My 2 cents for the people who are into buying 42 inch Hitachi's/Pioneers/Panasonics

Neo319

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Well, after months of considering almost every plasma TV, I've finally settled for the best one (imo). I traded in my 42PD6600 of which the PQ wasn't satisfying enough for me.

I've been on these boards for months and have seen all the plasma's I've considered in person. My conclusions are in no way meant to tell the one and only truth. Your findings may be different, but I'm putting up mine to help people in the same position get a better perspective of which TV to choose.

Pioneer 436: Best PQ overall and beautiful timeless design. Handles colorbanding the best. But too vulnerable to screenburn, too obvious lipsynchproblems and (at least for me) too expensive. For that amount of money, I don't want to suffer 1500 hours of bad PQ and other annoyances.

Panasonic PX60/600: Good PQ, colorbanding a little less than the 9700 and a little more than the Pioneer. But in terms of clarity, sharpness and color, the 9700 beats it, except in blacklevels maybe. (Wasn't as noticable as I thought.) Plus, the remote lacks ext.input-buttons and the design looks cheap on the PX60, while the 600 is way more expensive while having no PQ-improvements, so no alternative for me.

Hitachi 7200A: Almost as good as the 9700. In the end, it was the only real alternative, but both in HD and SD, the 9700 performed (suprisingly) better (after some comments from forummembers who've stated the opposite). In HD, colors were more natural and blackdetail was a little bit better. In SD (DVD with component-hookup) colors were more evenly matched but in some scenes skintones were less natural on the 7200 and there was more noise in the picture. Colorbanding was more noticable than on the 9700. The 6600 was terrible at it by the way (which was also hanging next to the 7200 and 9700). Probably because it lacks the more sophisticated software to counter it.

In the end, I preferred the 9700 for the improved PQ in all areas over the 7200, the better design (the 7200 only gets pretty after you remove it's speakers and even then, the 9700 looks more sophisticated) and the improved resolution (so I can put my 360 on 1080i soon:D ).
I can still completely understand why somebody would still buy a 7200, but for me, the difference was big enough to pay the extra 630 euro.

The Hitachi's had all PQ-improving settings turned off, or at zero level (so I can't wait to see the PQ with post 200 hour settings!:clap: ) and I have dismissed soundquality as I always use an external system.
If you want to test for colorbanding yourself, use Finding Nemo: beginning scene 11 and The Matrix Revolutions: beginning scene 2, and be prepared to get a little less happy with your plasma TV!
 
Neo319 said:
Pioneer 436: Best PQ overall and beautiful timeless design. Handles colorbanding the best. But too vulnerable to screenburn, too obvious lipsynchproblems and (at least for me) too expensive. For that amount of money, I don't want to suffer 1500 hours of bad PQ and other annoyances.

Interesting... I have never suffered any of those issues with mine.. maybe its 436 specific or I'm just lucky... have to agree (suprisingly) it has the best picture and design by far...

As for being expensive... you get what you pay for... most other boxes look cheap by comparison...becuase they are :eek:

cheers
 
The Hitachi's had all PQ-improving settings turned off, or at zero level (so I can't wait to see the PQ with post 200 hour settings!

Interesting that bit, I still run my 7200 with all the enhancements turned off.
Which makes me wonder why they bothered :confused:
Perhaps I ought to get the AVIA disc out again.

I found that during the run-in period (which I found to be nearer 1000 hours), the picture quality actually improved and the white level kept rising slightly, which meant having to back it off. I ran AVIA every couple of hundred hours.
I guess I'm well over 10,000 hours now.
If the 7200 is anything to go by (and the 9700 is supposed to be better), you've made a fine choice.
May it give you many years of viewing.
 
Neo319 said:
Well, after months of considering almost every plasma TV, I've finally settled for the best one (imo). I traded in my 42PD6600 of which the PQ wasn't satisfying enough for me.

I've been on these boards for months and have seen all the plasma's I've considered in person. .

Thanks for a detailed review of your process of choosing the right set. I´d have a few questions about the testing procedure:

Did you make your observation at home or in the store?

In either case, did you always have the same connection type (i.e. rgb scart/component/hdmi) and the same signal (i.e. digital sd tv/dvd etc)?

Did you experiment with the settings with every tv before making conclusions?
 
Neo319 said:
Well, after months of considering almost every plasma TV, I've finally settled for the best one (imo).
You mean the best one for your budget, you havent even mentioned the Fuji which is widely regarded as the best 42" panel.
 
Steve_B said:
Interesting... I have never suffered any of those issues with mine.. maybe its 436 specific or I'm just lucky... have to agree (suprisingly) it has the best picture and design by far...

As for being expensive... you get what you pay for... most other boxes look cheap by comparison...becuase they are :eek:

cheers

I'm sure it can be avoided, but a lot of people suffered from it and Pioneer themselves admit it's at least a 1000 to 1500 hours...

And I'm glad the 9700 looks far from cheap. ;)
 
Badger0-0 said:
The Hitachi's had all PQ-improving settings turned off, or at zero level (so I can't wait to see the PQ with post 200 hour settings!

Interesting that bit, I still run my 7200 with all the enhancements turned off.
Which makes me wonder why they bothered :confused:
Perhaps I ought to get the AVIA disc out again.

I found that during the run-in period (which I found to be nearer 1000 hours), the picture quality actually improved and the white level kept rising slightly, which meant having to back it off. I ran AVIA every couple of hundred hours.
I guess I'm well over 10,000 hours now.
If the 7200 is anything to go by (and the 9700 is supposed to be better), you've made a fine choice.
May it give you many years of viewing.

Thanks man. :)
 
avisti said:
Thanks for a detailed review of your process of choosing the right set. I´d have a few questions about the testing procedure:

Did you make your observation at home or in the store?

In either case, did you always have the same connection type (i.e. rgb scart/component/hdmi) and the same signal (i.e. digital sd tv/dvd etc)?

Did you experiment with the settings with every tv before making conclusions?

My observations as mentioned were in a store, with the mentioned TV's either side by side or very close together so a good comparison was possible.
As for the connection type and signal, both SD and HD feeds were played on all TV's simultaniously which also made comparing very easy.
I didn't bother with the Hitachi settings because they were both set to zero. Pioneer and Panasonic were set up to the store's best ability (as they said) and trust me, ACN Services is a quality store, they know how to set it up. ;)
 
hutch. said:
You mean the best one for your budget, you havent even mentioned the Fuji which is widely regarded as the best 42" panel.

I know. That's why I said 'almost' every TV and I put the brands in the tagline. ;)
 
Did you not even bother with an LG model in your comparison?
 
I too was impressed with the 9700 when compared with the PX60/600 and 436. I would probably opt for this set if I wanted to buy a TV as opposed to a panel.

A lot of people shy away from buying a panel because they think it needs a lot of technical experience - e.g. inserting interface boards. However, in reality the installation is very easy. I think it is a good idea to check out the panel alternatives to plasma TVs before you make a final choice because many people are impressed by the quality of the images on these panels.
 
The thing I learnt from owning my 6600, apart from that I despised the thing was that 42 inches just ain't big enough :)...

what is though I spose...sorry for "trolling"
 

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