School me on LCD/Plasma

Joined: 18 Sep 2006 Location: Albury

RUFF wrote:

The panasonics i linked to above have HDMI inputs. Will i be able to plug in my RCA leads to this? Or am i going to need to buy a seperate cable/Adapter. What is the chance it wont be compatable with my Sony Surround sound that has the following inputs-

• 5.1 Multi-Channel
Analog Input
• 1 Coaxial Digital Input
(DVD/LD)
• 1 Optical Digital Input
(Video 2)
• 2 Analog Audio Inputs
(MD/Tape, CD)
• 3 Analog Audio Inputs
(DVD/LD,Video 1,Video 2)

Ruff, I'm no expert but the best way to hook your stereo to your T.V will be to use the Coaxial or the Optical Digital input. So is answer to your question yes your stereo will be compatible with your new T.V.

Phil.

Joined: 18 Jan 2003 Location: perth wa

booflux wrote:

RUFF wrote:

I also noticed in previous threads some mentioned that the inbuild HD was not a good idea. Why is this a problem?

I also know for a fact the power usage is a lot than 4w difference Wink

40 watts

Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Location: sydney

Tip: Buy a plasma or lcd which is True high defenition.(1920 x 1080 pixels)

Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Location: Greenbank

What is the LCD like with sun glare? I get a bit comming through the vertical blinds hitting the screen in the late afternoons that i can not get rid of easily. Its not impossible to see the screen but it causes a lot of reflection on the screen.

Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Location: Greenbank

So no one has an LCD that is in a room that gets glare on it at all?

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:57 am

I know you are looking for a small TV but I bought a DLP projector and never again will I go back. It is 1080p HD which is what Blue Ray is. The screen is 3 metres wide. You do have to purchase a separate tuner but you can pick them up for about $100.

The BEN Q projector cost just over $3000 and the screen cost over $1000. If you don't want such a big screen or 1080p HD you can obviously do it a lot cheaper.

Sure it looks better with low light but even with the lights on I think it is better then a little TV. You would have to get rid of direct sunlight though.

Before I bought it I viewed my projector and others near Yatala, Qld. If you or someone is interested, I will find the number to call.

Shane

Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Location: Greenbank

The design of the room doesnt suit a projector otherwise i would have allready gone this way.

Joined: 06 Jun 2007 Location: ipswich

I got a LG 42" plasma and love it, we get all the hd channels clear as, sbs and ch 2 used to be fuzzy but now they are crystal clear. Just have to be careful little kids don't pull them over on them selves because they are so tall and skinny and you will find with an lcd if you touch the screen it distorts the picture so I'm not sure how much it could take with kids touching the screen and what not. My 15 month old boy loves driving his cars on ours Confused

Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:22 am

sloshy wrote:

I got a LG 42" plasma and love it, we get all the hd channels clear as, sbs and ch 2 used to be fuzzy but now they are crystal clear. Just have to be careful little kids don't pull them over on them selves because they are so tall and skinny and you will find with an lcd if you touch the screen it distorts the picture so I'm not sure how much it could take with kids touching the screen and what not. My 15 month old boy loves driving his cars on ours Confused

I hope my 15 month old boy doesn't reach the screen till he knows better. Projector is safe for a while. Old TV is now dead. It probably was my boy but I can't prove it. It was the excuse I needed to upgrade. Boy never got in trouble that day. Very Happy

Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Location: Dandenong Ranges

Hi Ruff,

In regards to plasma LCD comparisons, don't bother taking to much notice of it.

Your room should determine your screen. If you have alot of ambient light, an LCD is DEFINATELY the way to go. A qualification though, you need a non reflective screen, look at "Sharp" screens thay are non reflective, i don't know what the panasonics have, look off axis towards a light fitting in the store if you can see a reflection it will reflect the same as a CRT or Plasma.

I consult on many six figure home theatres and spend most of my proffesional life trying to educate sales people. All of the information and opinion you have received in this thread is valid, the difficult thing is how to weigh all the conflicting requirements.

1080p is stunning but not relevant Shocked

So don't obsess over it. One benefit of 1080p is how the sets handle high res sources, Blu ray will look better on a 1080p set as there is no video scaling. If you mainly watch TV our HD channels output 576p, 720p and 1080 so it will be a mixed bag. When cost is not an issue, outboard video scalers do most of the work, these boxes are more expensive than most LCD/Plasmas, but never talked about in regards to picture quality

Humans don't have the visual accuity to resolve this resolution at the typical viewing distances associated with 40"-50" screens. I have just finished a theatre in Melbourne with a 3.5m wide screen and 1080p was stunning, but if you are sitting 3m away from a 40" screen you cannot see the detail.

Side by side comparisons in most stores is also a waste of time as none of them calibrate the screens tio be accurate, they are usually setup with maximum contrast and sharpness so they attract the casual consumers eye.

Find a store you trust, ask about install or calibration, calibration will provide much better picture quality and prolonged lifespan of the set.

Cheers

Steve

Joined: 01 Sep 2004 Location: BrisVegas

RUFF wrote:

So no one has an LCD that is in a room that gets glare on it at all?

I do.

I have a Sharp 32" LCD and I have HEAPS of light coming into the TV room - that's why I went with an LCD. Mine has a matt finish screen which pretty much cancels out any glare.

The plasmas, while probably being superior in picture quality, were going to give me grief with so much light coming in.

Joined: 04 Jul 2008 Location: Sunny Coast

Beware of screen burn with a Plasma, although most quality ones now have ways around this, such as moving the picture ever so slightly (unnoticable to the eye) so that screen burn does not occur.

There was a story a while back where a 15 year old boy was watching a porno on his parents brand new plasma. The phone rang and he put the DVD on hold for an hour. The image on the screen was burned into the TV even when it was off. You can imagine how impressed his parents were when they got home.

I've also heard that you shouldn't worry about 1080p (remember the p is the important bit). Unless you have Blueray, what comes out of HD TV stations or normal DVD isn't 1080p anyway, so don't waste your money. (This is just what I've heard - so if I'm wrong I would love to know).

Plasma's use more power, are noticeably hotter (just stand near one) and have reflective screens compared to LCD's. On the other hand, LCD's have a slower response rate - watch the cricket and see the camera pan across the field following a ball hit for 4 and you'll see the jarring. But they are getting better - just make sure it is 6ms or less.

Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Location: QLD

Last year we were in the market for a new TV. I wanted a plasma or LCD but my wife was dead against it until our little one is older because friends of hers had a 42" LCD that their child pulled down on top of himself. He didn't get electrocuted luckily but he received some stitches and the LCD was a write off.

We ended up getting a 90cm or similar widescreen CRT. The bastard is big and deep and heavy and there's no way our 2 year old is gonna pull it down. 2 grown men struggle to move it. She drives cars on it and paints on it and all the stuff that toddlers do but being an old style CRT with the glass it's not a problem. Picture quality is spot on, none of the LCD blurring that my mate's 42" LG lcd gets.

Since buying the TV and having our child start walking and wrecking things since then i'm glad i took my wife's advice and got the CRT otherwise if i had gotten an LCD then it would have had to have been bolted on the wall which is a problem if you're a renter. Hopefully in a few years when she grows out of the toddler stage i'll be allowed to get one, technology will be more advanced too Wink

Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Location: Greenbank

pmac wrote:

just make sure it is 6ms or less.

Im pretty sure you are the first to mention this. What does it mean? I cant find any reference to it in the specs on this unit- http://www.panasonic.com.au/products/details.cfm?productID=6782

Joined: 13 Jul 2004 Location: warner, brisbane

we have 2 sharp 46 inch LCDs in a well lit area and a dark area and the well lit picture is shit. also have a 46 fujitsu plasma and it is the best picture i hae seen to date out of a tv or anything for that matter. it isnt HD but the picture is perfect, so bright, warm in winter and it hasnt faded noticabley in 2 years.

whether the sharps are shit or the fujitsu is just awsome i recon i like plasma more.

Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Location: Central Coast, NSW

if your going to compare someting side by side in a shop take your own dvd in with you and get them to hook a player up to the set,

the amplification in the setup they have to distribute the signal to all those tv's really chops it up so you may possible see a poorer set making a what looks like a better picture just becuase the signal is crap

Joined: 27 Jun 2003 Location: cen vic

sony bravia 100mhz refresh 1080hd with hd tuner 101cm(40")

all the usual shit in the x or x series (w series was 50 mhz refresh)
$2680
comes with a free 40gig ps3 (only 31,179 left but)
pickup monday hopefully Very Happy

Joined: 18 Jan 2003 Location: perth wa

chunderlicious wrote:

we have 2 sharp 46 inch LCDs in a well lit area and a dark area and the well lit picture is shit. also have a 46 fujitsu plasma and it is the best picture i hae seen to date out of a tv or anything for that matter. it isnt HD but the picture is perfect, so bright, warm in winter and it hasnt faded noticabley in 2 years.

whether the sharps are shit or the fujitsu is just awsome i recon i like plasma more.

fujitsu all the wayyyy armsup

Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Location: Greenbank

HD question but im not on Cable TV at all. Only Free to air via an external antenna. I get good reception on all chanels except some interference comes through the sound on SBS occasionally. It sounds like someone talking on a CB radio close by but i doubt thats what it actually is. At least i havent noticed anyone in the area with home base arials. Will i still receive HD channels through my set up? Im really not interested in paying for cable.

Joined: 11 Jan 2004 Location: Adelaide

TEN HD claims to transmit full HD (1920 x 1080 - didn't check anybody else, but I'd guess they're the same) so a screen with that resolution and an in-built tuner should display full HD.

FWIW, I have a 32" Panasonic LCD in a room which gets full sunlight, but not directly onto the screen. I've never had a problem with viewing the picture. The problem I do have is up-close shots of faces, where the person isn't moving much - the image "swims", which I figure is something to do with I don't have full HD resolution, so there's a "conversion" process.

From what I understand of your situation, I think I'd be buying the unit you're looking at.

Edit: To answer your question about ms response times. When a picture contains a high contrast fast moving object (i.e. white ball across a black background) the image needs to quickly change pixels from white (ball) in one frame, to black (background) in the next frame. At 100Hz frame rate, this needs to happen in less than 10ms. If it takes too long to change, you'll see a "shadow" following the ball.

Unfortunately, there's no standard measurement of response time. Some report black to white (or vice-versa) while others report grey to grey - and what does that really mean? I think pmac's suggestion of 6ms is good to aim for...

Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Location: Greenbank

toonfish wrote:

sony bravia 100mhz refresh 1080hd with hd tuner 101cm(40")

all the usual shit in the x or x series (w series was 50 mhz refresh)
$2680
comes with a free 40gig ps3 (only 31,179 left but)
pickup monday hopefully Very Happy

Sony was my first choice as ive had a lot of Sony gear in the past with very few problems. But they dont do a size that comes close to fitting the entertainment unit i have. This is the main reason im looking at the Panasonic they offer a size that will fit to the mm. But i have never owned anything made by Panasonic so dont really know if im going to regret the purchase.

Joined: 15 Jan 2004 Location: Melbourne

RUFF wrote:

HD question but im not on Cable TV at all. Only Free to air via an external antenna. I get good reception on all chanels except some interference comes through the sound on SBS occasionally. It sounds like someone talking on a CB radio close by but i doubt thats what it actually is. At least i havent noticed anyone in the area with home base arials. Will i still receive HD channels through my set up? Im really not interested in paying for cable.

I used to get pretty average analogue tv reception. Nine, Ten and Seven were OK but ABC and SBS were pretty crap. When I got the 42" Panasonic plasma with built in HD tuner, I could get all the channels perfectly. Most chaneels also broadcast HD digital versions and ABC has 2 or 3 different channels. In my experience, the digital tv signal craps all over the analogue one.

Joined: 11 Jan 2004 Location: Adelaide

RUFF wrote:

But i have never owned anything made by Panasonic so dont really know if im going to regret the purchase.

I own a lot of Panasonic, and I don't recall regretting buying any of the "big" items (recently bought 3 pack of Panasonic digital cordless - there's a bit of hiss, but for less than $8 each, I'll live with it. Very Happy

) I once bought an NEC 51cm CRT - will never buy anything NEC again.

Joined: 13 Mar 2004 Location: Northern NSW

RUFF wrote:

toonfish wrote:

sony bravia 100mhz refresh 1080hd with hd tuner 101cm(40")

all the usual shit in the x or x series (w series was 50 mhz refresh)
$2680
comes with a free 40gig ps3 (only 31,179 left but)
pickup monday hopefully Very Happy

Sony was my first choice as ive had a lot of Sony gear in the past with very few problems. But they dont do a size that comes close to fitting the entertainment unit i have. This is the main reason im looking at the Panasonic they offer a size that will fit to the mm. But i have never owned anything made by Panasonic so dont really know if im going to regret the purchase.

We bought a 40" Sony bravia 720p LCD last month... it has the 100mHz thing so not sure if it makes a big difference but we thought the picture quality stood out from the rest in the shop. Considering our budget was $1000 I can say the $1450 it cost after cashback was well spent.

We faced the exact same cabinet size issue as you Tony, but 2 mins after walking into the first store it was decided 37" or smaller was not going to cut it given the small price saving over the bigger models. The new TV sits on top of the cabinet now. (Truth be told I was thinking of "customising" the cabinet since the 40" was just a fraction too big for the hole but since thought better of it).

Go for a good sized one if ya going to spend up.

Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Location: Greenbank

I ended up buying one of these yesterday http://www.panasonic.com.au/products/details.cfm?objectID=4360 The local Good Guys have stuffed me around for 3 weeks telling me they would have stock next week and then telling me that non had landed in the country yet. So yesterday i started looking elsewhere. Hervey Norman at Loganholme had them in stock and have had them for weeks. So i bought one. Payed $2300 for it. Got it home, set it up and it had a dead pixel straight out of the box cussing

. Called Hervey Norman and they swapped it over no questions asked. And it fits the cabinet perfectly armsup

Joined: 21 Oct 2002 Location: Brisbane

Sweet

Joined: 28 Nov 2002 Location: Melbourne

RUFF wrote:

and it had a dead pixel straight out of the box

I had issues with my plasma straight out of the box too (but it wasn't dead pixel). When I swapped it over at the warehouse there were boxes, and boxes, and boxes and boxes of plasmas of every brand that had been returned.

No wonder they're so expensive, they have to make two to sell one! Laughing

Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Location: Brisbane Australia

If your room is very bright and has glare coming in then an LCD is going to be more suitable. A plasma is not as good in bright rooms and never will be. Its a limitation of the technology.

I have a 50" PZ panasonic plasma 1080p with a built in HD tuner, a 42" panasonic PX 720p, and a 27" dell LCD for my computer. I wouldnt dream of using the plasmas as a monitor as you can clearly see each pixel on a plasma when you sit close (like you would on a computer).

I also wouldnt dream of watching a movie on my LCD after watching movies on a plasma. A Plasma is a much better picture for movies. Much warmer and more vibrant colours.

The built in tuner found in panasonics is great, its faster at switching channels than most external tuners, and has no reception issues at all, The same cannot be said for the tuners in cheaper tv's.

The only problem with the built in tuner is that you cannot extract multichannel audio from it. Which means that if channel 10 etc ever start broadcasting in surround sound, youl be stuck with stereo.

So even though I am a big fan of plasmas, I think in your situation an lcd would be more suitable.

Joined: 27 Nov 2002 Location: Lost in Melbourne.

went to good guys yesterday while passing
looked at LCD and Plasma

Now, they had a footy game on, and when the bloke moved, it appeared to be sorta blurry when he moved, all sort of little squares where he moved from. This was on plasma AND LCD on more than one brand (sony, LG, etc)... This was only when they had closeups of someone/something moving.

WTF? That was all brands too, from the $1200 to $5600 models.. Shocked

Is that normal for the technological marvels?
My $200 Lucky Chows 10+yr old tele doesnt do that.

Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Location: Brisbane Australia

bogged wrote:

went to good guys yesterday while passing
looked at LCD and Plasma

Now, they had a footy game on, and when the bloke moved, it appeared to be sorta blurry when he moved, all sort of little squares where he moved from. This was on plasma AND LCD on more than one brand (sony, LG, etc)... This was only when they had closeups of someone/something moving.

WTF? That was all brands too, from the $1200 to $5600 models.. Shocked

Is that normal for the technological marvels?
My $200 Lucky Chows 10+yr old tele doesnt do that.

what was the source? box movers are notoriously bad at setting up thier displays. If you want a good viuewing of what the new technology can do go to a specialty store like videopro. They know what thier doing and talking about.