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CES 2015: No More Plasma?

10K views 192 replies 56 participants last post by  PhilipsPhanatic 
#1 ·
Any mention of plasma at CES 2015? Or is it really a done deal? There were rumours of possibly a Samsung K series, with panels from a new manufacturer. Or possibly extending production of the F8500 or H5000? Has the plasma issue been addressed this year? So sad to see it ending if it is indeed truly the end.
 
#6 ·
but now, are we getting UHD and all its glory? or just extra pixels and nothing significant?


I really hope lg dominates the market with oled and forces somebody a little more known for high end displays is forced to compete.
 
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#8 ·
Yeah, plasma is sadly gone. Of course, that didnt stop me from grabbing a Samsung PN64H5000 which is a great set. Its one of the last ones. Currently, Im deciding between keeping that or my 65" 8550 4K LED and honestly I believe the plasma is the better product overall. Why? Because the PQ is better. Its that simple.

As for CES - I hear lots of talk of bells and whistles but I wish theyd make SURE to the PQ right FIRST, then go fock around with smart hubs, apps, facebook, 3D, whatever other nonsense they shove into these TVs.
 
#17 ·
Yeah, plasma is sadly gone. Of course, that didnt stop me from grabbing a Samsung PN64H5000 which is a great set. Its one of the last ones. Currently, Im deciding between keeping that or my 65" 8550 4K LED and honestly I believe the plasma is the better product overall. Why? Because the PQ is better. Its that simple.

As for CES - I hear lots of talk of bells and whistles but I wish theyd make SURE to the PQ right FIRST, then go fock around with smart hubs, apps, facebook, 3D, whatever other nonsense they shove into these TVs.
I couldn't agree more! a lot of my friends ask me for advice, and I always tell them choose picture quality FIRST. it's the ONLY thing you can't add/fix later.
no smart features? add a chromecast, or smart bd player, or htpc, or... any of a dozen other products
no screen filter? move your lights/seating/tv, angle the screen down slightly, dim the lights, etc
no built in wifi? buy a usb dongle, connect Ethernet cable...
not enough hdmi inputs? buy a switcher, connect to avr
terrible sounding speakers? buy a soundbar, or connect to a 'real' stereo
poor blacks? you screwed
poor contrast? you screwed
poor colors? you could buy a very expensive external processor
poor motion handling? you screwed


I find it easier to explain it this way, than to simply tell them some marketing mumbo jumbo is bs, cause they just don't trust you at first. this isn't the same as buying a car where the features add major value. it's more like buying a chair. it only needs to do ONE THING really well, if it doesn't do that well, no amount of features can make up for it.
 
#12 ·
Let me clarify a little on that last statement, I wouldn't buy an LG (or any other brand's) LCD for my primary viewing environment. Samsung isn't even in my vocabulary because of their insistence on forcefeeding curves to the market. I wouldn't hesitate to buy an LG OLED, however (it helps that the curves are more subtle than Samsung, and they're wisely introducing more flat models this year). I actually read a fair bit of QC complaints last year about Sony's XBR950B flagship.
 
#19 ·
I actually believe Samsung has been actively destroying the display market for years. their marketing team is so strong, and they continually come out with new products that sacrifice picture quality in different ways.


they were one of the first to push edgelighting, a terrible design that has never worked imo. definitely one of the front runners is making screen bezels thinner at any cost.
they are pushing the curve on the market now, which is another just bizarre decision imo. it makes as much sense to me as trying to push a square screen shape(1:1), or going to a portrait layout.


Panasonic was my last hope for plasma. they were the only manufacturer of good plasmas that didn't have a successful lcd line. they were the only one that could have put on a marketing campaign to show how much better plasma can be, without worrying that they would be pointing out their lcd TV's weaknesses at the same time.


I'm not much a brand hoar, and it does seem like different manufacturers will become the leaders in the market with new tech, or shifts in the market. but that being said, I don't foresee a 'non-high end' company moving into that role, it seems to be a death sentence in the current market. but maybe, a company that's already employing a talented R&D department, and has a following of videophile buyers, might be able to sell more 3-5grand oled TV's than LG could. I mean, if push came to shove and I 'needed' a tv tomorrow. the lg oled would be my first look, and if I couldn't find a plasma, it would me my last look. but I still get the impression that it's picture quality is what it is because oled is truly an amazing technology, not because LG made a high end tv.
 
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#14 ·
I found and purchased a used Kuro 5020FD yesterday. Very slight red tint to blacks in the upper right and lower center when watching letterbox movies (You really have to look for it in a dark room). I'm on a quest (which will probably fail) to find an E-Lite upgrade board and will calibrate using Control-Cal and try to tweak the red tint out via SM voltage adjustments once the data cables arrive.


Even with the lack of calibration, red tint and gamma stuck at 2.1 ish (which is not my preference) the panel looks great. Easily as good as my F8500. And the build quality is head and shoulders above the newer panel (although I'll admit I would be leery of mounting this tank on my wall). My experiment with this set could fail....I paid $750 for a six year old set that may have a bazillion hours on it and uniformity aside if left stock it will never be as accurate as my F8500 but I thought it was worth the risk. While it's always possible to get a perfect panel if you're lucky I think it's absurd and frankly sad that I had to go back to the past to try and get something I can be happy with after going through two ST60s (Pink blob), three F8500s (final one isn't THAT bad...multiple faint pink lines across the bottom third in bright content first two were non-starters) but you would think things would IMPROVE rather than get worse. I just feel lucky that I'll have the chance to compare a former classic to what could be a current classic if Samsung QA was better.


The media is suggesting that the world may finally be recovering from the economic woes of 2008 (not that it has trickled down to most of us). If this is true I hope quality displays will be profitable again and someone will actually try to make one. If not TV lovers are screwed.


I'm just tired of the TV wars I guess....I don't mean to spread FUD about my F8500....just share my experience. I survived SXRD (My choice over Kuro back in the day due to $$$$) so I can survive this....
 
#107 ·
They are not the only display company "R&D'ing" OLED. I know of at least three others who are but choose not to bring something on the market due to technical deficiencies of the current OLED tech.
 
#28 ·
I would never buy a Samsung HDTV unless it's the f8500. Their LEDs are just crud and they are worse than Sony, LG, and even Vizio. Some of their panels on the lower end TVs aren't even made my Samsung, they are just some cheap Sharp panels made in China with cheap parts to save money.

I'm glad LG is at least pushing the OLED maket, but the curving needs to go away. 4K will never be at my home until there is as much content in 4k as there is on 1080p.
 
#31 ·
I find that my 8550 is a pretty good LCD and performs well compared to everything else out there. It's till has many of the same issues but at least the blacks are decent unlike the IPS based panels which can't even reproduce black at all it seems. No doubt the cheaper Sammys are terrible but so are all the cheap panels.

The top end samsungs are fine though, IMO.
 
#32 ·
A friend visited me some days ago. (Samsung LED LCD TV owner) He was shocked about the unseen picture quality of my ST60 plasma. He could not believe seeing a complete black screen without clouding.


And after the shock he was really depressed as I explained him, that he cannot buy this, because they are not produced any longer.


:eek:
 

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#34 ·
Im not surprised. Even my low-end H5000 Samsung plasma has that "plasma look" where the image depth and quality are instantly good because of the proper rendering of black & uniformity. And, yeah.... NO flashlighting, clouding or edge light bleed either.

Amazing. :)
 
#39 · (Edited)
#42 · (Edited)
meh. I can get 1080p from VGA and that plugs into the VGA jack on my TV if I want but again, thanks to MPAA, AACS, BDA, and all those other alpha-companies I can't watch a lot of programming that way. And it only will get worse when the dust settles on UHD.


Edit: 4K BD news: http://www.myce.com/news/4k-blu-ray...d-ultra-hd-blu-ray-has-new-drm-feature-74182/
Disc sales continue to slide and DVD's market share is still substantially higher then Blu-ray. I can't see how they are going to profit by producing UHD BD's in any significant qualities, and I seriously doubt they will be available for rental. At best, it will be a niche market.




Ian
 
#52 ·
I edited my post while you were writing this. The main source for UHD will be streaming. Unfortunately 'the best PQ' doesn't cut it anymore. Convenience is what rules.

Ian ;)
Agreed. Heck, I'm into this hobby and there is NO way I'm rebuying everything in 4K. No way. So, if guys like me aren't biting then there's is little chance that Joe Shmoe will. As the data shows, Joe is still very content with DVD.

Convenience is the key for most people. The music industry has seen this first hand. CD sales are way down and low bit rate download and ripped YouTube mp3s are just fine for most folks. Oh well. Sucks though in a way. It's also part of the reason that plasma is gone. It's better but that hardly matters.
 
#46 · (Edited)
look this beauty from a new member that posted this pic and got completely ignore on the thread ,the person was looking for help 3 replacements so far ,unfortunately that's the nature of edge lit.

I bet that they get so upset when new members post pictures like this,is like ruining the thread.

is in the unxxhu9000 thread




http://www.cnet.com/news/led-lcd-backlights-explained/
 
#88 ·
No plasma was dead long before 4K, 4K was just the final nail since you can't make 4K plasmas that meet most major market's power consumption regulations. Plasma was killed by a combination of falsehoods becoming accepted hivemind knowledge (ie. burn-in is a huge problem for all plasmsa), LCD's over 50" becoming as cheap as low end plasmas and the perception that newer tech always equals better. The vast majority of consumers really don't care about plasma's true killer feature, PQ. To most consumers a TV is a TV, the pictures are all the same so the only thing that can differentiate them is price and bells and whistles. High PQ sets like the F8500 are always going to sell in low volume because of their prices (same reason why the flagship LCD models also sell in low volume) and when lower PQ budger models like the F5300 are more expensive than the compariable LCD it's a done match.
 
#56 ·
My previous TV was a plasma from 2009, a Sammy PN58B650. It died. I decided to buy LCD this time around as my wife watches Fox local news about 3 hours a day and their garish logo caused burn in on my previous plasma.

I tried 2 Sonys and a Samsung. 2 were 4K. The viewing angles on all but one Sony IPS were, of course, terrible. The flashlighting/uniformity on all 3 were just awful. I decided to try and get a F8500 plasma right at the end of their run. I tried ordering one about 10-15 times per day through Best Buy, that's how sick I was of the LCDs I had. Fortunately I was able to get a 51. It's not perfect but it's so far ahead of the LCDs, it's not even funny.

Too bad on the demise.
 
#58 ·
Lets be thankfull we all bought our kuros, ZT/VT's and F8500's while they were availible. We get to enjoy the best PQ while the market sells these usless UHD LCD's with no better PQ than 1080p sets to the mass of sheep.
 
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