Plasma Vs. LCD - Page 3  

How many times have you heard the holy grail of HDTV's is on the way? You've said your waiting for the new NEO PDP displays.

All I know is the hype always comes out on top over reality. The hype builds and the let down always follows.

I'd buy a plasma too if it looks like the right thing to do. In fact I did buy one 3 years ago but didn't work out. LCD's arent perfect but the grass isn't greener in PDP land.

I'm waiting for a real TV (SED or other) until then I wait.

This is what I don't understand. Somebody admits a more expensive TV is better than theirs, then says they bought their TV instead of a less expensive one because it looks better. That doesn't make the pz85 a bad TV any more than the lna650 is a bad TV because it doesn't measure up to the Kuro.

But when you compare plasmas to LCDs in the same price range, many of the same advantages (and disadvantages) the Kuro has over its direct competition still hold true. As in motion, brightness, viewing angle, etc.

Kuro is $1000 more, while the 85U is like $200 less, so the 650 and 85U are basically competitors.

Alright I gotta ask. How much did Auditor55 pay you to post that?

Plus a Blu-Ray player makes that more like $500.

The lna550 would be closer competition.

TNG, when I first got my Elite I had the picture setting on dynamic which is the brightest setting, I liked it momentarily then it got irritating and unnatural looking, I then set it to standard which is less vibrant and looks more natural, then it started to look unnatural to me I now have it set to pure which I think is the most natural looking on the Elite. I must admit when I first saw the two calibrated displays side by side at Magnolia I was not impressed and thought the calibrated one looked dead. I then started to notice the detail in the darkened ares and shadows I started to see a big difference in the two that carried into my house. Most of us are attracted to vivid displays at first then it starts to look unnatural after a while. I'm now ready for a calibration. I know a lot of people that enjoy the bright vivid picture which is o.k. it's your choice but, for me I'm more of a purist.

This is very funny. I was thinking the samething after I wrote it, that it does sound like him.

But if he's right he's right.

XB you're a good guy but plasma isn't the answer.

Plasma has just as many problems as LCD if not more. Choose your poison I'm waiting it out.

Its why I bought a low end model LCD.

you'll be waiting a while I bet.
you only live once man, enjoy as much as you can. you could be hit by a car tomorrow. and when your dead and in the afterlife, you will look back and say "why didn't I enjoy what I could when I could".


I can't wait for the new techs like OLED to hit the flat-panel market, but it will be LONG time before they are in large sizes.
And heck, by that time Plasma will be zero idle Lum, 5-10 lumen tech, super thin, and who knows what else.
So the edge of these technologies might not be much over plasma at that time. who knows.

I think what I have will last me until the next big jump in flat-panel tech.
One thing is for sure, I can't afford to keep buying up different TV's all the time just to find the best one. I gotta buy a house so I can start focusing on creating my theater.

did you ever think about this? Maybe some people LIKE a brighter set? So for them, yes, it does mean better.

Every individual should be given the chance to decide for themselves which attributes of plasma they like, and which attributes of an LCD they like and then decide for themselves.

The two technologies both have their positives, and both have their negatives. When someone asks for advice, you have no idea what their likes/dislikes are when it comes to picture quality. And I'm not biased- I just got an LCD with horrible problems, trust me. But its pretty obvious when sales of one technology are smoking the other technology that the majority of the people out there prefer the attributes of an LCD. Even when plasmas of the same size/resolution are priced hundreds of bucks lower, people still hands and feet choose LCDs. So given that, its safe to assume that maybe for some "brighter" is better. Or an "accurate picture" isn't what they're shopping for.

Thats true, but we are here on AVScience, not AVopinions. How many times have you read that people are doing room sweeps to find the perfect place to place their sub down at? Most here care more about accuracy, thats easy to tell by the amount we spend on gear/measurments/calibrations etc.

Having said that of course people are entitled to their preference but I can imagine where most of what they hear about from this forum anyway will lean toward "a properly calibrated picture from both types will yeild these results".

If you want to hear which tech is considered superior for picture quality you've come to the right forum. If you want to hear that your purchase was the right one, be prepaired to get railed by people with facts and data that will shred you and your ideas to pieces.

Having said all that, I did leave the LCD camp for plasma and could not be happier. Its used in a living room with 5 windows and the picture is phenominal. Then again, I calibrated my LCD too (Samsung 4671 series LCD) and of course that lowered the brightness way down. And when I did the plasma walked all over the LCD in terms of PQ imo.

The LCD comes with a free BD player too.

Considering how well our government spends our tax dollar it may not be a proof of anything but the plasma camp should be pleased to know that the presidential 747 has a TV set and it is a plasma. As my budget is more limited, the reason I prefer LCDs is that, for reasons that may be true or imaginary, I want a complete, and I mean total like 100%, freedom from any concern whatsoever about IR, temporary or permanent, when I or my granddaughter stop the DVR to have dinner or go for a walk. I also have zero-tolerance for anything, myself included, being reflected when the scene is dark. Hence, no 52A650 for me. Off-center PQ is of no importance because, as opposed to many, I don't invite my guests to watch TV. I can do it by myself just fine. For the food and booze I serve they, the guests, better entertain me instead of taking the prime spot on my couch, hoot and holler and wait to be served.

You seem to be kind of a perfectionist like I am and like you said it's pick your poison.

If 5 lumen technology improves a bit on the ABL with absolute black levels and a 65" screen I'll probably be pretty content with plasma. LCD needs to bring in their top models in the 60" + size before I can even consider it. My 60" TV needs an upgrade in size bad but there's just not anything out there that compares in that size range in PQ. I looked at front projection and from the setups I've seen it's years behing plasma/LCD in terms of contrast. Actually it made me more content with what I have.

I'm not sold on the hype about the new technologies either. I recently saw the little Sony OLED in Magnolia the other day and quite honestly in the quick viewing I saw it didn't really impress me as it appeared it was just in the same class as a Kuro or a Sammy 950. By the time OLED starts coming in normal sized TVs it will probably cost a bit more than plasma/LCD and who knows if it will even look any better. Who knows about FED.

But yeah, if you like the low end Sammy's you did well. They look nice to me in stores and you'll save $ while your at it.

I hear you on this. My question is, have you been to see a movie lately? The last several movies that I went to the theater to see I came away from feeling cheated somehow. After several years of watching just upconverted DVD's and broadcast HD the "Big Screen" looked blurry and soft. That along with the ticket price will make it a long time before I go again.

When you say the "Directors Intent", is this what they mean? A blurry picture? There are several things that are wrong with calibration IMO, linking calibration to film and directors intent is not the future and will be left to video purists.

Yes waiting. As you know I am open for almost anything. I will see if the hype is worth it.

I am assuming several things with the neo-PDPs. First that the brightness level will be much improved. Second that with the higher brightness that even IR will be a thing of the past. Third that the initial prices will be affordable for this performance, not just on the high end models.

Directors have only two intents: (1) make a lot of money and (2) if it does not interfere with Intent 1, get an Oscar from the self-congratulatory incestuous Hollywood buddies. The rest are the means - the cheaper the better for Intent 1.

Bright screens = headaches for me

A lot of people believe in plasma myths from the past:

they all get burn in
huge energy usage
you have to replace the gas
the put out a lot of heat

there are alot more people involved than just the directors.
With CGI, the CGI gurus take the standard into consideration when doing all the colors and other things.
Not to mention, you have dozens and dozens of other producers involved. All with one thing in mind, to get the best picture and effects possible.

The PQ varies from movie to movie. I do frequent the movies quite often (I'm a bit of a mvie buff, in case you haven't noticed ). I am lucky enough that my local theater is very new, and state of the art equipment. A properly mastered film at this theater is absolutely stunning. Very sharp and detailed. Colors look spot on.


Some movies may be blurry, or soft. Is up to you to become enveloped in the movie, and get a feel for what they are trying to achieve with every scene. This is one of the very reasons why I do not visit the BD PQ thread, as they care nothing of DI. It is all about razor sharp detail, and loads of POP.


There is in fact a film major that posted in the GFPD thread. If you do a search, it had a great and informative post regarding DI.

I went to another BestBuy and the TVs there were much better adjusted. I was actually able to differentiate between diff. brands.
I found Pioneer Kuro really beautiful. But it is quite pricey.
Other than Kuro, I really had a hard time identifying between LCD and Plasma. They looked pretty much similar.
I also visited Circuit City and its the same thing. Not much difference between plasma and LCD. Unless the set is expensive one, in which case it was calibrated so that it really stood out from the rest.

And what's with Transformers ? Any store I visit, all are playing this movie. The scene is changing so fast it is difficult to do comparisons.

PS: Fanaticalism - I like your sig. You could add 'affect' and 'effect' to that list. Far too many people use them wrong.

Director's intent or not, a calibrated image is how the movie is "supposed" to look, and as such, it is a valuable metric of TV performance and a good starting point for any adjustments you want to make to suit your preferences.

...until they show a hockey game.

Exactly, you can see the blurrr on the lcd's!

...or a documentary about an expedition to the South Pole.

Where you can see the motion blur on passing iceburgs

...plus the blur of the cheering and jumping crew that was just informed by an AVS poster that they are standing on top of the world's biggest iceberg, as the elevation of the South Pole is 9300 feet. They would then run for their lives upon realizing that Antarctica, the home of the South Pole, is not a continent, which is what they naively believed, but a frozen ocean with 9300 feet deep icebergs that shift and move and swallow things and people.

But than there is the US flag in the 100-mph wind that, as we all know, is a scene plasmas have no difficulty showing in the 1080 resolution.

I guess you're not a movie fan, but there is a big difference between the "movie business" and creation of a movie. It's an art form that involves many artistic people's input and actions. The "Director" is an major component of the movie creation process. Now, you can easily argue that a particular Director is over paid, has a big ego, etc. etc., but if you think greed is the main motivating theme for the reason a person becomes a Director, an Actor, etc. then you have no idea of the process or the art form itself.

If that is a shot against white levels, the truth is that contrary to popular belief, ice is not pure white in real life. Not even close, really. People who have actually attended hockey games in person know this.

Disecting my example, which may not be the best, does not change the fact that all plasmas, including the king of plasmas, have a terrible problem rendering white. If you have seen the Samsung/NFL promo running at Best Buy you would know exactly what I mean. The promo has a moment when the background is just simply white. All other sets such as LCDs, RP DLPs and a lonely CRT showed that backrgound as white without any threat to my retinas. At the same time, a five-and-a-half-grand Pioneer did white as gray that is as dark as the background of the Plasma Concepts ad displayed at the top of the AVS page I can see right now as I type.

Interestingly enough, the management of the Best Buy store where I was (in Arlington Heights, IL, on Rand Road) chose to place the above-mentioned Pioneer in an alley away form the main traffic. Why would the best TV set be shoved aside like this? My best bet is they just don't have any hope to sell it as, to a casual observer, the Pioneer just does not offer any value in terms of PQ-to-price ratio. Even when placed next to the remaining RP DLPs, which already look like pathetic dinosaurs compared to an average LCD, how do you convince a buyer to add another four grand to the 1500 for the RP set when the Pioneer's, or any other plasma's, blacks are dark gray and the whites just gray?

I read here, including this thread, about the LCDs' motion blur so awful that even an iceberg or a clock on the wall is too fast. Nonsense! A 4ms LCD has no more blur than a plasma for a simple reason that plasma, contrary to the urban myth, has a decay time that is comparable to the LCD's response time. Granted, turning a pixel ON is sub-millisecond fast. To get it dark again is not as the decay is not actively induced or controlled the way the turn-on is. Rather, it is based on dissipating the energy that was in the cell but is no longer supplied. I watched all kinds of action, slow and fast, on the plasmas right next to LCDs and could not see any difference while actively looking for it. My eyesight is just fine and I am not one of the "ignorant and uneducated shoppers" so often mentioned and maligned.

So, LCD guys, other than the plasma's better off-center PQ and better blacks when seen in total darkness, concede nothing.

You obviously have no idea why LCD sets have motion blur then, it has nothing to do with pixel response time. If it did then all these 120hz sets wouldn't exist. I'll let xrox go into detail behind LCD motion blur, but this link does a good job of explaining the basics of sample and hold and how it causes blur.

http://hometheatermag.com/gearworks/707gear/