Samsungps42ps Or Lgmz42pz17

TopMeTom

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After being told by the missus she wants to spend no more than 2.5k on MY plasma(ggrrrrrrrrrrr).Anyone got opinions on these two screens?OR any where I can get a plas for the above money?
I like to watch region 1+2 dvd+sky,
Any advice??
Mucho graciarse for the help,
Phil:zonked:
 
same question from me too - can't wait to get a plasma
 
Hi There,

There has been a lot of disscusion on which is the best on these 2 models over the last couple of months. I am sure you will find all the information you require by doing a quick search.
 
I chose the Lg over the samsung but im not sure it was the right one. Im on the second plasma (Lg42pz17) after the first screen developed a large black vertical line down the center of the screen. BM changed it but had a lot of chasing up on the phone

Ive also found that i can only connect the plasma on composite connection from the sky digi box which gives a not so good picture. (not good for 3k anyway) The s video from the dvd is good.

Anyone with the same problems???
 
Nelly T,

if you're using SVHS from the DVD and nothing else connected then you could use an RGB-YUV converter for the Sky and connect on the component video inputs.
 
Hi

I was in a similar position - deperate for a plasma but had a mental (not to mention financial) block at spending £3K on a telly. However after agonising I've decided to go for the Panny. My rationale was as follows.

1. The picture was significantly better when I saw them run side by side albeit in currys and playing Spiderman via unknown connections.

2. Panny gets a strong review everywhere and I havent read anything on the forum from someone who has had problems and ended up sending it back or swapping it for another brand.

3. The capability of the Panny to display true blacks vs the murky grey on the Samsung at least.

4. I'm going to live with this thing for a while and dont want to feel in a years time that I have to have something else. I've had my Sony CRT for 7 years and been quite happy

5. If your spending £2500 what real difference does another 500 make in the grand scheme of things.

6. More people on the forum have Pannys or Tosh's and therefore its easier to get support if you need it and your supplier isnt that hot.

7. I have a mental block with companies like LG and Samsung and perceive them as being inferior quality.

8. My brother in law works occasionally for Panasonic in customer service so I have some inside knowledge there.

9. We just had our first child and therefore in order to make up for missing out on going to the movies we had to have a home cinema set up. Hmmmm getting a bit deperate now!

10. People will look at it and think it the ******** even after they read the brand name on the screen. Same as point 7 really.

11. I told the wife that it was only £2.5k !!! and said she could still have the Diesel jeans she want and she said get the Panny!

12. Lifes too short to worry about £500 quid when you might spend the next few months thinking " I wish I'd bought the Panny"


I realise this doesnt help your decison much if you really are tied to the budget but I thought £2.5k was my limit too.


Cheers


Ally
 
surley your wife is being sellfish knowing you NEED a new plasma and she is out buying expensive jeans , tell its the super market specials or nothing:D :D :D
 
Out of those 2 I would choose the LG but have you considered the 37" Panny? It retails for around £2700 and has all the picture benefits of the 42" Panny . And whats 5" between friends ?

If you must have 42" I would go for the Toshiba 42WP27B .Its a clone of the Panny and can be got for £3000 from RS .
Thats what I went for . It has a 2 year Warranty (so has the LG )but the panny only has one .RS offer an extra 2 years for £250 but unlike their supercare package you cant get your money back if you dont use it .

John Lewis will give you a free 5 year warranty(+ free delivery) and "should " price match but I found the salesman in Newcastle un-coperative .I think price matching has to be done through a central department.

I think the Warranty is very important here and would have bought from JL but he couldnt give me a firm delivery date .
RS had the screen in stock so I had it within a week and I dont think £250 is bad for four years peace of mind.

One other thing to remember is sometimes its harder to get the stand than it is to get the screen . RS couldnt get me one and unless you are prepared to wait you will end up paying top price for it . Unbeatable had a stand listed for £140 not in stock . Le concepts had one in stock at £199.

Of course you should never mention these extras to the other half until the screen is bought then there can be no going back.

Hope thats of some use and happy plasma viewing ......You won't regret it
 
I demo'd the Samsung PS42P2S vs the LG MZ42PZ14 on display in Richer Sounds in Middlesbrough last Thursday.

The PZ14 wasn't for sale but I used it to determine whether to buy the PS42P2S (1999 pounds) or the MZ42PZ17 (2499 pounds).

The way they had them set up was the LG on Svideo (I think?) and the Samsung on composite. Not surprisingly the Sammy looked crap and the LG looked better (obviously they were trying to push the more expensive LG over the Samsung). They were playing CGI-fest Monsters Inc which would look pretty good on my arse let alone a plasma.

I got them to demo both on Svideo (I know the LG has component but as the Samsung doesn't I thought I'd do a fair test) and the LG had better black levels and a more detailed picture. For example at the beginning of "Armageddon" on the Samsung it was difficult to make out many stars in the background of outer space, and the background of space was grey. On the LG there was a veritable sky full of them and a blacker sky. This was despite fiddling with the Sammy settings to attempt to improve the picture.

The LG looked better build quality (proper metal surround rather than the plasticy Samsung), and also came with an extra year's warranty. It also had component inputs. On the downside it would only do NTSC progressive (480p).

The Samsung would do PAL progressive scan (576p) but only on the VGA input.

On balance I preferred the PZ14, and on the basis the PZ17 may have better contrast and brightness I chose that. (I know there is some dispute in this forum as to the specs of the PZ17 as to whether it has better contrast and brightness than the PZ14)

For my money the LG was worth the extra 500 quid.

I wasn't willing to compromise 5" and more money to get the Panasonic 37", and didn't have the extra 500 to go to the Toshiba 42" Panny clone.

RS sold me a 3rd party wallmount for the LG for 150ish.

I don't have a delivery date for the plasma yet, I was told it could be "March or April". Hopefully more news on that later this week.

Mike
 
Sorry for the double-post, I was in RS yesterday and:

* the Sammy is up to 2299
* they are selling 42PZ10s (ex-display old model) for 1999
* the 42PZ17s are 2499

Mike
 
Liam,
Thanks for the suggestion but have you actually connected the LG to the Sky Digi box using RGB-YUV converter?

I have spent £80 (DONT TELL THE WIFE) on a converter from Lecto Plas and I cant get a picture. They assure me it will work on LG's but reading other posts, the LG requires a frequency of 15.9Khz and the Sky Digi box outputs at 15.2Khz.

All other Plasmas run at 15.2Khz. It appears that the LG is an odd ball on this matter and is proving to be a bit of a pain. I knew I should have gone for the Samsung!!!

Any body connected to component from RGB please let me know.
:rolleyes:
 
The LG requires an input on the VGA port of something like 31khz, this is why it won't work with JS Technology's RGB-to-VGA converter (as this only outputs 15.something khz).

A PC can output 31khz so you would be alright connecting a PC.

In order to get a quality RGB input into your LG plasma you probably want

http://www.rgbtosvideo.com/rgb-yuv/rgb-yuv.htm - one of these

and then if you have more than one component device you'll need a component switcher.

mike
 
Originally posted by mikeblanche
The Samsung would do PAL progressive scan (576p) but only on the VGA input.
What's the use of that? I'm giving my Samsung back to Richer Sounds, as a plasma is no use if it can't take progressive except via the VGA connection?

How do you actually facilitate that anyway? What DVD player or console outputs in VGA?
 
PAL progressive (576p) is something that the Samsung should be commended for.

Yes, it's only available on the VGA port because there's no component. I don't think (but I could be wrong) you can get progressive scan via composite or S-video, so if you haven't got component then VGA is your only option.

You could use one of JS Technology's RGB to VGA converters and get PAL progressive, for example, out of your DVD player or Sky box.

mike
 
Miles

Could you please explain yourself in laymans terms. My wife just wants to watch a big telly with a good picture from Sky.:confused:
 
Mike Blanche

Rgb and component are NOT the same thing.An rgb to vga converter will not convert component(y-pb-pr) into vga so this could not be used to input progressive scan into a plasma.
And no satellite or cable box will give you progressive scan output as yet.The only dvd player that I know of that can output progressive scan via vga is the Philips 1000 mk11 dvd recorder but that will not allow progscan on prerecorded material, there may well be others that I don`t know of perhaps someone else will come along and advise.
Cheers
 
Sorry, I was thinking that all VGA output is progressive, which it isn't, only output from a PC.

As usual I'm WRONG WRONG WRONG (as Homer would say). :thumbsdow

The JS RGB-to-VGA box can't turn an interlaced signal from Sky into a progressive scan VGA signal.

You could use a Home Cinema PC with a video capture card, deinterlace the signal in the PC and then output to the Samsung plasma with VGA as progressive scan. Whether this would provide a better picture than the Sammy's built-in deinterlacer I couldn't say. If you want to know more then you're better off heading over to the HCPC forum thataway ---->

mike
 
Let not get away from the fact that Plasma screeens deinterlace anyway.

From what I can tell from people in the know the jury is still out on whether progessive scan DVD players make a big difference to the picture quality you get from Plasma screens.

I have seen loads of posts where people have said they saw little noticable improvement in quality moving to progressive scan DVD players, others have seen minor improvements. I have even seen people say that quality non progessive DVD players produce better results !

They make a big difference on CRT sets and projectors from what I can tell but having seen them in action I am not convinced they make a huge difference to the quality you get on a Plasma. Not at the moment anyway and probably not on the lower spec panels, may be on the Panny / Tosh / Pioneer ???
 

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