Need advice on a purchase

[eddiem67]

My brother in law is looking for a 42" Plasma on a budget any recommendations.

[aud19]

If he's on a budget, tell him to look at different options from Plasma. IMO, only the more expensive plasmas offer anything like decent picture quality, resolution, black levels etc. He could get a very nice, much bigger front projection setup for the same or less money. DLP RPTV's or heck even good old CRT RPTV's! For the price of even a budget plasma he could get a pretty damn nice, top of the line CRT based RPTV that would trounce all over anything else in PQ.

Just my $.02

Jason

[JonMarsh]

Plasma on a budget usually means SD resolution- 480P max native.

I've viewed a number of these units, as well as the higher def units. Truthfully, I find I prefer some of the larger LCD units over the more moderate price plasma units, as they seem to have better contrast and image fidelity, especially on darker scenes, plus higher res (1280X720).

YMMV.

The lowest prices I've seen on Plasma's are at CostCo, so if size and price are the main considerations, try there.

For higher display quality, one LCD unit to check out is the Tsohiba 32HL84 32 Inch.

http://www.lcdtvs.com/assets/Product/ImagesZoom//lcd/32HL84.jpg

Plasma's bug me because of their very visible pixel structure and the dithering visible in low light areas. Many of them also have peformance issues with the scaling circuitry that takes the various input signals and scales to the panel resolution. LCD's can have problems with scaling also. The Toshiba LCD TV's I've seen have less artifacts and nicer display quality than many of the other panel displays I've seen. But maybe I'm picky...

Let your eyes be your guide. But try both HD, DVD, and NTSC or PAL soruces.

Happy Hunting!

Regards,

Jon

[eddiem67]

Thanks guys...I'll let him know, so my next question is if he went the DLP way, what model is good.

On a side note, I have an older toshiba TW65G80 and was wondering has much changed on this set, should I be looking for a better one x93 series now, I cant go FPTV due to windows along one side of the room.

[aud19]

DLP might be a good fit for you as they offer quite high light output to help compete with those windows.

Samsung has been at it the longest and makes some nice sets. Panasonic and Toshiba are realtively new at DLP but they tend to make relatively high quality sets with numerous technologies. RCA and LG/Zenith tend to make decent displays for the money and generally feature packed. Sim2 makes VERY high-end DLP RPTV's that are $$$ but very :drool:

Jason

[aud19]

A good link for DLP info:

http://www.digiupdate.com/105_DLP_RPTV.html

Jason

[Shane Martin]

Inexpensive Plasma?

The Panasonic professional series is perfect. The absolute best blacks I've ever seen from a Plasma. No issues that I could see. It's just around $2,500 for 42" and EDTV. Here is a link:
http://www.tvauthority.com/Plasma-TV-Monitors-and-TVs/Panasonic-TH-42PWD6UY.asp
$2,350 + shipping. At the smaller size and at a reasonable distance back(8 feet to 10 feet), then you shouldn't worry about HDTV resolution on it.

Here is a link to a guy's screenshots on his Panny:
http://www.pbase.com/chunkofunk/link_to_all_film_galleries

I don't really see the problems that Jon Marsh is noticing. My problem was cost vs size. I wanted a big screen and 42" wasn't goign to cut the mustard and the 50" Plasmas are $5k.