Help me buy my first Plasma/LCD TV! - Need reply quick!

Okay, so I want to start getting serious about my video gaming, if that makes sense, and I’d also like to finally be able to watch the Giants on a screen larger than a postage stamp. I’m finally in the position financially to make such a purchase, and getting Christmas money didn’t hurt. :smiley:

Basically, I’m in the market for a 37" or 40" plasma or LCD TV that can double as a computer monitor. Here’s what questions I have so far:

Plasma vs. LCD. A buddy of mine told me that plasma TV’s wear out in a year and a half whereas LCD’s can last 10-15 years without problems. Is this true?

Contrast ratio. Basically, this is the measurement between the whitest white and the blackest black (insert Spinal Tap joke here). The higher the ratio, the brighter your whites, the darker your blacks, and the greater your palette of colors. Toshiba doesn’t list contrast ratio in their TV specs, and a customer service agent for them told me that there’s really no industry standard for contrast ratio, so it shouldn’t really factor into my decision. Is this true?

1080p vs. 720p. I’ve read in various places that for a 37"-40" TV, there’s no real noticeable difference between 1080p and 720p. Truth?

60Hz vs. 120Hz refresh rate. Has anyone noticed a difference between the two? Makes of 120 MHz TV’s state that the higher refresh rate removes motion blur, but I’m not sure if the blur is so noticeable to justify the higher pricetag.

Samsung sound. Quite a few reviewers stated that the sound on the Samsungs (the 40LN550A is the one I researched most) are tinny and horrible. Can anyone confirm or deny this? (Oddly enough, Consumer Reports listed the sound on the 40LN550A as “Very Good”).

Discount brands. Does anyone have The Straight Dope on discount brands such as Vizio and Insignia? Are they as good as Sony and Samsung?

Finally, today is my last day to buy, as the manager at Sears is giving me the holiday sale price of the Samsung ($400 off). I know this is last minute, but any prompt replies would be appreciated.

Thank you.

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I just bought a 46" 1080 Samsung LCD set. The sound is fine, to my tin ears, anyway. We listened to Christmas and Hanukkah music on XM/Sirius, and I just watched a concert DVD. The blacks are good also - I also rewatched 2001, and it looked great - in fact better than I can remember ever seeing it since I watched it in Cinerama after it was first released. I’m not sure about the refresh rate, but no problems in anything I’ve watched. I believe that plasma sets are now more reliable than they used to be.

I’d look at the discount brands. They didn’t look as good as the Samsung in the store, and I’d be a bit nervous without reading some reviews, though I did read that LG was pretty good.

I got mine in Sears also - far cheaper than Best Buys or Frys. Plus, no interest until 2012 with a Sears card, which I have.

I just bought a Sony 46" LCD from Amazon.com because they had a better price than Best Buy. I just checked and the Samsung you’re looking at is $955 at Amazon. How does that compare to the price Sears was offering?

I personally prefer the look of LCD to plasma–the plasma screens always look fuzzy to me. I don’t know about the lifespan, but I’ve had LCD monitors last an awfully long time without a bobble, they’re very stable.

Contrast ratio is huge–it makes a big difference in the overall look of the screen. That being said, there’s no direct correlation between price and contrast ratio–for example, we just bought an LCD monitor with a 15000:1 contrast ratio for ninety bucks, the one that’s ten bucks more was 800:1. Go figure.

I prefer the higher refresh rate, especially if there’s fluorescent lighting in the room and I use compact fluorescents throughout the house. At the end of their lifespans you can still get some flicker and it can be noticeable on screens that run at 60Hz. I’m susceptible to visual migraine, though, and it’s likely I’m just way more sensitive to such things than most people–my SO says that flicker that drives me nuts isn’t even perceptible to him so take this with a grain of salt.

My 32" LCD does 720p and I don’t see any room for improvement, but it might be more of an issue with a larger screen. I have heard some people complain that some of the higher definition screens can look “hyperreal” to the point where special effects shots can fall apart and look less real due to tiny flaws that would be imperceptible in a lower res. I can’t attest to this personally, though, as I’m a tad farsighted and stuff that’s close to me always looks fuzzy, so…

Sound I can’t help you with as we use a multi speaker setup routed through the entertainment center computer and we wouldn’t use onboard sound even if it were amazing because our speaker setup is better–it’s tuned to the room.

I’m not a brand whore–I go for getting the highest stats for the least amount of money. I paid $550 for mine and it works and l have no idea what brand it is…

I recently bought a great 42 inch Panasonic Viera plasma TV from 6ave.com-cheaper than in stores, no tax, free shipping! I’d steer clear of the lesser known brands, and stick with the name brands. All the electronic equipment I’ve bought that was from some little heard of company has crapped out within a year or two.

I went for the plasma vs. the LCD because it was cheaper and I haven’t heard anything bad about it. My brother has had his plasma tv (also a Panasonic) for over a year and no problems.

Good luck TV shopping!

We’re having a Panasonic 50" Viera Plasma delivered on New Year’s Eve (perfect timing!)

It’s 1080p (and I understand Blu-Ray is 1080p). Honestly I have no idea what the refresh rate is on the one we ordered. I just know it got pretty good reviews, so I think we’ll be happy.

Keep in mind that most TVs do not make good computer monitors. They support only certain resolutions and when your computer switches to an unsupported one you’ll get a blank screen.

Not true. I purchased a 42" LCD 1080 and even in the store the difference was noticeable. But you’ll need to go to somewhere like Sprawlmart or Costco to see it. The main thing I was interested was how the set performed in a well lit room. My house has very good lighting so the last thing I wanted was glare on my new TV. A problem I had with the 32” it replaced. I’ve been very happy with the results. The test I used (and I don’t remember where I picked this up so sorry no cite) was to stand about 10ft back and look at the TV not the picture, with the 1080 there was no glare form the overhead fluorescents as there were with the 720s. I doubt you can do this particular test at anything but a big box store, hence my second sentence. I noticed at Best Buy the TVs seemed optimally placed so that there was no direct lighting on the screen. Sorry I had already decided on an LCD so I don’t know if the same effect is noticeable on a Plasma model.

Another good question. I purchased a Vizio from Walmart as I just couldn’t find enough information to justify spending another $150 - $550 price difference. For how I use it, again I can’t see any room for complaints. I’ve also seen this brand perform at my doctor’s office. I’m an avid football fan, watch movies and play video games and I haven’t noticed any blur problems. The only noticeable problem I’ve had was a slight lag between action when I was playing Rock Band, for which the game has a correction feature, and also claims is a problem with many HDTVs. In the interests of making sure you have all the information: This TV is actually destined for my bedroom when I get a bigger house sometime in the next year and start shopping for something in the 50”+ range, so that did factor into my decision.

I’m going to be brutally frank. Using any HDTV’s built-in is an insult to whatever media (whether it is movies or Video Games) you’re pumping into it. Do yourself a favor and buy yourself a nice surround sound system–even the cheap ones will be immensely better than whatever speakers they fit inside your TV.

Audio, to me, is at least as important as the TV itself.

First of all, thank you all very much for your help.

I went with the Samsung LN40A550. It’s a $1200 TV, but I talked the manager at Sears into giving it away at the holiday sale price for $800, including a 30-day price matching guarantee (their’s or anyone else’s) and 30 days to return for a full refund. I haven’t gotten a chance to fully adjust the display settings, but so far, 300 (the movie) looks great, except that darker areas are too dark. The sound is pretty hollow and tends to distort at certain sound frequencies, but I plan to listen to you guys and buy a sound system.

Any tips for adjusting the display settings? There are so many different settings to adjust that I don’t know where to begin. :smiley:

No. Modern plasmas have a “half-life” of 60,000-100,000 hours ( time to half the original brightness is gone ), comparable to modern LCDs. Probably better than older CRTs. You’ll almost certainly replace your TV long before it wears out.

However there are few plasmas under 42 or 46" out there, so you’re probably going LCD by default…

Yes and no. Yes, there is no industry standards on how these are measured. Those numbers on the boxes are often meaningless ( or at least of limited utility as a comparison tool ) and typically overinflated. No in the sense that contrast IS important.

Generally LCDs get slightly whiter whites, plasmas darker blacks. The blacks are frankly more important for picture quality. The difference between the two technologies is narrowing all the time though. At the moment the consensus is the very best picture quality in a darkened room is plasma, but LCDs will outperform plasmas in conditions of high ambient light ( but all TVs suffer from too much light ). Since professional reviewers and A/V enthusiasts always use darkened conditions to evaluate models, plasmas continue to get the nod, but the new LED technology LCDs ( still expensive ) are closing fast.

However BOTH are perfectly decent options. They simply have different minor advantages and disadvantages.

There is a difference, but it becomes hard to perceive. The problem for smaller TVs is you have to sit so close to discern the difference that you’re too close to the TV and start picking up noise. See this seating chart.

At 40" I wouldn’t necessarily sweat 720p, especially if you aren’t getting a Blu-Ray - it will still look great. However in the near future I expect nearly all sets will be going 1080p as the new industry baseline anyway.

You can see a difference and some don’t like it ( 120 Hz, that is ). I don’t. Looks less cinematic, more “video-like” to me. But opinions differ. I honestly wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t think any of the 24p modes ( 48 and 72 Hz on some plasmas, 120 on LCDs ) is worth being to caught up in. 60 Hz is what ( American ) eyes are used to.

I have a long-standing aversion to CR when it comes to rating electronics, as opposed to, say, ovens. CNET is probably a safer bet for TV reviews ( they however only rate performance, not reliability, which CR tries to ). But generally the Samsungs have a very good reputation. They’re probably no.2 in the LCD world ( after the horribly expensive top Sonys ) and no.3 in plasma ( after Pioneer and Panasonic ). Can’t comment on the sounds, but most TVs have a compromise or two. If it’s an issue run them through a little amp and couple of inexpensive bookshelf speakers for better two-channel sound :).

No, they are not. They’re also not necessarily crap - my mother has a little Insignia. But you get what you pay for to some extent, it just depends what compromises you want to make and what your budget is.

I was looking at the 650 series Samsung LCD recently - fine TV ( I went with a Pansonic plasma instead ). In general it’s not at all a bad choice.

Here’s CNET’s darkened room settings.

Here’s their ( very positive ) review.

I purchased this which I’m going to use to (try to) calibrate the beast on my own!

Tamerlane, thank you, thank you, thank you for your very in-depth response. It answered most of my questions, and I shall continue to refer back to it if I decide to trade the TV in for a different model.

Be careful, xanthous. I don’t know your level of HDTV knowledge, but I understand that that DVD is for hard-core, advanced videophiles.

I got that very same plasma for myself a month ago.

You’re in for a treat. :slight_smile:

I’ve been reading a forum where all sorts of geeky people discuss this disc and its level of difficulty :smiley: and I’m ready to at least try. If nothing else, I can just plug in the settings these geeks got after using this software! :cool: I’ve compiled a list of all the settings they came up with and will start with the averages of their settings at the very least and see how that works for me…so…I have a strategy in place (or is it a tactic? hahahaha)

I am trying to learn about what it all means so that I’m not a total bumbling idiot!!

Can anyone recommend a dork level product for me?

Do you really need to calibrate a new HDTV? I haven’t done so for the one I bought last month, and it seems OK.

Most seem to agree that they benefit from a little calibration. Indeed some would argue that a professional calibration ( that involves digging into internal service menus not generally accessible to the public ) at $200-400 a pop is de rigeur for higher end sets and can make a visible difference.

But even if you don’t go that far ( that’s kinda for the idly wealthy or true video fanatics :wink: ), many sets often come out of the box with a default setting for showroom display ( unnaturally high brightness, jacked up candy-like colors, etc. ). So toning things down for the home is a good idea. Plus everybody’s eyes are different and adjusting the screen for what looks best to you isn’t a bad idea.

So the idea is if it looks good out of the box, it might look even better tuned. Some persnickety folks also like to tune for multiple conditions - afternoon vs. night for example, with among other things a brighter display required during the day.

One neat way to avoid most of the calibration hassle is to get a set like this which is pre-certified as THX compliant and seems to be fairly dead-on in color accuracy ( relative to published SMPTE HD standards ) out of the box.

Another way is to just not worry about it, if it looks good enough to you for government work :).