I own a Panny PA20U 42 inch ED plasma, and I would encourage anyone thinking of buying one of these to try to demo a unit first, preferably in a controlled environment using source material you are familiar with.
I can't speak for other brands, but my major gripes with this unit include:
1. The unit is extremely poor at drawing curves. There is very severe stair stepping in any curved outline (e.g. Shrek's head or the 20th Century Fox logo). I have tried both a Panasonic and Toshiba dvd player using progressive component out, with the same problem.
2. When there is quick motion on the screen, there also appears to be combing. I can't tell if this is related to the stairstepping problem or not. Combing is typically a problem with the dvd player's deinterlacing ability, rather than the tv. However, I am using a highly rated RP-82 Panny dvd player, and it never exhibited combing when I used it in the past with an AE-100 lcd projector, leading me to believe that it's a problem with the plasma.
3. For some reason, HD material that is downconverted by the ED plasma looks much much better than the same material on dvd. This is puzzling, as the resolution of the ED plasma almost exactly matches that of dvd. If anything, I would think that HD material would look worse, since the plasma needs to downconvert the 1080i material down to 480p. But there is no question that HD material looks much better. In fact, I find dvd material to look generally unimpressive from a good progressive dvd player. This is after I caliberated the unit using both Video Essentials and by eyeballing it. Still or slow moving images tend to look good (with the exception of the problem with curves noted above), but the detail and resolution look decidedly inferior to watching downconverted HD.
Would appreciate any thoughts of other ED owners to the above.
I can't speak for other brands, but my major gripes with this unit include:
1. The unit is extremely poor at drawing curves. There is very severe stair stepping in any curved outline (e.g. Shrek's head or the 20th Century Fox logo). I have tried both a Panasonic and Toshiba dvd player using progressive component out, with the same problem.
2. When there is quick motion on the screen, there also appears to be combing. I can't tell if this is related to the stairstepping problem or not. Combing is typically a problem with the dvd player's deinterlacing ability, rather than the tv. However, I am using a highly rated RP-82 Panny dvd player, and it never exhibited combing when I used it in the past with an AE-100 lcd projector, leading me to believe that it's a problem with the plasma.
3. For some reason, HD material that is downconverted by the ED plasma looks much much better than the same material on dvd. This is puzzling, as the resolution of the ED plasma almost exactly matches that of dvd. If anything, I would think that HD material would look worse, since the plasma needs to downconvert the 1080i material down to 480p. But there is no question that HD material looks much better. In fact, I find dvd material to look generally unimpressive from a good progressive dvd player. This is after I caliberated the unit using both Video Essentials and by eyeballing it. Still or slow moving images tend to look good (with the exception of the problem with curves noted above), but the detail and resolution look decidedly inferior to watching downconverted HD.
Would appreciate any thoughts of other ED owners to the above.
