OT - What TV

[VVFF]

Wow.... and I thought I was a nit picky know it all but I think you have me beat. LOL

You are correct in that the Wii itself does not do the upscaling. My wording was sloppy and imprecise and led to a conclusion that was incomplete and inaccurate.

I'm not being nitpicky. I was pointing out that many people think that upscaling DVD players and stuff are something special. In reality, their TV has been doing the same thing the entire time. Again, there are some quality differences if you pay for an expensive upconverter...but most people are just buying $50-$100 DVD players.

 

[scoot241]

I'm a big fan of Panasonic plasmas personally. Absolutely beautiful pictures at a fairly reasonable price (comparatively). I'll admit to not having looked at the LED TVs very much, but I'd get a plasma over an LCD.

 

[llrain]

be careful with Panasonic. My 42 plasma just lost its plasma screen
after a young 3 years.
1. I will never buy a plasma again
2. I will not purchase a panasonic.

3. Those new sharp quatrix's look real nice, the ones with the yellow
color as a main color

I would definitely research more and see what others think, but when I was last looking at upgrading tvs I found this one and it seemed to get really great reviews. CNet rated it as one of the top ones, but I would do a little bit more checking into it since your needs are slightly different than what I was going to just be using it for.

 

[VVFF]

be careful with Panasonic. My 42 plasma just lost its plasma screen
after a young 3 years.
1. I will never buy a plasma again
2. I will not purchase a panasonic.

3. Those new sharp quatrix's look real nice, the ones with the yellow
color as a main color

If your camera died in under three years would you never buy a camera again?

 

[YesDear]

Mark I have a 46 inch Sony Bravia 1080p LCD. When I was looking around I thought the Sony had the most natural colors. The Samsung really cranks up the colors to make it look more vivid in my opinion. At that time Sony was making their own panels for the upper end models.

I have looked at the LEDs' and think the picture is amazing.

Those are my two cents.

 

[llrain]

No , I would loose faith in the company I bought it from and try a different one as my post recommended.
I wouldnt risk another one with the same manufacturer. Thats such a silly question.

I bought a panasonic plasma 3 years ago, It lost one of its plasma channels, To fix it costs more than
just buying a new one.

Now my impression of panasonic is its a not so good product cause I have had a bad experience with them .
THis is a normal reaction.

If you goto a restaurant where you absolutely could not stand the service, the food or the atmosphere
would you ever return? I wouldnt? Same thing

Also I didnt say I would never buy a TV again I actually pointed out my alternative that I am going to buy,
so why ask this question?

If your camera died in under three years would you never buy a camera again?

 

[VVFF]

No , I would loose faith in the company I bought it from and try a different one as my post recommended.
I wouldnt risk another one with the same manufacturer. Thats such a silly question.

I bought a panasonic plasma 3 years ago, It lost one of its plasma channels, To fix it costs more than
just buying a new one.

Now my impression of panasonic is its a not so good product cause I have had a bad experience with them .
THis is a normal reaction.

If you goto a restaurant where you absolutely could not stand the service, the food or the atmosphere
would you ever return? I wouldnt? Same thing

Also I didnt say I would never buy a TV again I actually pointed out my alternative that I am going to buy,
so why ask this question?

Because your reaction is somewhat irrational. Your Panasonic TV died in 3 years which occasionally will happen no matter what manufacturer you go with or what type of TV you have. I could understand not wanting to buy panasonic again(even if that really probably wouldn't improve your chances of avoiding a future failure). However, you said you wouldn't buy a Plasma TV again. That's like me saying that if my Canon SLR dies I won't buy an SLR again.

That's why I ask the question.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Personally I think buying a TV is much like buying a camera. You need to go "test it out". People see things differently and you may like one picture more than others do. I did alot of research before buying our last TV a couple of years ago. And ended up with a Pioneer 50" plasma. It never would have been on my list to start with but I love the picture (black levels!) and have been very pleased. I had decided I was going to do the whole LCD thing - save power, no burn in, lighter weight etc, etc. but I'm happy I went and looked at all options. Once I recognized I kept being drawn to the Pioneer picture I did a little research on the model and was more than satisfied. Now, my only trouble is that Pioneer has exited the TV business.

We've also had a 46" Panasonic LCD for several years and been happy with it. Between the two pictures though I prefer the plasma.

 

[seashoreCM]

Burn in or aging issues should not be a problem with plasmas if you keep the contrast down, like not above half of the scale.

Double check to see if the TV you are buying is 1080p or 720p. On smaller screens when you don't sit too close, you might not notice a difference.

All HDTV's accept 1080i and 480p and 480i, most accept 720p (60 fps). Ideally a 1080p TV should accept 1080p (@60 fps) although there is no source material that comes that way; 1080p@60 as a source was always upscaled from something else.

Having 1080p@60 as an input allows you to get the maximum quality from Blue Ray DVD's if you should some day go for the ultimate. Although the picture must be upconverted to 1080p, format wise, to go on the screen of a 1080p TV, good Blue-Ray players do the upconversion a little better than the innards of nine out of ten 1080p TV's on the market today. (The difference is usually subtle.)

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I've learned a few things in my research. First, auditioning is of limited value. I've gone to a few local big box stores and the TV's are adjusted so poorly and so differently, that you cannot really get a sense for how they will look when they are properly calibrated. Some were so badly set up that I can only imagine that the stores were deliberately doing it that way to convince you to buy a different brand.

We don't have any high end stores around here anymore, so that wasn't an option. I prefer to order online anyway, so I wouldn't want to take up a paid salesman's time. Eons and eons ago, you could find good salesman at stores like this and they would add sufficient value to the proposition to make buying from them sensible. Now, the low prices online and the migration of knowledgeable salesmen to the custom installation world seem to have wiped out good high end stores. My guess is that they still exist in the right markets, but we don't appear to have one up here in suburbs.

3D looks interesting. I can't see myself putting on special glasses to watch a movie or sporting event very often. The effect works better with the active shutter glasses compared with the polarized glasses at theaters. I have no clue whether it will survive in the marketplace. I'm digging around now to see if I can take 3D photos and encode them to be viewed in 3D. That would be fun. If anyone has any leads on how to do this, I'd love to hear them.

I suspect that 3D will really take off with the next generation of game consoles. It should be easy to make 3D video games since they are all 3D already and just rendered in 2D. Most video games have fewer people in the audience than movies, so there won't be a need to buy insanely expensive (over $100 each) glasses.

I'm still on the fence between plasma and LCD-LED. I'm leaning towards plasma at this point because it is so much cheaper. While I can understand llrain's reluctance to buy another plasma after having been burned, my research didn't turn up any indicators that one or the other was more reliable. It looks like LCD will last longer, but we're talking about lifespans for 15 years vs 30 years or other excessive stuff like that. I'm working under the assumption that I'll get 5 years of primary use out of this TV and 5 more years of secondary use (guest room or something).

I was a bit concerned by recommendations (here and elsewhere) against using a plasma for a computer screen, but VVFF cleared that up nicely.

As for source material, I'll be playing a fairly standard mix of Blu-rays, DVDs, computer video files, satellite TV, and game system games. We already have a Wii connected via component cables to a 50" 720p TV, so I don't expect it to look much different. I expect the Xbox 360 and PS3 to look better, but at this point my kids almost never use those devices, so I don't really care. The areas where I'm expecting the biggest improvements are displaying our photographs and Blu-ray movies.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards the Samsung PN50C8000 or PN50C7000. Those are their 50" plasmas. It's not clear that they are really different in terms of hardware and there appears to be a firmware "hack" to convert a C7000 into a C8000. It's the perfect size for our shelf. If I went with their LCD-LED, I'd either need a smaller screen or I'd have to do some rework to make it fit well.

I think that my next step will be to line up someone to do the calibration and get their opinion on the sets. Any idea on the best way to find someone that does calibration?

 

[VVFF]

I've learned a few things in my research. First, auditioning is of limited value. I've gone to a few local big box stores and the TV's are adjusted so poorly and so differently, that you cannot really get a sense for how they will look when they are properly calibrated. Some were so badly set up that I can only imagine that the stores were deliberately doing it that way to convince you to buy a different brand.

We don't have any high end stores around here anymore, so that wasn't an option. I prefer to order online anyway, so I wouldn't want to take up a paid salesman's time. Eons and eons ago, you could find good salesman at stores like this and they would add sufficient value to the proposition to make buying from them sensible. Now, the low prices online and the migration of knowledgeable salesmen to the custom installation world seem to have wiped out good high end stores. My guess is that they still exist in the right markets, but we don't appear to have one up here in suburbs.

3D looks interesting. I can't see myself putting on special glasses to watch a movie or sporting event very often. The effect works better with the active shutter glasses compared with the polarized glasses at theaters. I have no clue whether it will survive in the marketplace. I'm digging around now to see if I can take 3D photos and encode them to be viewed in 3D. That would be fun. If anyone has any leads on how to do this, I'd love to hear them.

I suspect that 3D will really take off with the next generation of game consoles. It should be easy to make 3D video games since they are all 3D already and just rendered in 2D. Most video games have fewer people in the audience than movies, so there won't be a need to buy insanely expensive (over $100 each) glasses.

I'm still on the fence between plasma and LCD-LED. I'm leaning towards plasma at this point because it is so much cheaper. While I can understand llrain's reluctance to buy another plasma after having been burned, my research didn't turn up any indicators that one or the other was more reliable. It looks like LCD will last longer, but we're talking about lifespans for 15 years vs 30 years or other excessive stuff like that. I'm working under the assumption that I'll get 5 years of primary use out of this TV and 5 more years of secondary use (guest room or something).

I was a bit concerned by recommendations (here and elsewhere) against using a plasma for a computer screen, but VVFF cleared that up nicely.

As for source material, I'll be playing a fairly standard mix of Blu-rays, DVDs, computer video files, satellite TV, and game system games. We already have a Wii connected via component cables to a 50" 720p TV, so I don't expect it to look much different. I expect the Xbox 360 and PS3 to look better, but at this point my kids almost never use those devices, so I don't really care. The areas where I'm expecting the biggest improvements are displaying our photographs and Blu-ray movies.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards the Samsung PN50C8000 or PN50C7000. Those are their 50" plasmas. It's not clear that they are really different in terms of hardware and there appears to be a firmware "hack" to convert a C7000 into a C8000. It's the perfect size for our shelf. If I went with their LCD-LED, I'd either need a smaller screen or I'd have to do some rework to make it fit well.

I think that my next step will be to line up someone to do the calibration and get their opinion on the sets. Any idea on the best way to find someone that does calibration?

If you haven't bought a TV yet amazon has a great deal today:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_352953682_3?tag=sdfp-20&ie=UTF8&docId=1000505231

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Thanks. I already ordered the TV, but it hasn't shipped yet. It's a Samsung, though, so it isn't included in this deal.