42" Plamsa or 30" LCD ?

[.Griff.]

I'm sorry for asking this question but it's something that i keep playing over in my mind.

If I set a budget of £2500 which format would I be better with for the following scenario?

Vast majority of viewing would be TV (a mixture of Sky and Freeview to get the best out of bith formats). After that I would be using it to watch a mixture of DVD's pref via component (pro scan) and using it as a pc monitor.

Due to the latter use I was considering purchasing the 30" Philips LCD for £2000 for JL but I'm having reservations that it may appear too small. Room size would be 12' by 10' with the screen approx 7' away.

Comments from anyone who has the Philips or has upgraded from a 30" to a 42" screen would be appreciated.

Griff

 

[tuberider]

Griff,
I have had my Philips 30" LCD for almost 2 weeks now and have posted comments here on various topics (don't know how to get links pasted into this reply yet ! but do a search for Philips 30" LCD and you should find them). At first I was upset that PQ was bad but I have now connected it correctly and set various options at preferred levels and PQ is now excellent. I have added a new Sony home theatre with progressive scan DVD and also hooked up PS 2, all via their own connections (SCART, RGB and S-video) to the panel. TV is via sat receiver with video direct to panel...all audios go thru the home theatre. TV is good but depends on signal, DVD is awesome and PS 2 is also great...with surround sound a spectacluar experience. I have yet to test the PC input via the VGA. My only negatives (I have a desktop-type setup):
- the inputs altho vertical are too low and you see all the wires underneath the panel
- Because they are so low, you battle to make connections and have to tilt the panel dangerously or lift it up completely
- the manual sucks!
As for the size, my room is about the same dimensions as yours and I was considering 42" plasma. Now I realise 30" is perfect and 42" would have been too big.
One other thing, forget about going to stores to check out demos as the conditions there are so different to home its frightening...noise, light, perfect demo displays, delibarate marketing set-ups, etc. Your home is the only place to test drive a unit. My advice is keep surfing this board for opinions but remember that's exactly what they are ..opinions.
Good luck in choosing

 

[richard plumb]

I also think that 7' would be a bit too close for a 42" plasma. You might be ok with a HD one but they are over your budget. The others would be a little too lowres from that distance - you'd start to see the pixels.

LCD would be higher res, so easier to watch from shorter range. Plus its easy to attach a PC and get 'proper' 1024x768 from it.

Try the cardboard template trick - knock up two from the specs of the philips LCD and a random plasma screen, and see if the plasma looks too big/LCD too small.

I view from around 10' and the 30 is fine (same as a 32" CRT ) - 42 would be too much for our lounge (almost as wide as our chimney breast)

 

[.Griff.]

Cheers for the replies! Swinging back in favour of the Philips especially due to the higher res available for my pc.

TR - What home cinema system did you get? I've been looking to replace mine with one that outputs pro scan.

 

[richard plumb]

Philips screen only accepts progressive PAL - not NTSC, or interlaced component. So if you have R1 stuff its no good.

Having said that, the deinterlacer in the panel is very good, so I'd try your 'normal' player first - you might be pleasantly surprised.

 

[tuberider]

Griff,
I have the Sony DAV SC5 which has component, s-video, and normal RGA outputs, progressive scan and a whole bunch of other goodies, 90W, 5:1 speakers with good passive woofer and great full sound. I have each component (sat, home theatre and PS 2) going into their own input on the panel and all audio thru the home theatre. I have now connected laptop (HP Pavilion zd7050ea) connected to panel via VGA with audio thru home theatre and the picture is great. Options are automatically limited...eg laptop screen drops from 1440 x900 to 1028 x 768 to equal panel's best resolution if both screens are active.....views are limited to 4:3 and wide screen and options for Pixel plus and other disappears. In the end, a great huge PC screen with good res and I will soon be putting it thru its paces with some flight games. I am about 8foot from the panel surrounded by huge quality audio and video ! mmmmmm big toy heaven !!!!hehh hehhh hehh, droollll!

 

[1ofaKind]

Hi,

I to am in the same boat where I'm considering between these 2 displays. I have seen the 6 series panasonic from 6-8 feet (whcih would be my viewing distance) and the picture looked from fine (low quality Sky channels) to excellent for DVD, however it is lower resolution, is a fair chunk larger and its a display not a TV (the peace of mind with free 5 year warranties on TV's helps considerable IMO).

I have seen this set in 4 different high street stores now. Twice it looked fantastic even with their 'compromised' feeds. Twice it looked extremely poor with lots of noise so I can appreciate the comments regarding subjective quality.

Have any of you used the RF for standard TV viewing or are you all maximising the picture quality by using Sky/Digibox on a scart connection?

The only question I have is that I noticed it does not accept R1(NTSC) progressive scan but will it accept NTSC on interlace component or S-Video/Scart?

Anyone tried a PC with it or speedy games on it - just concerned about image lag. I can just imagine Quake/Unreal on a big display

Anyone viewed any football as the streaking comet balls is a bit off putting!

Regards

 

[richard plumb]

I assume you are talking about the philips LCD for the latter half?

It won't take *anything* interlaced through component. But it will take both flavours of NTSC interlaced through svideo/RGB/composite, plus NTSC progressive in the form of a VGA signal (eg PC or scaler output)

Svideo interlaced on mine looks gorgeous, so you might not even miss progressive component (I think it has a faroudja chip on board, so might even be as good as a faroudja equipped DVD player).

Games look fantastic. If you have a modded xbox, you can use a little thing called x2vga to get vga 480p and even 1080i for the best image quality. (screen will also take 1080i through component)