I had a chance to go to BB tonight and compare a Kuro 5020 to a Samsung 650 LCD. I can see what most people say about the whites, but the blacks were better on the 650 as well. So now my knowledge from these forums led me to ask the salesguy to change the picture mode, his answer was that these newer ones only have one mode and it needs to be calibrated. Guess he knew his stuff :)

I have no concerns about the blacks, but once the Kuro is at home, will the difference in whites be as significant as it was at BB? I'm guessing not, but figure I ask anyway.

-David

The whites will be just fine at home.

The only time the Whites look "less white" is when they are in a showroom environment and/or they are sitting next to an LCD with the backlight blasting.

As others have pointed out as well, alot of times the LCD's will be set to a dynamic/torch mode with a very cool color temperature which give the whites a blu-ish tint making them appear whiter in the stores to the "drive by" viewers.
But at home these modes look horrible.

In a darkened room I run my 650 LCD's backlight at 3, since that is quite adequate and you pay dearly in black level for additional brightness. I don't remember what they had it set at, but BB runs theirs significantly higher since their showroom is well-lit.

I had a chance to go to BB tonight and compare a Kuro 5020 to a Samsung 650 LCD. I can see what most people say about the whites, but the blacks were better on the 650 as well. So now my knowledge from these forums led me to ask the salesguy to change the picture mode, his answer was that these newer ones only have one mode and it needs to be calibrated. Guess he knew his stuff :)

I have no concerns about the blacks, but once the Kuro is at home, will the difference in whites be as significant as it was at BB? I'm guessing not, but figure I ask anyway.

-David

One mode? lol what?

the whites you saw on the 650 was not accurate. When is the last tim you saw a white peice of paper that was blasting at you like a flashlight. Chances are you haven't.

Yes, accurate whites do make a difference, to some people. Plasma has reached the point of where blacks are as good as they need to be for the average person, but the whites can be sometimes much less than desirable. On some sets they look dull and dingy, others can be OK, but still LCD is better for whites.

Personal choice, you have to judge with your own eyes what you can live with.

if you notice, an average white will look like an icy blue white on an lcd, and it will look more like a thick white color on a plasma.... more like a piece of paper.

and if you're watching a football game where the jersey should be icy blue it will look like that on the plasma, as well as the lcd....

thusfor lcd white still isn't accurate.

if you notice, an average white will look like an icy blue white on an lcd, and it will look more like a thick white color on a plasma.... more like a piece of paper.

and if you're watching a football game where the jersey should be icy blue it will look like that on the plasma, as well as the lcd....

thusfor lcd white still isn't accurate.Maybe the sets you ar watching need some adjustment.

Really all in all, this is something that will be lost on most consumers, although we here take it probably a bit to seriously. Most people aren't going to pay that much attention to what the blue content of the whites are.

and if you're watching a football game where the jersey should be icy blue it will look like that on the plasma, as well as the lcd....

thusfor lcd white still isn't accurate.

Ummm... can anyone here say COLOR TEMPERATURE??? You know, the adjustment on most all tvs that controls the color balance! Most mfgs have the color temp set to high 11,000K or higher by default on non-movie/cinema picture modes. Lowering the color temp will change the bluish tone of white, to WHITE (or red/brown if too low)! ;) This goes for plasma, LCD, and CRT....

Maybe the sets you ar watching need some adjustment.

Really all in all, this is something that will be lost on most consumers, although we here take it probably a bit to seriously. Most people aren't going to pay that much attention to what the blue content of the whites are.

Pretty much all sets at Best Buy need adjustments as that's why there is such a big discrepancy in whites between plasma and lcd's. Once properly adjusted and set up in a typical home environment those whites aren't near as different but they also tend to fool some people at the stores.

I have a Samsung 550 LCD and a Pioneer plasma and the whites aren't really that much different and the over all picture of the plasma is much more pleasing to my eyes and it's over 2 years old compared to a few months for the LCD. :)

In a darkened room the whites on an LCD will be too bright unless you turn the backlight down. You definitely want to invest in some bias lighting if you have an LCD in the dark because eye fatigue is definitely a possibility.