I’ve seen the future of TV (this side of OLED/SED) at Akihabara: alas, not a plasma

A

asherpat

Guest
Writing now from my hotel room in Tokyo. Had to stay here over the weekend (first time in Far East) so spent a few hours at Akihabara.

I am undecided for the past three years on what large telly to buy (instead bought a DLP HD InFocus 7200 for movies). Before I went to Japan, I thought I made my mind finally (that is for the third or fourth time…) to go for Pioneer 436 before Germany World Cup mainly because the LCDs (including Sharp’s best) looked horrendous in John Lewis (yes I know, SD etc. but in JL they never showed anything other than SD Sky which always looked awful).

So today I am still breathing Akihabara’s air and there has been a reversal of mind. Firstly, I should say that the prices are not very cheap. But that is not the point.

Secondly, I (think that I) saw the light, so to speak. As I said before, I was about to go for the Pio 436. Half-heartedly, because I hate the fact that I can see the pixel lines (sort of analgous to Screen Door Effect in LCD projectors) but compared to the LCD’s in John Lewis, it looked much better, the colours were much better than the LCDs, even those by the market leader, Sharp.

So here I am, strolling up Akihabara shops (sort of Tottenham Court Road on steroids) and suddenly, I can't believe my eyes. First, almost all TVs are connected to one source, which is great, because you can compare (unlike in JL), and there were surprisingly (for me) a very good picture from some Sharps, 37”, 45” and 65-inchers. AND, it was possible to compare them side-by-sire with Toshibas, Sonys and “Victors” (JVSs). I managed even to get an attendant that spoke good English and seemed to know more than the average salesman. I saw the TVs in about three shops to avoid some “shop-specific” settings.

So here goes:

• The signal was of course HD, but I think this is not the digital HD, but some Japanese standard called Hi-Vision, which I think is analogue but has 1125 lines (there was a logo “bs hi” in the corner of the screen, I looked at NHK’s web-site (http://www.nhk.or.jp/digital/en/ but I could not get to the bottom of it (anyone professional can you confirm that Japanese “bs hi” is analogue, by the way?)) and even the friendly and knowledgeable salesman did not know for sure but he claimed that the TVs were fed by HDMI, I could not check, but now it seems like he was wrong, if the NHK signal is actually an analogue HD (anyone?).
• The picture quality was very good in all TVs connected to it. Initially they showed some young-boys baseball on a big stadium. I can't stand baseball, but for evaluation of picture, I thought is was as good as footie, because there is a lot of close-ups for flesh-tone assessment, fast movement and small details because you can see the crowd in the background and the straight lines of the boundaries. Later, they showed sumo, again quite good for evaluation due to LOTS of flesh and movement. I managed to ask the salesman to show me also the SD version of the transmission. I was very surprised that the SD did not look very bad, as I am used to see in John Lewis!
• I saw the following LCDs: Sharp 37, 45, 57 (!) and 65-inchers (the XXGD series (768) and XXE series (1080)); Toshiba 37” (the C1000 series (768) and Z1000 series (1080)), Sony 40 and 46-inchers (the V1000 series (768) and X1000 series (1080)); I don’t recall seeing Philips.
• I saw the following plasmas: Pioneers 436 and 506s (768 and 1080 respectively) and Panasonic 50 and 65” (768 and 1080 respectively).
• 1920x1080 panels were noticeably better than the 1320x768 but not by a mile (or should I say a kilometre…). Pls remember that this was a HD source. I made many pics and if somebody (reads my post… and) wants me to put them up on the thread (a lot of pics side by side which is interesting) pls let me know how to do this, I will try, as I was never able to upload pics in this forum.
• Interestingly, 37-inchers PQ was only marginally better than on the monsters.
• No picture was “perfect” but Sharp and Tosh LCDs came quite close, and I suspect that a proper full digital HDMI signal (remember, this was a Japanese standard that I suspect is a hi-def analogue standard (again, if anybody can clarify this, pls!).
• In the first shop (actually not on Akihabara) they put for some reason a plasma, Panasonic 65” Viera (1080) side by side with an LCD, Sharp 57” (1080). This shook and shocked me (the sensitive guy that I am), as I expected (see my previous conviction above) that the plasma will look much better, even if not perfect. However, I preferred the Sharp’s lcd, and importantly, the plasma looked dimmer which is important because eventually, we watch our tellys mostly in full lights or daylight (say F1). I could also see the dreaded black lines in the plasma between the pixels – even though they were high and very high def-n.
• Admittedly, the colours of the Panny 65” plasma were more “CRT-like” than the Sharp 57” but this was not very pronounced nor significantly more pleasant to the eye. The lower brightness was very disappointing for me, but later I noticed the same with Pioneers. The salesman was not surprised, he said that plasma’s are always less bright and this was news to me.
• Sharp’s colours and non-screen-door-effect picture were almost cinematic, even if again, not perfect. In one shop, I very slightly preferred the colours of Toshiba’s 37” 1080 (side by side) to that of the Sharp, whose colours were a bit “bland” but the picture was slightly more, well, sharp…In another shop, I preferred Sharp’s colours and they were clearly less “saturated”. I can't say much about “black levels” but I would guess that this is a weak spot for LCD, the blacks were quite “saturated” but plasma did not seem to me (in full lights) much better.
• Sony’s 40” lcd colours were probably set by the factory to higher contrast but I liked the picture less than others because it was a bit blurred and generally (but not very much) less pleasant to watch, so perhaps the panel was designed to show higher contrast to compensate for other things.
• The friendly and English speaking attendant said readily that Sony’s panels were made in Korea by Samsung and interestingly, it seemed that Sony knew that everybody knows it – in front of virtually all Sony’s there was a little plastic board sign with “Sony – S-Panel” (I guess the “S” is for Samsung, and Sony is obliging the shops to put this sign so that no-one can claim they were cheated). He also said something that was new to me, that Toshiba’s panels were made in Taiwan but he did not know the supplier (I suggested BenQ, Acer or Optoma, but he didn’t recognise).
• Pioneers were disappointing, mainly because I was able to compare them side-by-side with lcds and in a strong ambient light, and also because I was able to see the black lines between the pixels (from distance of 2 screen widths which the SMPTE/THX recommended watching distance) while the LCDs were completely free of this plague.
• Prices were something like about 1.8-2k pounds for 37”/1080 lcds, 2.5-3k for 45”+ and the beasts were about 8-10k. I made pics of the shelves, I can look at them but don’t have time now.

So what’s the bottom line(s)?
• Again, I flip my decision and probably will not go for the Pioneer 436. Either I will shell for a 45” Sharp or, 37” with 1080, or perhaps sit-out the World Cup on my projector (will have to blacken windows though) or buy a cheapie CRT and buy 1080 lcd when prices are around 1.2-1.5k for 37” or 2-2.5k for the 45-incher.
• There are many guys in this forum that shun LCDs because SD reproduction is bad and they don’t want to pay for Sky or Telewest HD. Well, after seeing what I saw today, I would put the question differently, why pay 2-3k for a plasma and watch *@&# SD, when Sky and others will start broadcasting HD very soon (by the way is it true that BBC will broadcast all Germany World Cup games in HD?)? After today I don’t want to watch SD programmes again in my life. More, I bet anyone that SD will go the way of the 35mm film – many predicted a slow decline but once people tried a 5mega-pixel digital camera (2004), the sales of film fell off a cliff at a rate, much much faster than predicted.

That was long, but guys, so is Akihabara!
 
asherpat said:
However, I preferred the Sharp’s lcd, and importantly, the plasma looked dimmer which is important because eventually, we watch our tellys mostly in full lights or daylight (say F1). I could also see the dreaded black lines in the plasma between the pixels – even though they were high and very high def-n.

Two overservations:

1. I could have told you before that a Plasma needs the darkness in order to shine. If you really are the kind of guy that watches mostly in daylight then yes a LCD has better colours. Turn off the light and it will be just the other way around.

2. You say you can see the lines on a Plasma? Pardon me, but that's just ridiculous. Are you obsessed about seeing the lines? With reasonable distance to the PDP you don't see any lines at all. If you really WANT to see lines, you can see em on all sets if you just get close enough. But what's the point in that?
 
k0rn, i did not mean to offend, just to inform. For me, the lines are important cos i want to watch not from a distacne that is not much higher than the maximum recommended by the movie industry (see http://www.myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculator.html ), otherwise, if one sits more than 2 times screen width from thier video-display device, then the best they can do is to buy a 36" CRT (it is still the bees knees) and sit w/i a couple of meters in a comfy TV armchair...

but this is not the point and an any case, tks for your advise, it is taken.
 
Well asherpat, that is what I call a comprehensive post :) Thank you for taking the trouble to make it.

It would be good if we had a "standard feed" in all of our main stores so that we could better evaluate the models on offer.
 
asherpat said:
otherwise, if one sits more than 2 times screen width from thier video-display device, then the best they can do is to buy a 36" CRT (it is still the bees knees) and sit w/i a couple of meters in a comfy TV armchair...

I don't agree with that at all. I know that calculator and I think it's deeply flawed.

Do you suggest you don't see the difference between HD and SD if you sit 3m away from your display? If so, this is NOT true. I've seen many many hours of HD and I can assure you this is not the case.

I sit exactly 3m from my 37" and I think it's just right. According to that calculator I should sit about 1.5 from my screen... this sounds pretty dull to me. ;)
 
I think there was an article in HCC this month. Japanese houses are apparently much lighter than ours and so prefer LCD's over plasma.

I haven't seen a LCD that comes close to Plasma for PQ. Perhaps if viewing a limited HD demo clicp but not when you compare football, normal sky etc etc

Seeing lines on a plasma from a normal viewing distance...you've got better eyesight than mine...don't ruin your eyes watching telly :D

Enjoy your time in Japan...stop wasting your time on here!
 
The only time I see lines on my 436XDE is when I'm right on top of it, Why would I want to sit 2m from the screen???:suicide:

Unless my living room was extremely small:devil:
 
I recently went to Hong Kong and saw the Sharp 65 inch LCD running 1080 HD and was totally amazed.

Perhaps it`s the long flight and all the gorgeous chinese food that makes these far east pictures look better ?:)

Seriously though it was by far the best picture i`ve ever seen Plasma/Lcd etc..Think a lot to do with it is the 1080HD feed and settings in store etc. I did not see it with fast movement though so who knows.. but i thought it was light years in front of anything seen previously.

Personally am waiting next 6 months to see what difference HD availabilty makes to available screens in the UK.
 
Asherpat,

I'm off to Japan for a holiday in May. :thumbsup:

Any tips on the best sights in Akihabra would be greatly appriciated.
 
Hi asherpat,

I found your post fascinating, thank you for all that information.

My son has just purchased the Pioneer 436SXE model, yet to be delivered, let's hope he doesn't see your post and think he's made a mistake! The Japanese always seem to be at the forefront of anything audio visual and, if they favour LCD, that's the way probably in the future. Interesting that their High Definition signal is analogue.

I hadn't realised that there were so many very large screens in LCD. I just have a 17" Viera for the kitchen.

I read that Samsung are introducing a new High Definition, good spec. CRT television to Europe, did you see any evidence of CRT tvs still for sale in the Far East?
 
Now that is a very good question Cynthia, there is a bit of discussion about the new version of Samsungs 32" Slimfit HD TV on the CRT forum and I think I read somewhere that Samsung are bringing out a 42" version?

It would be interesting to see if there was any evidence of a HD CRT market in Japan now?
 
Ah, Akihabara. Brings back great memories!

Tips?

Try and go in the dark (but be careful, when I went about 7 years ago, all the stores closed at about 8 p.m) as the neon is more effective.

Places to see?

Not sure of the names of the stores, but some are awesome. Imagine a Richer Sounds style store crammed full of electronics and awash with hand written day-glo price tickets, but on three or four storeys, each one bigger than any RS I've ever been into! One in particular sticks in my mind with an escalator in the middle of each floor taking you up to the next level.

When I was there, you could buy anything from the smallest, most hi-tech camcorder available to replacement buttons for your arcade cabinet Pac Man game.


On a similar hi-tech note, make sure you visit the Sony HQ and have a wander around too.
 
Interesting post.

I just tried this out, 2 screen widths from my Panny 42" I really can't see lines at all and I do know the exact effect you're talking about.

I sit about 3-4 screen widths from it normally (and sometimes from about 2x but offset from ideal position cos of room layout) and the picture looks like it's painted on to me, without the downsides of LCD.

I'm not using the screens you were looking at though. I've seen the matrix effect on a Pio 506XDE from about that 2.5m distance

Cynthia, I think your son will be delighted, the Pioneer is a great TV.

asherpat, Hi-Vision is a synonym for HDTV. I expect it's digital as the amount of bandwidth that HDTV over analogue would consume is immense.
 
hi all, i am just back from the Tuna auction at the fish market (up at 5.00am Tokyo time...) and have a biz mtg in about half hour so cant write much but will answer some questions above when back in the afternoon (London morning).

cheers
 
i am really sick i am, i have a few mins before my mtg so here goes: i downloaded the images i shot y-day in Akihabara of various screens side by side, and i must say that on the bigger screen of my laptop 15" (oh no!) in these pics, Panny 65" plasma colors are markedly nicer than Sharps 57" lcd...:suicide:

but y-day, in my eyes lcd looked much better, i cud swear, so i dont know anymore. looks as i will have to thrudge to Aki again tonite...

will write later...:suicide:
 
Most plasma and LCD screen look great when presented with HD feeds. Despite all the hype, most people in the UK will not be viewing much HD material in the near future, which means that we need to consider how today's LCD and plasmas cope with Coronation Street and Match of the Day.

Of all the LCD screens I have seen the 9830 appears to have the best picture, but the price of a top 32in LCD is very close to a top 42in Plasma and for the type of SD material I view, the plasma apears to give a "better" picture. The reason for this is that the plasma picture is softer, whereas the LCD is more blocky. Some LCDs show SD material as if looking at it underwater, whereas the HD material looks very clear.
 
I think even HD looks bad and artifical on LCDs... can't help it. Plasma gives a much more natural picture wether its HD or SD.
 
Just back from second (and last, at least this trip to Tokyo) visit to Akihabara, as promised this morning, after I got shivers that I may be wrong again! Looked at the same suspects, in the same and new shops and now i think i can answer some of the questions raised above, in reverse order, then below are some more observations:

k0rn: I agree with u that plasma colours are nicer but colours of Sharps were not bad and I think that one can adjust them to be "warmer". I also saw that plasmas colours could be a tad too strong but yes plasma wins in this point.

Rasputin, I thought like you (that HD is years away and no programs) but see my original, first post, I strongly disagree now. Once a person sees an HD transmission, they will not want to see SD ever again. Even if they have to watch SD, there will be a huge pressure on broadcasters to change to HD. Also, if one must watch SD, then on a large flat screen, they can (not sure on lcd/plasmas but it works on my front-projector) try “native” resolution which will mean, on a 45” 1080, a smaller but more watchable picture.

Asherpat (yes I am answering my own post, I told you I was sick): on the screen shot that I made yesterday, the colours on Panny 56” are nicer than on the nearby Sharp 57”. I visited the same shop (they had similar boy-baseball on some kind of never ending series) but in real life, the differences in colour were less of an issue – the “problem” for lcd was that the grass was greener on the plasma, so I guess the greenes are the issue for LCDs, anyone?

Choddo2006: you mentioned that you saw the “matrix effect” from 2.5m on Pio 506XDE; JackMan – you ask “Why would I want to sit 2m from the screen???”; k0rn – you say that you “sit exactly 3m from my 37" and I think it's just right.” - well, in the biggest and the most incredible shop that I saw (called I think Yosanbashi or something, not on Akihabara street but on the other side of the rail-tracks, see below), even that it did not have the most recent “E” 1080 series for Sharp 37”, had an interesting feature in the Pioneer hall – in front of the 436 and 506 screens, there were special stickers on the floor with what I think was recommended or optimal viewing distances (the salesman’s English was poorer than my Japanese, so I am not sure but I have the pics AGAIN I DON’T KNOW HOW TO UPLOAD PICS TO THIS FORUM, PLS HELP – perhaps it was “minimal” distance, but it tells you something in any case) and guess what? Pio itself recommends…1.6m for 436 (logical, 2 times screen width) and 1.8m for the 506! From these distances, I could see the vertical lines (logical, as especially in case of 436 the pixels are rectangular, not square) but what really was annoying to me (and all the plasma people, before you lynch me, remember that I am disappointed because I thought I already made-up my mind on the 436…) was the fact that I KNEW that they were there (because they are definitely very evident and visible from a bit closer than the optimal) and psychologically, my eyes continued to “look” for them… So there you have it, lynch me now.

Evil Engineer – tips on Aki for you, get out of Akihabara Japan Railway station (JR) and look for the shops that have escalators, they are the bigger ones and have the better range, you will see the labels will usually but not always display the resolution of the screens, so get the brochures, even if you don’t speak the language, in a usual manner in the end of each brochure there is the data so you can get it for reference. You can also play with each screen’s remote control and see many channels. Also ask for Yosobashi (or something like this, I don’t remember the exact name, but it is on the other side of the track from Akihabara road, just near the JR station, its amazing there and it has a fantastic display of panels, though because they look as they are sponsored and arranged by the suppliers, they are separate and you can't compare different brands side by side, for that you have to go the smaller independent shops, the best one is just outside the Station on the little street that leads to the main Akihabara avenue, on the left side of this little street. There was also one good shop straight outside Jurakucho JR station (Hibiya side, shop called “Bic Camera” yes, with “c”) there I saw the 65” Panny plasma side by side with the 57” Sharp.

Cynthia 7: I did not see Samsung’s widescreen CRT as CRTs were completely absent, NADA! I am a fan of CRT and if I could buy a 40” CRT I would not think about anything else, but it seems that this technology is dropped by the majors.

That’s all folks, tomorrow back to LHR! Sayonara Tokyo!

PS: by coincidence, I will be on hols in US next week so if I am not banned by the moderator, expect more!
 
good read!
wish u took some pics of the mad electronic/gadget shops thou
 
asherpat:

There is no way I would sit 1.8m in front of a 50"... I think it's ridiculous, people who promote such distances are most likely the ones who sit in the front row of the cinema too, eh? ;) (yes, even if Pioneer says such things... they're no gods, too.)

Why don't you just upload the pics via Imageshack???
 
SMPTE recommends a 1.8m viewing distance for a 50" screen so that the picture spans 30 degrees of your field of vision in the same way that a cinema screen would.

This is why it's called "home cinema", people. The idea is to recreate the modern cinema experience in the home and to do this you need a bloody big screen, lots of speakers and an expensive amp.

If you want to sit further away, that's fine. But it's no longer the "cinema" effect but a "larger than normal telly" effect.

To get the full monty at 3m viewing distance means a 72" screen!

BTW: Front row of the cinema is equivalent to watching a plasma with your nose 6" from the screen. :D
 
If you want to post pics, best bet is to upload them to a free site, like www.imageshack.us. Just register, upload, and post the links they provide here. Iy'll only take about 1 min to register for free.

Cheers

Andy
 
pictureeeeeeeeeeeees ! everybopdy post pictureeeeeeeeeeeees on image hostin here wherever u can but do !
 
Evil Engineer said:
SMPTE recommends a 1.8m viewing distance for a 50" screen so that the picture spans 30 degrees of your field of vision in the same way that a cinema screen would.

This is why it's called "home cinema", people. The idea is to recreate the modern cinema experience in the home and to do this you need a bloody big screen, lots of speakers and an expensive amp.

If you want to sit further away, that's fine. But it's no longer the "cinema" effect but a "larger than normal telly" effect.

To get the full monty at 3m viewing distance means a 72" screen!

Which is why a projector is more suited for home cinema than a TV - following the SMPTE recommendations most people could fit their "home cinema" in their hallway since they have to sit so close to the TV.

If you have a 32" you would basically have to sit with it on your lap? :eek:
 
Hi asherpat,

I do hope you're feeling a bit better today. I always feel under the weather when I've travelled to a very different time zone. Could be you've picked up a bug too.

Thank you for mentioning that CRT was no longer around in the Far East. I had often wondered if they had something up their sleeve for CRT but it seems it's a dodo now. Hopefully mine will last a few years longer and who knows what will be around then. In the meantime, I'm happy with my picture; maybe I'll change my mind when I see my son's new Pio, being delivered next Monday.
 

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