Help the helpless…

[wkhanna]

I am ready (Finally) to replace my 36” Sony CRT with a Flat Panel.

I am a bit overwhelmed, however, with how to determine which one is best suited for me. My budget is $750 max in a 42” screen with 1080p. I don’t know if plasma or LED will matter to me. Should it?

We watch on average about one movie a week, and cable TV nearly every day. I will be running my movies thru an Oppo HD970 via a Rotel RSP-1066 most likely with component video cables.

I recently saw this Panasonic and thought it may be a good choice. Any input from you experts on video displays will be greatly appreciated.

http://www.jr.com/panasonic/pe/PAN_TH42PX80U/

Thanks in advance!

[aud19]

Any LED backlit LCD's will likely be out of your price (and size) range so that leaves normal LCD's and plasma as your options. I personally prefer plasma for it's better black levels, shadow detail, contrast, viewing angles, motion etc. Though LCD does hold the advantage in a bright room/daytime viewing and while plasma's burn in risk is small, on LCD it's non existent if that's a concern.

As for plasma's, other than the big dollar Pioneer Kuro's, Pansonic makes some of the nicest "normal" priced plasma's out there so you're on the right track :T The only other thing I would look in to would be the TH-42PZ80U or TH-C42FD18 for a bit higher contrast ration and 1080p resolution. See if you can find a good deal and/or stretch your budget a bit, may be worth it

[littlesaint]

I have the 50" version of that Panny and love it. At 42" you won't miss 1080p unless you sit right up to the screen. I chose plasma over LCD because the viewing angles were better and I think you get a better overall picture for the money. LCDs are brighter, but I can watch plasma in a sunlit room without too much hassle. You just have to watch for glare with the glossy screens.

[wkhanna]

Thanks to both of you gentleman for your advise.

Since glare will not be an issue, I am now leaning heavily towards the plasma.

The normal viewing distance in the room is ~ 10 feet, so maybe the 740 vs 1080 issue is not as important as I had suspected.

I did find the TH-42PZ80U for $980 including shipping.

Right now, I am trying not to make a rushed decision, but leaning towards the 42" 1080p Pany, which will require time to boost the coffer fund, since it is over my intended budget.

[littlesaint]

Also, the Panasonic 720p plasmas accept any resolution all the way to 1080p24 and then re-scale to their native 1366x768 format. They do not have 24Hz compatible scan rates (72, 120, etc) so pulldown conversion is necessary, and I found it better at the source then the display, so I send mine a standard 1080p30 signal.

[wkhanna]

According to your signature, I must be a very wise man, since I know that I have no idea, whatsoever, what it is you just said!

As I mentioned earlier, I am still not entirely comfortable with the technology and terminology regarding video. You will have to be patient with me, Santino. ops:

Do you mean that if my Oppo were to send the 740p Pany a signal in 1080p/60 Hz, it will look better after being re-scaled to the Pany’s lower native resolution than if it had been sent the same lower resolution signal in first place?

[littlesaint]

I can't say which would look better as it depends on the source and source material, but the Panny plasma is going to scale the material no matter what, so I would think it best to send it as much original information to work with as possible which would be 1080p. An exception would be if your DVD player didn't scale well in which case I'd use 480p and just let the display do the up-scaling, but the Oppo is a decent performer in that regard.

Pulldown is the process by which film, with a framerate of 24 frames per second, is converted to the native framerate of a display. Some newer displays have native or adjustable framerates that allow them to utilize the 24 fps directly (for better or worse ), those that don't, need it to be converted. I found the Panasonic plasma's don't do this conversion as well as my source equipment, so even if my source device has the option to output the native film framerate of 24 fps (not all do), I have it convert it to ~30 fps which is what most displays expect.

Sorry for the techno-babble. I think your "lack of wisdom" can be a good thing. I often find myself so obsessed picture quality that I end up watching the display instead of watching what's playing on it.

[wkhanna]

Funny how priorities can change.

While deliberating, waffling and procrastinating over the purchase of our new TV for the Music room, I came across a VPI 16.5 record cleaning machine on Agon for a truly and seldom found ‘good’ price. In one fell swoop, a significant portion the TV fund went towards the acquisition of my ‘new to me’ RCM.

Oh well, as we say around these parts, “the Music comes First!”

As luck word have it, this past Tuesday the old 19" CRT in the kitchen went kapput!
Since I spend a significant amount of time in the Music Room, (for some reason, my wife still refers to it as the living room?) she tends to do the majority of her evening TV watching in the kitchen. A resolution to this crisis of major proportion had to be found with no time to spare, lest my daily life sustaining ritual of the rotating of the sacred black disc face the unbearable fait accompli of miss-tracking or worse, the dreaded ‘skip’ (spit three times over your left shoulder when you utter such blasphemous words).

Armed with residuals from the former TV coffer, little time to spare and even less knowledge of how to make a technically informed, proper and appropriate decision on the purchase of a replacement that could fulfil the absolute necessity of pleasing my Master & Commander by not only meeting, but exceeding the all-important WAF, off we went to perform a little (as in pissing in the ocean) economic stimulus of our very own.

As it turned out, the Man gods were attentive and generous. I do believe this tale of woe and potential doom has come to a glorious and triumphant conclusion. It seems that after installing and tuning the 19" Sony Bravia (black face w/ white chassis link ), that not only does her Highness absolutely love the way it looks, as in home fashion/decorating, she evens likes the way it ‘Looks’, as in "this picture is way better than our TV in the living (she meant Music) room".

Oh no, it gets better still. While at the store where we got the Bravia, an open box unit for $329, I showed her the Panny 42" plasma I have been coveting. After we got home and she saw how nice the Sony looked, she said it’s time to get the Panny for the Music room.

Hey, who am I to argue with The Boss?

[Hdale85]

Those Panny's are very very nice. Even their lower budget models have excellent picture quality :B

I just last week purchased a Samsung 450 series 26" LCD for the kids room and I swear it has better black levels then my Sony 50" LCD RPTV. So I've set out a goal to replace the Sony sometime this summer. It may be a plasma I haven't completely decided yet. I've noticed that shadow detail on the LCD's is truly lacking and soemtimes LCD's tend to blend different shades of black together which is a bit annoying as it's something I generally always look for. Not that I look for it on purpose it's just somthing I got in the habit of. So I'm kind of leaning towards either the 650+ Samsung LCD or a Panny Plasma. Somewhat leaning further towards the plasma although I have to see what the cost is on the new models.

[bbecker1983]

My dad bought one of those 42in PX80u's for up at the riverhouse. It looked great, really close to being on par with his Pioneer Kuro. Imo the scaler wasnt as good but black levels and color gamut, resolution were great. really shines on FiOS or HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

I am confident you will love it if you got one Bill :T :T

[wkhanna]

Well my patience has paid off. I picked up a brand new Panasonic 42" Vera 720 Plasma from Sears last week for $600. Even without the HD cable box converter this baby looks fantastic. It’s all the TV I will need for a long time. When I was at the store looking for a miter saw, I decided to run past the electronics dept just for the heck of it and could not believe the sale price. I figured I had waited long enough.

I’m going to have PewterTA perform the calibration next time he drops by, and then get an OTA HD antenna to see what the HD signal looks like. I have a hard time justifying the $120/year Comcast wants for the HD box when I watch so little TV in the first place.

Regardless, I could not be happier, and am glad I went plasma. It does everything I need it to do.

[1oldguy]

Well I as for myself I had to return the Elite Kuro because of eye strain.I wan't happy giving up a 60 incher.But I hear Sony has a 60 or 65 inch lcd in the works.Looks like all is not lost.The guys in the Sony store gave me a time frame of about 3 months.My 09fd sure isn't gonna like waiting for that.

[aud19]

Eye strain from what? :scratchhead: