Plasma/LCD/DLP

P

paulhazell

Guest
First time user and frankly i'm confused!
I have a budget of £1800 to buy a new TV and i am snowed under with options.
Here's the brief;
Doesn't have to be flat, not bothered about hanging on the wall but it is an option.
Screen size must be as large as possible, the bigger the better without serious drop in quality.
Must be HI DEF ready.

So.....Plasma, LCD or DLP???.....pro's and con's, any recommendations, in fact any comments whatsoever are more than welcome.
 
The biggest HD Ready screen for the smallest change then you're probably should have a look at DLP rear pros. You can get a 50" screen for around £1300 at the moment.

If you want to know more about the pros and cons of the various technologies I would do a search in each of the forums, they're always coming out with LCD vs plasma, plasma vs DLP etc.
 
Completely agree with Neil, if size is all that matters then go with a rearpro - 50" for easily between £1300-£2000. Alternatively there are many good plasmas for around £1800 - £2000. Have a look at this :

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259214.

Personally if I was going for a plasma then I would go for either the above Panasonic or the Pioneer 436XDE - see http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/product_detail.jsp?product_id=11144&taxonomy_id=62-63

Is a little bit above your budget at circa £2200 online, but it's worth it.

For a budget of £1800, then - with LCDs in mind - you will be looking at around 32" screensize. Try the Panasonic TX32LXD500 or the Phillips 32PF9830, both are excellent panels and within your budget. If 32" is too small for you then try the Toshiba 37WL56- it's 37" and within budget; picture quality is good but not as good as the Panasonic or Phillips 32". Again, have a search of the forums for various pros and cons of all the above models.

Hope this helps. :smashin:
 
Thanks guys, good advice there.
To elaborate on my dilemma a little more (seeing as i'm doing this in my time now rather than work time lol) i had already pretty much rules out LCD as i want a screen bigger than 32" which would be a huge struggle on my budget.
As for plasma i do have some issues with the picture quality when there is a lot of motion and as i watch a lot of football i'm not sure if that is the way to go. I wasn't sure however if i've just seen a few dodgy plasma's rather than it being a problem with that particular format.
As for DLP i am totally in love with the Samsung 50" pedestal model. Looks amazing and is a decent price online. Strangely Curry's have this set priced at £2500 in store but £1800 online!...can't figure that difference out and the guy in the store today was even more shocked about that than i was.
I have also looked at a Sony 50" with 3LCD technology. It doesn't look quite as good a picture to me as the Samsung though. Can't quite put my finger on why though. However it is an absolute bargain at £1300!
I do intend to get Sky's HD service as soon as it's available so as i said before the HD capabilities are very important, as is DVD reproduction and standard Sky viewing. On the subject of Sky HD the guy in the store today said that they have been told the box will be £300 plus an extra £10 subscription, does that pan out with what people on the forum have heard?

So, any further advice now i have given a little more information would be great. Now i'm off to trawl the forum. Thanks again guys.

Paul
 
I've read some good reviews of the Sony over on the rear pro TV forum and as an alternative to the Sammy 50" pedestal you might consider the Samsung SP46L6HX which can be had for around the £1200 mark and is a very capable set. One thing to look out for with the DLPs is it's main achilles heal for some and thats the rainbow effect which you may or may not be susceptible to. This is where some people, me included and I ended up returning the aforementioned Sammy, can see flashes of colour at the edged of brightly contrasting scenes due to the way colour is reproduced on a single DLP chip TV. The Sony, being a 3LCD model, doesn't suffer from this.
 
Regarding the rainbow effect i have had a good look at DLP sets and the Sony but obviously only instore which is practically a waste of time, but i have never seen this rainbow effect on TV or DVD viewing.

Does anyone know the main differences between the Sony and the Samsung on a technical level (albeit in plain english so as not to confuse me lol) as i was told that the Sony was very inferior to the Samsung in just about every way. He particularly mentioned something about pixel size on the Sony being comparable to a cheap plasma?!?!
 
paulhazell said:
As for plasma i do have some issues with the picture quality when there is a lot of motion and as i watch a lot of football i'm not sure if that is the way to go.
I do intend to get Sky's HD service as soon as it's available so as i said before the HD capabilities are very important, as is DVD reproduction and standard Sky viewing. On the subject of Sky HD the guy in the store today said that they have been told the box will be £300 plus an extra £10 subscription, does that pan out with what people on the forum have heard?


Paul


Paul,

I recently watched ManU v Middlesbrough on a Toshiba 50" Rearpro - size was very impressive but PQ was - as were United - absolutely terrible; in fact the Sky feed was diabolical. I know there are some good rearpros outhere but unless you've got a huge living room I would not go for the rearpro. As for Plasma, there are some "ghosting" issues when watching football - one of my mates has the Pioneer 436XDE and has reported these issues. Then again LCDs can throw up some issues when watching fast moving images such as football. All things considered, when weighing up your requirements re size/PQ/budget I would go for plasma - and this is from someone who loves his Panasonic LCD.

Matt
 
woodywizz said:
Paul,

I recently watched ManU v Middlesbrough on a Toshiba 50" Rearpro - size was very impressive but PQ was - as were United - absolutely terrible; in fact the Sky feed was diabolical.

Matt

Sounds like it was an old or poorly set up set. DLP rear projections produce images comparable with the best plasma's
 
Sy1441 said:
Sounds like it was an old or poorly set up set. DLP rear projections produce images comparable with the best plasma's

The biggest drawbacks of rear-pro DLP vs plasma is poor viewing angles (good pictures if viewed from within 45 degrees of the perpendicular to the screen, progressively worse when you move further out), and noise generated by filter wheels and fans.

I should also comment that I watched my DLP projector for a good half-hour before I noticed the rainbows. They're worse on some scenes, and better on others. If you want to see DLP at its worst, watch the opening titles of "The Italian Job" (the newer version, not the original).
 
Nick_UK said:
The biggest drawbacks of rear-pro DLP vs plasma is poor viewing angles (good pictures if viewed from within 45 degrees of the perpendicular to the screen, progressively worse when you move further out), and noise generated by filter wheels and fans.

I should also comment that I watched my DLP projector for a good half-hour before I noticed the rainbows. They're worse on some scenes, and better on others. If you want to see DLP at its worst, watch the opening titles of "The Italian Job" (the newer version, not the original).

The Sony 3LCD rear pro's have a 130 degree viewing angle without any loss in quality. Even at near side on viewing the picture is still perfectly visible.
No rainbow effect or colour wheels either.

Cheers
Lee
 
paulhazell said:
Regarding the rainbow effect i have had a good look at DLP sets and the Sony but obviously only instore which is practically a waste of time, but i have never seen this rainbow effect on TV or DVD viewing.

Does anyone know the main differences between the Sony and the Samsung on a technical level (albeit in plain english so as not to confuse me lol) as i was told that the Sony was very inferior to the Samsung in just about every way. He particularly mentioned something about pixel size on the Sony being comparable to a cheap plasma?!?!

Both sets use a white bulb, the DLP sets have a chip with tiny mirrors that reflect the light on the screen. Because at this you would only see white light the white light shines through a spinning colour wheel with red, green and blue segments. This means at any one time on the screen you only have a red, green or blue picture. The process happens that fast that your eyes see a full colour picture. For some people though they are able to see part of the DLP process and see rainbows, a few other people suffer eye strain and headaches viewing DLP pictures.

On the 3LCD sets the white light shines on Dichrohic(sp?) mirrors that split the light into red, green and blue. Each colour shines through an LCD panel to produce the image and then the colours are joined together using a prism before being displayed on the screen. The picture is a totally flat projected image with no flicker, no rainbows and no eyestrain.

As for pixel size, the new HD Ready sets have full 1280X720 resolution with the combined panels giving a 2.7mega-pixel image. Far better than cheap low res Plasma's.

Cheers
Lee
 
logiclee said:
..... On the 3LCD sets the white light shines on Dichrohic(sp?) mirrors that split the light into red, green and blue. Each colour shines through an LCD panel to produce the image and then the colours are joined together using a prism before being displayed on the screen. The picture is a totally flat projected image with no flicker, no rainbows and no eyestrain.
.....

So goodbye to DLP rainbows, hello to LCD lags, and hello to possible convergeance problems.

For every plus, there is always at least one minus :)
 
Nick_UK said:
So goodbye to DLP rainbows, hello to LCD lags, and hello to possible convergeance problems.

For every plus, there is always at least one minus :)

That's true although the latest 3LCD HD sets have a screen refresh time of 8milli-seconds. Motion blurring isn't much of an issue and certainly not as bad as the oil painting effect that some cheaper DLP's produce during motion.

Convergence isn't a problem as the only issues are factory tolerances, there is no adjustment after the set is manufactured.
Much the same as high end 3 panel DLP projectors.

Cheers
Lee
 

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