Plasma advice & reviews?

[Charl]

Howzit guys,

I'm looking for a (budget) 42" plasma monitor as our main display for watching tv and dvd's, but can't seem to find any good sites for reviews and info.

There aren't too many dealers around locally to chat or check out the wares, so I guess I'll have to buy 'blind' off the web based on your expert advice and info.

Requirements are:
- Picture quality
- 42"
- S-Video input
- Table stand (not wall mount)
- Max. USD 3,500 (before taxes and shipping)
- Available from internet retailer, for international shipping to South Africa
- I have a satellite decoder, so no additional tuner required

I currently have a Sony Wega 30" CRT tv and I'm happy with the picture quality, but I need something bigger (bigger is always better, ja?) :T with at least the same quality picture.
Unfortunately a projector will not work in my room setup.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Charl

[aud19]

Is there any reason it has to be plasma? Plasmas, especially budget plasmas, don't tend to be the best PQ for the $. So unless you have very specific reasons (space?) for going plasma, IMO, you're way better off spending your money on CRT based displays or at the very least DLP or LCoS. DLP especially if you have to compete with high amounts of ambient light.

Jason

[Charl]

Holy cow - I only just finished typing this and already a reply! Jason you've gotta be the fastest finger in the west. I bet you've already replied to this before I've finished ;)

Ja, the main reason is that I have only 22" for the depth of the unit, and max. 42" for width. I've seen an LG DLP which will fit perfectly, but it costs almost the same as a plasma. I also seem to remember the actual picture area being slightly smaller than a 42" plasma?

Ambient light is not a problem, we have blinds all round and downlights running off a dimmer (which makes an irritating buzz :M ).

What's an LCoS?

[David Meek]

What's an LCoS?
Liquid Crystal on Silicone. The next latest-greatest thing in displays.

[aud19]

If ambient light's not a problem why not an FP?

DLP the same price as plasma...? You must have a different price structure over there as DLP is about 2/3 the price of an equivelant sized plasma of decent quality here. For Plasma Fujitsu, Pioneer Elite and Panasonic tend to have good quality sets thought they do tend to cost more.

Also check out this thread:

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=8763&highlight=plasma

Jason

[Shane Martin]

If you want a Plasma, then get the Panasonic.
Here is one example:
http://www.plasmaextreme.us/42pwd6uy.htm

That is the going rate nowadays for that panel. You won't be getting an HD 42" er for that price though. They run around $3,800.

Here is another reputable link:
http://www.tvauthority.com/Plasma-TV-Monitors-and-TVs/Panasonic-TH-42PWD6UY.asp

Panasonic is the best of the "budget" plasmas out there. The best contrast and black level you will ever see.

This guy has the plasma I posted about above...
http://www.pbase.com/chunkofunk/link_to_all_film_galleries

I honestly can say I was pretty close to buying one but I needed larger and the 50" wasn't coming down... :(

Every display type has their pluses and minuses so find out what you like and go from there. For me a Plasma would have worked out just great if not for the size =/

[Charl]

Thanks for the info guyzos.

Jason:
If they were the same price, would you still go for DLP or plasma?
Have you seen any good LCoS displays in my price range? How do they compare with DLP or plasma?

Shane:
Thanks for the links - that Panny seems to be the business, and at only $2,350 :D

Is there a notable improvement in picture quality with HD over non-HD monitors? Worth the extra cost?

[David Meek]

Is there a notable improvement in picture quality with HD over non-HD monitors? Worth the extra cost?
Yes, and yes. At least in my opinion, that is. The increase in pixel-count seems to give a better "perceived" image. Plus, you'll have the capability to see a true HD image once you get to that point down the road.

[aud19]

Hopefully by that you would mean the plasma's had come down to our DLP prices here :lol:

I'd probably still go DLP. All but the more expensive plasma's have too many problems IMO, Not to say DLP doesn't have it's own issues but everything has it's tradeoffs at this point and I prefer DLP's over Plasma's. Most of the less expensive plasma's are based of computer resolutions like 1024x768 etc which means extra and un-square scaling and in the budget sets you don't want to rely on them to do all that scaling. That's probably my biggest beef with budget plasma's that and black level though as Shane pointed out, it looks like Pansonic is doing good things there.

I haven't seen any LCoS sets since the expensive Toshiba's that came out a year or two ago but those looked good and the newer ones are supposed to be better, not sure what their prices are but I believe they're still more expensive than DLP, less than Plasma at least here in North America.

Jason

[Shane Martin]

From the plasmas I've seen the scaling I don't find to be too much of an issue. The size vs cost was my primary beef.

JVC has a few Lcos sets out. I think they are right at the top end of your budget. DLP would be the same as well. The bulbs wearing out on them were another concern. That is not an issue with a Plasma. They typically last about 8-10 years worth. They are susceptible to burn in but if you set it up correctly with AVIA or Video Essentials, then it won't be an issue much like CRT.

[David Meek]

This month's The Perfect Vision (Sept/Oct, Issue #56) has a listing of all currently available and soon to be released Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Toshibi widescreens. Type (CRT, DLP, flat-panel), size, cost and availability are all shown. Hope this helps.

[Charl]

Jason, this is Africa - prices only go up :cry:

Seriously though, my limited local choices are as follows:
1) Sony PFM-42V1 PDP: $ 3,700
2) Sony PFM-42X1 HD PDP: $ 4,700
3) LG RT-44SZ23RB HD DLP: $ 3,000

Compared with imports: (incl. freight & taxes)
4) Sony PFM-42V1 PDP: $ 2,900
5) Sony PFM-42B2 HD PDP: $ 4,100
6) Panasonic TH-42PWD6UY PDP: $ 2,900

For the same price as buying the LG DLP here in SA, I could import either a Sony or Panasonic plasma!

Thanks for all the valuable comments and suggestions - it looks like I need to learn a bit more before making a decision.

[aarsoe]

Charl

You should also include Philips on your short list. I prefer their picture over say Sony. But its down to what kind of colors you like.
You should however be VERY aware of one issue with flatpanels - this applies to both Plasma and LCD.
In general the picture from cable or atenna looks horrible, unless you have a perfect signal.
Why? - Simply due to the fact that the signal is upscaled in resolution to fit the panel so any color distortion, snow, artifacts etc are multiplied.
So going from PAL to 1024x1024 in resolutions makes the error about 4 times bigger!

You should really think about it and make sure that you are willing to live with it.
On the other hand - with DVD as source its a completely different story..

[Brandon B]

If you want a Plasma, then get the Panasonic.

I'd echo that. WHere we install plamas into our stuff, we almost always go with their stuff. Best performance/longevity.

BB

[Charl]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll check out Philips.
Strange that no-one's mentioned Fujitsu yet? Perhaps their entry-level units aren't all that great?

[Shane Martin]

I would mention Fujitsu but they are expensive. Their "cheap" 42"er runs nearly $5k. They are the best PQ many will say but at what cost? The Panasonic is 1/2 that price. I'm sure it's better but $2,000 better?

[aarsoe]

One more comment. Most newer Plasma's have the tuner box built into them - but I actually prefer them being external. Reason - is that I can then limit the number of cables going to the screen down to two (power and video cable of some sort) if you have everything built into the screen, then you can start counting the number of cables you will need - and trust me, the clean look of a plasma screen is spoiled in no time..

[Charl]

I'm with you on that one aarsoe, I don't need or want a built-in tuner.

[aud19]

In my second post I mentioned Fujitsu and Pioneer's Elite models which tend to have a much more acceptable PQ IMO for plasmas but they're horrendously expensive. Ditto on the external box :T Just make sure that box has good scaling as it will likely have to do some extra work to get it to the plasma's native resolution. In this case if you want the best quality you may want to look in to an actual quality scaler. Just make sure you do your homework on resolution compatability between the two ;)

Jason

[Charl]

Yup, I use a Dstv digital satellite receiver. I have no idea what the reolution is, but I will call the distributor today to find out.
Are scalers readily available and are they expensive?

[aud19]

Well you can get extremely expensive ones but try checking out products from DVDO iScan (http://www.dvdo.com/pro/pro_ishd.html) or Key digital (http://keydigital.com/items.asp?CartId={2927A64A-8DB6-4AE6-8EF7-A60EVEREST6EFEA3C31}&cc=100)

Jason

[Charl]

Thanks for the help Jason!

[steffche]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll check out Philips.
Strange that no-one's mentioned Fujitsu yet? Perhaps their entry-level units aren't all that great?

I'd back the Philips plasma's as well. I recently purchased a 42PF9945 42" philips plasma, and I am very happy with it. I have been looking at plasma's for quite a while....every time I went into a shop I'd get real close to buying one, but would somehow convince myself that it wasn't time yet. Each time I couldn't help notice that the philips screens always seemed to have the better PQ over most other models (I'm talking in the 5,000 to 6,000 bracket). Obviously you notice the difference when you up the price to 10,000 to 12,000.

Just my opinion!

[ekkoville]

I am not quite in the market yet for plasma, but I have done a lot of viewing and one thing is that imo Sony or Fujitsu is the best picture. Be aware of the resolution of whatever model you are looking at. The Panasonic model listed above is only enhanced definition that looks marginal even with a digital cable connection, but great with DVD's. Even plasma has it's lower budget models. Something with a minimum resolution of 1024x768 would be a must. You will be wondering how you spent so much money on a display when you are watching TV and it looks fuzzy. I you have "HD" cable or sattelite, not just digital, then it will look better. Problem with widescreens now is, unless you have HD, everything will be letterboxed on the sides, which over time can result in the 4:3 format burnin effect on the display. Right now there is exactly 8 channels available on my comcast cable box.....not enough to justify plasma widescreen.

Just my .02

Erik

[Charl]

The 4:3 burn-in makes sense. All our TV channels in SA are 4:3 - does this mean I'll have the black bars left and right at all times except when watching a dvd? Surely this will cause burn-in and damage the plasma?

There must be some solution to this......

I'm finding it hard to understand that there seems to be all kinds of potential problems and shortcomings with plasmas, yet they cost up to 10 times the price of comparably sized crt's?

Imagine this sales pitch for plasma, compared with crt:
Styling - Best
Resolution - Same
Contrast, Brightness & Black levels - Worse
Product life - Much worse
Price - 1000% more

Surely the styling doesn't justify the price difference? Surely there must be substantial advantages over crt's?

Thanks guys, all your 2 cents' are adding up to save me (and others) many thousands.

[aarsoe]

Charl

Not quite true the way you write it. It all comes down to what you are comparing to.

Styling - YES - much much much better than anything else
Resolution - I would say 90% of the time better - but the real question is if you have something that can use it..
Contrast - in general better than CRT, Brightness - much better on plasma's, infact some complain that brightness is to high! Black levels - yes, not very good compared to CRT.
Product life - an av. plasma will be good for something like 20 to 30.000 hours of use, the better ones more than that. This equals more than 15 years of normal use. As you post regular in this forum I know that no TV will be allowed to be in your house for 15 years (unless you got kids)

Finally, prices are comming down, and you forget one final thing - the screen size...

[aarsoe]

Oh - and about the 4:3 - most tv's in 16:9 have a zoom function so you will be using most of the tv screen. Also 16:9 programs are comming fast. 1 year ago most programs locally was done in 4:3, now a year later it is the other way around...

[aud19]

Well there are things like stretch modes as well as a lot of displays offer the option of grey bars on the side to minimize burn in as well for the 4:3 conundrum.

But Charl , for a large part I agree with most of what you wrote there. That's precisely why I don't reccomend them unless you have absolutely no choice but to go with plasma dues to room considerations.

They have less "usefull" contrast (poor black levels)
The "affordable" plasmas tend to have lower resolutions and even a lot of the higher res sets have resolutions like 1024x768 which require extra ie: unwanted scaling.
I still don't like fast motion especially on a lot of of the less expensive sets too.

The lower life is a bit of a myth however, as aarsoe pointed out.

All this for ridiculous prices, gee where do I sign up? :roll:

Jason

[steffche]

Just to expand on my statement earlier about the Philips plasma......I'm not so happy with it lately. I have tried and tried to calibrate it using DVE, and the black levels are a real problem. If set according to DVE, the brightness seems too high when watching movie DVD's...ie, the black bars at the top and bottoom have a lot of white dots in them, and in some dark scenes there is way too much white spots for my liking. At the moment I have brightness set to 45 and contrast set to 65, and I believe it can't get better than that. I plan to go into the shop where I bought it, and make a few complaints. I wonder if this black level problem is as much of an issue with the more expensive sets, and if so are they really that much better that I would even consider spending another few thousand dollars for a slight improvement!

Does anyone else own a philips plasma that could simpathize with me...or maybe cheer me up by saying that it can be fixed/improved!!!!! :cry: :E

[ekkoville]

Just to elaborate on the format adjustments on the widescreens, the 47" RPTV I had would box the sides of a 4:3 program, or, if I wanted, zoom in, which lost some of the material due to the zoom to fit function. It also offered a stretch version, which would stretch the whole program to fit the 16:9 format, in which case everyone looked like a hobit. The next best option was to leave the middle third of the program alone and stretch only the outer thirds. This was also bad at times, especialy when someone moved across the screen, you could sometimes get a distorted look.

Erik

[Charl]

OK so I've finally bit the bullet and ordered a new Sony PFM-42X1.
This model has 1024x768 res, 3000:1, HD, DVI, etc. and 60,000 hour life.
It will be delivered tomorrow, can't wait!! Will definately give you guys some feedback once I get the new Denon 2910.

Thanks a HEAP for all your comments, info and recommendations. ;x(

Charl

[Mitchell]

Do you guys nwith plasmas need to take any precautions because of burn-in or is it overblown?

[ekkoville]

I was just at one my local A/V stops two weeks ago, there opinion is it is a bit overblown. If you leave some material on for 6-7 straight hours there might some effect. They even said that over time, depending on how severe, it will go away. That, I had not heard. I think the biggest issue is what happens if the display goes bad. Without the extended warranty, you're screwed. That will cost another $500-600 for a five year warranty, but I couldn't buy one without it.

Erik

[Chris D]

Yes, I have a 42" Philips plasma. My wife watches the Learning Channel ALL the freaking time. So some times I'll turn on the TV, and the TLC logo will be imaged slightly in the corner of the screen. But after watching anything really, after a few minutes, it goes away. I think the brighter the picture, the quicker "temporary" burn-in goes away.