Need a new 32" LCD - Sony or Panasonic?

[owen_wil]

I am in the market for a 32" LCD tv. I have never actually bought a tv before, we have always relied on other people's cast offs! However, our second hand samsung CRT has finally given up so if i am buying my own telly at last, i intend to get a good one!

Having read what feels like thousands of reviews and articles, i have decided it's either the sony KDL32W5500 or the panasonic TX32LZD85. Both are 1080p, 100hz.

However, i have just discovered this excellent forum, which has raised more questions than answers!

My main requirements are:

1) SD picture quality must be good. I currently have sky but don't intend to upgrade to HD at the moment. ALso, i don't watch a lot of films, so bluray is not a concern. For this reason, do i need 1080p?

2) I watch a lot of rugby, and having seen the shocking performance on the cheaper LCDs when it comes to fast moving images, i had decided that 100hz would be essential. However, reading this sites' review of the 100hz sony it casts doubt on its usefulness.

3) i want to be able to hook it up to the PC, mainly for viewing photos and videos. would it be beneficial to have 1080p for this?

Basically, the two tellys i have mentioned above should be more than capable of what i want, but both the sony and panasonic do cheaper models that may also be sufficient for my needs whilst saving me a few quid - any help would be very gratefully received, as my wife is sick of hearing about it all!

Thanks,
Owen.

 

[Monarch]

You don't need 1080p for watching SD TV, in fact you will often get a worse SD performance on a 1080p set compared to a 720p equivalent. However, with Sony you will get a better set in the 1080p models as they use the new BE3 engine as opposed to the BE2 engine in this years HD ready offerings. You would be very hard pushed to see the difference between 720p and 1080p on a 32" TV anyway.

I would say first of all that the 32LZD85 is last years model, the L32G10 is the new one and is an excellent set. It also has built in freesat though, so you can watch the rugby (BBC and ITV anyway) in HD if you have a dish. I would expect that you would get the best SD performance from the Panasonic L32X15 though, and save yourself a lot of dosh. Panasonics also have fantastic motion handling, although the Sony is pretty good

Personally I would say the X15, 1080p is often a useful feature for PC use, but I can't see I would have any problems if it were me.

 

[owen_wil]

thanks monarch, that's exactly the sort of advice i was after

the panasonic x15 had caught my eye, as it has 100hz but only 720p which with my extremely limited understanding would suit me better. it just doesn't seem right not to get the higher res, but since the majority of the viewing on our telly is crap like corrie, i'm sure it won't matter!

what are the implications of going for 720 over 1080 when running the pc through it?

 

[Monarch]

I'm not 100% certain on the advantages of 1080p with PC use, but I guess that it would come mainly in the text, it would appear to be smoother on a 1080p screen with less jagged edges, you shouldn't have a major problem with this unless you are sat close up though. It used to include the text size, I can't remember whether it was too big or too small but now the modern HD ready TVs will process in 1080p (if asked to) so you don't get that problem anymore.

Watching standard TV will look better on the X15 compared to the 1080p equivalents like the S10 because it doesn't have to scale it as much (from 576i to 720p, instead of to 1080p) so less artefacts etc... are introduced. You will only really benefit from 1080p sources which, at the moment, is blu-ray and PC inputs (one or two video games, no more though), on a 32" screen though you need to be very close to see the difference, in my opinion 1080p isn't worth it on a screen smaller than 46" at a sensible viewing distance, even then you need to be closer than would be good for SD sources

 

[owen_wil]

fantastic, i will go for the panasonic x15 then.

Can i just say what an excellent source of info this forum is, extremely useful. Hopefully i now will have the best telly for my needs and to cap it off it's £100 cheaper than the one i was going to buy - thanks!

 

[Monarch]

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask, I'll try and answer any, and there are a lot of others who will be happy to help

 

[owen_wil]

Well just an update, i finally got round to buying the panasonic tx-l32x15, £500 from Richer Sounds in Leicester.

I am extremely pleased with it, excellent picture and i have been watching the British Lions rugby games and there is no blurring whatsoever.

It's still a little bit "pixelly" when viewed close up, but tbh i expected that with lcd's.

My only problem now is that i am trying to connect it to the pc. my pc has a HDMI output (Nvidia 9400 video card) so i thought it would be a simple case of connecting the two together. however, i can't get anything on the tv screen at all. the computer appears to recognise the telly is connected, as it appears in the Nvidia control panel, but no matter what settings i alter there is absoluely nothing on the screen. Any ideas?

 

[Monarch]

hmmm, I've never connected a PC to my TVs so I'm not sure, I have seen a few people posting about similar problems though so a search might bring up some results while you wait for another response on here

and yes, slight pixelation (on SD particularly) is normal on all TVs really, as long as it's ok from your viewing distance then you shouldn't have a problem though

 

[Boostrail]

Pleased to see you are impressed with the Panasonic motion handling.When I bought my 37LZD85 over a year ago this was the deciding factor. It still outperforms from what I have seen are the motion handling solutions from other manufacturers. My opinion is that on a 100HZ Panasonic motion handling is just not an issue.

You mention a problem with slight "mosquito" pixellation. I find this relates to low bitrate channels or sources. e.g. ITV4. I also find that it is most manifest when viewing a small human head against a green background i.e. footy, rugby, cricket, tennis etc.

Why this is not as apparent with other background colours beats me.

However I have found that increasing the PNR setting reduces this effect at the expense of making the green field smeary

 

[kingkenny]

I am in the market for a 32" LCD tv. I have never actually bought a tv before, we have always relied on other people's cast offs! However, our second hand samsung CRT has finally given up so if i am buying my own telly at last, i intend to get a good one!

Having read what feels like thousands of reviews and articles, i have decided it's either the sony KDL32W5500 or the panasonic TX32LZD85. Both are 1080p, 100hz.

However, i have just discovered this excellent forum, which has raised more questions than answers!

My main requirements are:

1) SD picture quality must be good. I currently have sky but don't intend to upgrade to HD at the moment. ALso, i don't watch a lot of films, so bluray is not a concern. For this reason, do i need 1080p?

2) I watch a lot of rugby, and having seen the shocking performance on the cheaper LCDs when it comes to fast moving images, i had decided that 100hz would be essential. However, reading this sites' review of the 100hz sony it casts doubt on its usefulness.

3) i want to be able to hook it up to the PC, mainly for viewing photos and videos. would it be beneficial to have 1080p for this?

Basically, the two tellys i have mentioned above should be more than capable of what i want, but both the sony and panasonic do cheaper models that may also be sufficient for my needs whilst saving me a few quid - any help would be very gratefully received, as my wife is sick of hearing about it all!

Thanks,
Owen.

Hi i bought the sony w5500 set and ended up sending it back due to bad smearing and judder problems on the picture.i would go for the panasonic without a dought.i am getting the panny x10 plasma in the morning.good luck to you.

 

[owen_wil]

Pleased to see you are impressed with the Panasonic motion handling.When I bought my 37LZD85 over a year ago this was the deciding factor. It still outperforms from what I have seen are the motion handling solutions from other manufacturers. My opinion is that on a 100HZ Panasonic motion handling is just not an issue.

You mention a problem with slight "mosquito" pixellation. I find this relates to low bitrate channels or sources. e.g. ITV4. I also find that it is most manifest when viewing a small human head against a green background i.e. footy, rugby, cricket, tennis etc.

Why this is not as apparent with other background colours beats me.

However I have found that increasing the PNR setting reduces this effect at the expense of making the green field smeary

yes this is exactly when it is worst. Also, the crap channels definitely seem to suffer more. Overall though it's barely noticable really.

I have also sorted my PC connectivity issue - the cable would't plug in fully into the video card due to a lip on the rear casing of the PC, i have moved the video card slightly and now it works really well. We have thousands of photos and videos of our 9 month old twins, it is great being able to view them on a larger screen!