Is it just me, or do DLP projection television look like ass? I’ve been half-seriously checking big screen HDTV’s out, and in my investigations, I’ve looked at many televisions. The DLP projections just … it’s hard to explain but the screen looks extraordinarily pixellated, a bit blocky, and in movie scenes in which there is a lot of action and movement, it seems that there is a certain “funkiness” that you definitely don’t see in CRT projections and you only somewhat see in the LCD projections.
I keep hearing how DLP kicks ass, but I just don’t see it.
I always thought that DLP TV’s (as opposed to projectors, and I’ve only demo’d one) looked very flat, extra two dementional if you will. Almost like a poster with a matte finish. Also you have to take into account what video source is being fed in. To compare you should really have the sales guy hook each one up to the same source. If one is on HD it’s going to look ALOT better then one thats on SD. In fact when I bought my TV, I ended up not buying the one I originally planned on buying becuase when I saw it, they had some SD nature program (looking through night vision goggles no less) and it looked SOOOO bad I couldn’t do it. I ended up going with a plasma BTW. Here’s the thing. What are you going to be using this TV for mainly (or what are you buying it for anyways). If it’s going to be movies, bring a movie with you and have the salesman play it on the TV you’re going to compare. It’s really the only way to compare the TV’s. Also take into account how many other TV’s in the room are hooked to the source, it may degrade the quality somewhat. If you mainly watch TV, have the guy hook the TV’s up to various SD and HD signals for you to compare.
I thought the DLP tvs we had when working at Best Buy looked great. And at less than half the price of a similarly sized plasma tv with no possibility of plasma burnout, they looked even better.
The thing that immediately grabbed me was the colour: the Samsung DLP displays had much brighter and more vivid colour that other units around them.
I did notice, however, that units of any sort capable of displaying true HDTV (1080 scanlines interlaced) were few and far between. The max native vertical resolution seemed to be 768 or so for displaying 720 progressive. All the units say that they are HDTV-compatible, and can accept all HDTV signals, which is true, but it still seems like cheating.
That funkiness is the rainbow effect. It has to do with the speed at which the color wheel spins. We use a DLP projector in our living room. Perhaps the projectors are what people are referring to when they mention how great DLP is.
Make sure that you’re looking at a true HD picture.
There’s a noticable difference between sets using the first generation chip and the second generation chip. The newer Samsung models use the second generation chip, which has several improvements over the first. Texas Instruments, which makes all of the chips, has developed a third generation which should be in the next line of Samsung sets.
DLP sets have no burn in issues whatsoever. You can play videogames all you want, or watch 4 X 3 shows with black bars on the sides (without using stretch modes) and not worry about the burn-in that Plasma and CRT’s are susceptible to.
There are no convergence or geometry distortion issues as with a CRT rear projector.
I personally find my set to do an excellent job of dislaying true HD programming and progressive scan DVD’s.
720p is true HDTV. It adheres to the HDTV standard, as does 1080i, and 16 other formats. Furthermore, the general consensus is that channels using 720p display certain types of programming with fast motion–i.e., sports–better than 1080i.
(For those who have no idea what I’m talking about re: 1080i/720p, the number refers to the number of vertical lines of resolution, 1,080 lines vs. 720. Higher means more resolution. But the letters i and p refer to interlaced vs progressive. Interlaced means the screen draws every other line for each frame, i.e. lines 1, 3, 5, etc. the first frame, lines 2, 4, 6, etc the second frame. **Progressive ** means the screen draws every line during every frame, and is generally thought to offer a better picture, YMMV.)
Oh, and if anyone wants to argue this kind of stuff, and you find that the Straight Dope message boards don’t suck up enough of your time and productivity at work, go to www.avsforum.com.