[mythtv-users] OT: LED or Plasma (was Advice on choosing a TV)

[Andre]

On 11 May 2010, at 13:28, Paul Gardiner wrote:

> Andre wrote:
>> Ah, then you are a critical viewer, good ;-) also bad because you will eventually see the problems that exist even on the finest most expensive TVs.
> 
> I can accept that. I just want to be reasonably sure I've chosen the
> flaws that will be least annoying to me.

Plasma flicker is a nasty if you can see it, I have one friend who can, as it's usually 8x the refresh rate if you haven't seen it by now you probably wont.

I understand the hierarchy to be:

3 chip DLP (Sim, InFocus)
1 chip DLP (inFocus, Optoma, many more) (providing you aren't rainbow sensitive)
Pioneer Kuro Plasma (no longer made, some left if you can get them)
Panasonic Viera Plasma (whatever 
LCD projectors (various)
Samsung LCD / Sony LCD (arguable, interchangeable, changes every new model) 
Everything else (including all other manufacturers plasmas)

Ok this is opinion but based on the experiences of a bunch of broadcast engineers compared over various beers in various countries.
When the EBU (European Broadcast Union) takes it's HD image quality demo on the road they use three plasmas side by side not three LCDs, they don't want LCD artefacts messing up the effects they want to highlight.

> 
> I think I'm coming to a decision. Last night watching my old CRT, it
> kept impressing me with its realism.

A friend of mine (ok his employer but he's the tech boss) paid double the retail price for the last two Sony Broadcast HD CRT's because nothing else comes close and they were 14".


> I thing I'd really
> miss that. Armed with having had sight of the Panasonic G20 manual,
> I went back to the shop and turned off overscan. Did another side
> by side test between the LED and the Plasma. Still a little
> difference in sharpness, but less than I'd noticed before. And
> I'd image that some of that was because of the lower contrast
> that the Plasma could achieve in shop lighting: I notice my CRT
> looks loads sharper in a darkened room. It would make sense that
> low contrast would lesson the perception of sharpness.
> 
> I want the Plasma, don't I? Tell me I want the Plasma... go on...
> go on! :-)

You want the Plasma, there, happy? ;-)

It won't look crunchy sharp like the LCD does on stationary stuff but with moving pictures (which is what TV is all about isn't it?) it's a lot easier on the eye, none of that cardboard cutout "smooth" motion that motion interpolated LCDs do. It's worth of note that most (ok not all) of the 300hz, 600hz, motion blah blah guff on Plasmas is a marketing re-write of how plasmas have always worked. 

Would be interesting to come up with some equivalent marketing guff for a HD CRT if one were to be launched today ;-) Would really really like to see native 1080p50 on a CRT, even better 1080p100!

Recently I attempted to calibrate a Panasonic G10 and discovered that there wasn't a great deal of control, that said it already looked really close (I was happy) with just brightness and contrast set to a test pattern, BBC HD test card is great for this. The customer was happy to leave things as they were so I spent most of the rest of the day attempting to get a good picture out of the LG LCD they had too!

I had some funnies connecting a PC to the Panasonic until I discovered that 1:1 pixel mapping was only available in game mode, once adjusted from there it was playing the 1080p30 & 720p60 we were shooting beautifully. I never managed to get the uPnP to play TS recordings from MythTV but that was 7 months ago maybe firmware on the newer models is better?

Andre