40-47" TV - Which one and is 100hz important?

Schmill

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Ok, so this will be the first time in nearly 10 years I've bought a 'main' Tv, (ie. not a little portable jobbie), as I am currently using a 28" CRT, so I just wanted to check if i had everything right.

In my basic understanding;

- Plasma good in darker rooms, gives best picture under these conditions, but can be prone to screen burn if used for gaming or images with 'common features' such as logos or black bars.
- LCD are better for brighter rooms, blacks can be a bit grey depending on model, but getting better. Lower power than plasma, no screen burn, but may give juddering on fast moving sports etc.
- LCD with LED backlight, improves the contrast and vibrant-ness of LCDs.

Based on the above I have pretty much decided on an LCD of one form or another.
Although the plasma sounds good for evening film watching, the kids will have it on through the day so the running costs have to be considered for me, and also we will likely play game systems and kids 'plugin' game systems on it.
I am looking in the size range of around 40" to 46".
Sound performance is not overly important, but an optical output would be good so that I can connect it to my Panasonic surround system. (If the TV can take in 5.1 over HDMI and pass that out to the surround system over the optical that is bonus points too!).

I / We are not a 'sports watching' family, the football is never on, the tennis is unlikely to be on, and the F1 is on ocasionally!
Main uses will be SD Virgin, for kids stuff during the day, and then films and other SD tv in the evenings. I have an upscaling DVD player though, and will likely get some form of bluray player in the future.

Is 100Hz going to be an important feature for me? It seems the feature does drive the price up, quite a bit on some models, but I'm not sure if it is going to be used without the sports watching? It seems that on most TV's the 'gaming' modes and movie modes, switch off the 100hz anyway.... or have I got the wrong end of the stick here?

I had been considering the 600 series Sharp LED backlit LCD's but they are 'only' 50hz, and despite online availability I have yet to see one in the flesh in store. Is 50hz still an issue with LED backlight?

So, any recommendations, and also do I need the 100hz? Thanks all :)
 
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First off, welcome to the forums. :)

Not meaning to be rude but, forget your basic understanding as non of it is factual. You can adjust the brightness levels of either TV tech using the picture controls. The LCD infact has greater control as it will have brightness, contrast and backlight adjustability. So, viewing environment has no baring on your choice.
Power consumption of plasma's is quite comparable to LCD's under similar circumstances.
Image retention is far less prevalent that it once was, with modern plasma displays.
LCD panels with a full LED back light will generally offer better black levels than the CCFL backlit counterparts. This will inturn improve contrast ratio's. Colours will broadly be comparable between the two backlight technologies though.

The only point that will generally hold water is that plasma's are better for moving images. This is getting less so the case as LCD tech moves along though. However, from memory, there is still only one LCD model that will show the full 1080 horizontal lines with a moving image. Most plasma's will do that no problem.
That's not necessarily an issue though as most wouldn't notice the problem.

With most 100hz TV's, you can't turn the 100hz feature off. This is generally confused with MotionPlus or MotionFlow or whatever the manufacturer call it which, can be adjusted and turned off. They are mutually exclusive.

It would probably be best to go for a 100hz capable TV as the picture performance will generally be smoother than a 50hz jobby.

With regards to the Sharp, make sure it doesn't have any banding issues as they're very common with this manufacturer.

So to round that off, the best advice I can give is to get a shortlist of TV's in your price range and then go and view them all. That way, you can decide which looks best to you and most meets your needs.
Oh, and get the biggest TV you can afford and have space for. When you do eventually get Blu-Ray, it'll show it off nicely. And if you set it up well in the meantime, all your SD stuff will look good too.

I hope that helps and good luck with the search. :)

Paul
 
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Generally, the average basic TV will be able to cope with your requirements. I have a Samsung TV with 50hz things, and an LG with 100hz's and don't really notice the difference - and I play games/xBox on both and don't see that much difference. I do find the LG's menu/channel selection much quicker and responsive then the Samsung so would check that out when selecting a TV.

Best thing you can really do is head into a selection of shops and spend some time watching the TV's. Places like Richer Sounds may even set something specific up for you - two screens next to each other. The problem with most shops though is the signal quality is poor so it is difficult to check out the qualities - in which case I would have no hesitation in buying & returning, especially if they refuse to set one up instore.

These things arn't cheap so don't let the store bluff you into making a decision, or spending more then you'd need to. I did see somewhere something about viewing distances and screen sizes - 6ft is a minimum for a 42" screen.
 

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