Anyone else notice this? At Best Buy, Costco, Circuit City, and most other stores, DLPs and other RPTVs look terrible. Way too soft and dim for HD.

The LCD and Plasmas always look so much sharper and brighter.

Why is this? According to most reviews, DLPs are comparable to LCD and Plasma in terms of PQ. Some even say DLPs look better than LCD.

I assume what you are talking about is because stores are generally WAAAAAy brighter than the average TV room (you said "too soft and dim").

Without knowing what exact models you are talking about it's hard to know what you think you are seeing.

I own a couple DLPs (and a brand-new lcd flat-panel) and my DLPs can get nasty bright if you want, but I pefer to tone them down to that soft and dim mode for a low-light room.

You also might be noticing that they have no discernable pixel structure which is a HUGE advantage if you don't like the look of a screen door in front of your tv. They do look softer in that regard, but do not lack any HD detail.

Likely it's often poor HD signal sources. PQ can vary greatly depending on whether a live local (non-multicasting) HD station is used or a resolution-limited movie, which can be influenced by factors such as the bit rate from the programmer and delivery source, how the movie was made and telecined, etc., etc. -- John

I've noticed this as well as I was shopping around for HDTV's. Plasmas look awesome, as well as LCDs, but the RPTVs always look grainy and washed out. I did see a few different RPTVs at Sears and they all looked fantastic. Definately how they are setup in a store.

The local Costco places all TVs on top of their storage racks, which puts the center of the RP images maybe around 8'. The LCDs and plasmas look great but all RPs are washed out due to the viewing angle. At Best Buy, most RPs are on the floor and the center of the image is below normal eye height when standing. The result is a dimmer image. The best viewing angle for RPs is 0 degrees.

Usually bad vertical placement angles when on display. The vertical viewing cone is almost always pretty small compared to the horizontal viewing cone.

I'd have to agree with a previous post that it is getting a poor signal. I was casually interested in a samsung DLP a couple months ago. Went over to a local CC to check it out and wasn't too impressed. I said that to a sales lady and she said really? And something to the effect of not bad for just playing a home made dvd!? I said why would you do that (especially since there was a BR player right underneath of it) She said someone complained it was a violent movie. Ok, so put another title in! She did and that really made the picture quite nice. So I guess what I am saying is there are A LOT of idiots working at these stores, especially this time of year.
Joe

Usually bad vertical placement angles when on display. The vertical viewing cone is almost always pretty small compared to the horizontal viewing cone.

I agree with this comment. RP is much better and brighter when viewed on the same plane as the center of the image. The vertical alignment is more important than horizontal.

Most store displays have the sets to low for viewing by someone standing up. They are best when you are seated.

Agree with the above responses but I was in a BB recently and every single display including the three RPs (Sammy LED, JVC61GFN, and Sony A2020) was set up great. Certainly the RPs were not being shown to a disadvantage. They were slightly off to the side but very visible and at the correct height.

On that visit I saw the first LCD flat-panel that I thought was superior to my D-ILA - a Toshiba LX177. Not going to trade up any time soon tho. My set is still great and completely reliable, plus I really want to wait and see if anything comes of these new laser RPs.

The poster might have been joking... or looking at older LCD RP sets too.. I can't imagine this really being a DLP issue.

The mark-up is greater on the lcd and plasma units--that's why they push them more and why I think they make a greater effort to make sure they get a quality signal and better placement than dlp units--just my two cents.