Should i get A samsung plasma or panasonic st50 (gaming 60% and movie 40%)

I wouldn't buy a plasma for gaming, I would stick with an LED

Many people game just fine on plasmas. Better for motion. If you have a balance between gaming and movies/TV, you'll be fine. If mainly gaming, then LED may be better for you (although IMO PQ is better on the ST).

If you're worried about IR on a Panasonic, then get the Samsung.

Either the E6500 or the E7000, the E7000 would be closer to the GT50 though......

If youre going to be gaming mostly - then Samsung E6500 because it handles Image Retention ALOT better than Pannies.

The ST50 has way better blacks/contract (ive had both) and is SILENT ..but since your playing games mostly the Samsung buzz might not get to you. Right now i'm personally thinking of switching back to Panasonic despite the IR becuz the buzz is just too annoying (its not overly bad - but i live in an apartment and when the volume is lower and theres dialogue or quiet scenes the buzzing sounds like bees sometimes)

Performance wise theyre both good - really good, but i find the ST50 has more pop only becuz of its superior black levels. I've learned there is no perfect TV right now...maybe the Samsung F8500 or Panny ZT60 but both will most likely be out of my price range

ST50 > E6500 for sure PQ wise..so i dont think E6500 can even compete with the GT/VT series. And if E6500 is the same as E8000 - then ya...2D PQ award goes to Panasonic for sure.

If you break it in good, gaming is a non-issue. I've put my ST30 through gaming/htpc hell and have never once had any IR that was visible over regular content. I use mid-panel brightness and have the contrast in the mid 80's. I'm nearing almost 3k hours on it.

I've said this a few times here, but we game as much as 22 hours in a day on our Samsung plasma. The wife and daughter will play all day and I'm a nightowl who plays all night while they're asleep. Done this on 2 Samsungs and a Sansui plasma. The Mits 52144 LCD we have kind of sucks because of lag. I read once that it's because of all the circuitry an LCD needs to produce a quality picture like a plasma does naturally, hence the lag introduced. Either way, plasmas have been much better for gaming.
Edited by Straybeat - 1/20/13 at 8:06pm

My personal experience leads me to believe that running the slides will help prevent IR in the long run. Ive seen people complain about IR on the 2011 sets, while I've had none that was even visible on regular content, after abusing mine with an HTPC for 3k hours.

The slides, do you mean D-Nice's slides? I ask because D-Nice himself insists that the slides do not prevent or reduce image retention (although they're a good, safe way to age the screen uniformly through its first 100 hours).

This makes intuitive sense, but my intuition is no substitute for real world experience like yours. Still I'd like to know if you can explain why the slides would improve IR resistance more than, say, aging the screen normally with regular content does.

I have no technical explanation for you. I did the same thing with 2 different panels (1st one had to be replaced at about 1000 hours because it went bad) with the same results. I see people complaining about lasting IR on the 2011 models, and I can't even comprehend how it would be happening to people considering what I do with my TV (tons of HTPC usage, plus multi-hour gaming marathons). I don't have mine on low panel brightness either, I'm running mid-panel at 84 contrast. I mean there was a 2 week period where I put in about 80 hours worth of SWTOR on this thing and saw nothing that was visible on anything other than solid black, that went away within a minute or 2 of watching TV, and was not visible on TV content, and half of the SWTOR screen is a HUD.

I don't know, maybe I'm just really lucky?

The slides are primarily just for aging the phosphors evenly so you can get it calibrated after 100 hours or so and it will be stable.

As far as helping with IR, the only thing they do is help blow through the first 100 or so hours faster, and panels are more prone to IR early on. But the set isn't any more resistant to IR after 100 hours of slides than it would be after 100 hours of viewing regular full screen content as I understand it.

I've had the 55" Panny UT50 for two weeks now. I've not seen a hint of IR on it. I've not done any gaming marathons or anything. Longest gaming session was 3 hours or so, and have watched channels with tickers etc. for 3-4 hour stretches. Didn't even notice any IR when running slides the first week. Now I don't bother actively looking for it really, but haven't seen any hints of it after gaming or changing channels etc. But obviously I can't speak to how it would do with a longer gaming session or being left on ESPN all day etc.

Thanks to both of you for responding. The more I study this the more convinced I become that there's a high variation in panel specification from unit to unit--I bet the prices keep dropping, and the two front-runners can consistently offer similarly-priced competing products, because they've lowered their panel fab standards to increase their yield. Doesn't this explain the situation we see?

Not really no, becasue the panel variations you see have been there sicne the beginning....If what you were saying were true wed only see them once they "lowered" thier standards....Its not only panel variation, but also that people use and set their TVs differently so if you ahve it on vivid and start playing games for 8 hours straight or watching at ton of wide scrop movies and TV with bugs, then youll get IR of some sort...Its jsut a nature of the technology......