/Xbox which does all internet stuff but better than some internal TV software.

I call bullshit, the built in Netflix app on my Sony is infinitely faster and clearer than on Xbox, Apple TV does a good job though.

[oscillik]

 

 

 

 

 

i don't get it, why the opposition to tvs with wi-fi ? seems like an essential feature to me.

There's nothing wrong with a TV having Wi-Fi, except the standard (let's say wireless N) will be outdated before the TV is - and since it's built into the TV, years down the road you have to support a legacy standard just so your aging HDTV can connect wirelessly. Another problem until recently is most of the apps built into TVs just aren't that good, and depending on the quality of the processor in the TV, can be very slow. Again, better to buy an external box to stream to and hook it to the TV.

 

N can do 100mbps, it can pretty much stream uncompressed 1080p, so if your tv is 1080p i don't really see a problem.

 

N can theorhetically do 100mbps - I can assure you that you (and the majority of people) will never see speeds even close to that. You might also take a look at how big 1 second of uncompressed 1080P is, let alone compressed 1080P.

 

I recently turned on the 5GHz option on my router (Linksys EA4500) and this drastically improved the throughput over WiFi on 802.11n. While on 2.4GHz, the throughput never really hit above 30-40Mbps, but now I often hit over 90Mbps over WiFi. I dunno if any modern TVs support 5GHz access points, but if anyone here has one, it might be worth enabling the 5GHz access point on your router to see if it helps improve things.

 

Would the receiving device need to support 5GHz? I thought that was only the transmitting device that decided what band it uses.

 

yeah, all devices on the network need to support 5GHz bands in order to benefit from this. I would assume that the vast majority of TVs use 2.4GHz, since it would be cheaper for them to implement.

 

with regard to what you said about deciding which band to use, if the router supports transmitting in 5GHz, then the receiving devices (if compatible) just see the SSID. in my screenshot the SSID is "ARPANET 5GHz" to differentiate from the 2.4GHz band I also have transmitting for the other devices in the house that do not support it.