Badger0-0
Distinguished Member
I've had the 7200 since May 30.
So I thought I'd have another close look at it and pass on my opinions
I reckon I have now done in excess of 1000 hours.
We're having a new carpet laid on Monday, so we have had to gut the living room
Hence we have temporarily set the screen up in our very narrow kitchen.
The viewing distance is 4ft and it shows up everything.
I watched Shawshank Redemption on Sky movies last night, through Scart RGB. I know the film fairly well so thought it would be a decent reference.
The major thing I noticed was artifacts and blockiness, brought about by compression, obviously. With Sky movies being a fairly good feed, I tried other channels and some were very poor, with major blockiness. Whilst not unwatchable (I'm used to Divx) it was very noticable.
Back to the film, I switched to Cinema mode. I was very impressed with this, the brown tint looking very real. I also had the lights off, something I never normally do, so I thought "let's have a good look at the blacks".
Now, I have often said on here, that the blacks are not a good as a Panny.
And that still stands.
Although I did notice something that surprised me.
The real blacks in the film were definitely darker than the bezel
although to be fair, the screen was reflecting some light onto the bezel, making it lighter than true black.
So that's not true black, but pretty reasonable all the same.
I was also pleasantly surprised that I could see a lot of detail in the black. I normally can't at my 11-12ft viewing distance. I now suspect my eyes (I'm 43 and was told about 5 years ago I should wear glasses for driving).
Whites are particularly good, IMO, with no sign of crush, something that can be horrendous on some channels. Again, an indicator of a poor feed, IMO and I can understand how people have said they don't like the 6600 with SKY.
There was NO solarisation on the film, although I have seen it on my friends
7200. Again settings, I reckon.
Colours are very vibrant and one of the 7200's strong points, IMO.
In the film there is a lot of brickwork and fields etc, thus it is good for checking detail and I was pleased here too.
I can confirm the picture definitely gets better with time
Right, the film finished, so let's try the footy.
Here is plasma at it's worst
For the first time, I've seen motion blur on a 7200 and floating coloured pixels
around the players bodies. I was well disappointed.
The grass seems fine, even in panning shots, but the screen just can't handle something as small as the players.
I'm guessing though, that this is just because of my silly viewing distance and I'd see this on any telly, when sat so close.
I have tried the inbuilt speakers properly (I have previously said they are rubbish) and to my surprise they are actually rather good. Anybody who is only used to normal TV sound, could not fail to be impressed with the width in Matrix mode.
I have used "virtual" type sound before and have never been impressed.Matrix really does add width to the soundtrack, with speech coming from the centre of the screen and effects coming from the sides.
A big criticism is that as soon as you go up to about 3/4 volume, the speakers start to rattle, you know, as though being clipped. At a more reasonable volume, they provide fairly good bass, but at a cost to clarity in speech. I'm being unfair here, because I'm making comparisons to 5 X 100W speakers and a Yammy amp.
All in all, not a patch on a surround system, but reasonable.
To sum up then, I'm still very happy with my screen.
Would I swap it??
No, because I believe it gives a good VFM/performance balance
But then again, if the 6600 was out at the time and if the PQ of it is as good as the 7200, I'd have loved to have saved £500.
So I thought I'd have another close look at it and pass on my opinions
I reckon I have now done in excess of 1000 hours.
We're having a new carpet laid on Monday, so we have had to gut the living room
Hence we have temporarily set the screen up in our very narrow kitchen.
The viewing distance is 4ft
and it shows up everything.I watched Shawshank Redemption on Sky movies last night, through Scart RGB. I know the film fairly well so thought it would be a decent reference.
The major thing I noticed was artifacts and blockiness, brought about by compression, obviously. With Sky movies being a fairly good feed, I tried other channels and some were very poor, with major blockiness. Whilst not unwatchable (I'm used to Divx) it was very noticable.
Back to the film, I switched to Cinema mode. I was very impressed with this, the brown tint looking very real. I also had the lights off, something I never normally do, so I thought "let's have a good look at the blacks".
Now, I have often said on here, that the blacks are not a good as a Panny.
And that still stands.
Although I did notice something that surprised me.
The real blacks in the film were definitely darker than the bezel
although to be fair, the screen was reflecting some light onto the bezel, making it lighter than true black.
So that's not true black, but pretty reasonable all the same.
I was also pleasantly surprised that I could see a lot of detail in the black. I normally can't at my 11-12ft viewing distance. I now suspect my eyes (I'm 43 and was told about 5 years ago I should wear glasses for driving).
Whites are particularly good, IMO, with no sign of crush, something that can be horrendous on some channels. Again, an indicator of a poor feed, IMO and I can understand how people have said they don't like the 6600 with SKY.
There was NO solarisation on the film, although I have seen it on my friends
7200. Again settings, I reckon.
Colours are very vibrant and one of the 7200's strong points, IMO.
In the film there is a lot of brickwork and fields etc, thus it is good for checking detail and I was pleased here too.
I can confirm the picture definitely gets better with time
Right, the film finished, so let's try the footy.
Here is plasma at it's worst
For the first time, I've seen motion blur on a 7200 and floating coloured pixels
around the players bodies. I was well disappointed.
The grass seems fine, even in panning shots, but the screen just can't handle something as small as the players.
I'm guessing though, that this is just because of my silly viewing distance and I'd see this on any telly, when sat so close.
I have tried the inbuilt speakers properly (I have previously said they are rubbish) and to my surprise they are actually rather good. Anybody who is only used to normal TV sound, could not fail to be impressed with the width in Matrix mode.
I have used "virtual" type sound before and have never been impressed.Matrix really does add width to the soundtrack, with speech coming from the centre of the screen and effects coming from the sides.
A big criticism is that as soon as you go up to about 3/4 volume, the speakers start to rattle, you know, as though being clipped. At a more reasonable volume, they provide fairly good bass, but at a cost to clarity in speech. I'm being unfair here, because I'm making comparisons to 5 X 100W speakers and a Yammy amp.
All in all, not a patch on a surround system, but reasonable.
To sum up then, I'm still very happy with my screen.
Would I swap it??
No, because I believe it gives a good VFM/performance balance
But then again, if the 6600 was out at the time and if the PQ of it is as good as the 7200, I'd have loved to have saved £500.
