I want a front pj that looks like the Sony Bravia LCD RPTVs! - Page 2

I believe the 7,000:1 is "dynamic" CR. The article did state there were a large variety of display options. The measured CR numbers were ~ 2 x the other two,(less expensive) LCDs they measured in the same issue.

I saw this set recently at Tweeters. It was IMO clearly more impressive on HD sources than the other LCDs, DLPs, and SXRDs in the store!

Any of these bright LCD panels can look good with bright content. But a careful test of the Sony/Samsung reveals that they crush blacks, unlike the Sharp panels.

Many if not all of the Samsung/Sony panels also have Mura defects, i.e. what look like clouds seen with dark material or when the lights are out. It is usually invisible in the stores, but take it home, and you may be disappointed. Check out some reviews at Amazon, and the threads in the LCD section. I consider the Sony/Samsung panels defective panels. The percentage of bad panels is in question, but people who have exchanged are getting bad panels, so the odds do not favor getting a good panel.

Many of us are waiting for CES and the Sharp d92 panels, hoping they will not have banding artifacts.

I pretty much view only HD material on my pj in the theater room as well. That being said, I'm also in the market for a flat panel for the family room and this set would have been in contention but for the poor handling of SD content. The family room display will be used for casual viewing of SD content as well as HD for those times I don't feel like firing up the pj and whichever display I end up choosing will have to do a great job with all content.

Sorry for taking your thread off topic.

Sony has a 52 incher flat panel XBR2 as well for those looking for the HT size experience.
The 46 has been selling like hot cakes with December back orders expected to be filled in January. Lets think about the differences between a flat panel and a three chip FP. A hugh chip (poetic license) vs three tiny chips which need careful alignment. No lens vs a probably long zoom range light eating crappy lens to aim the collated beam from the three chips. High quality small range zooms or fixed lenses would be better but not to be expected at the under $5K street price machines. Also light output. The 46 and 52 have plenty of brightness to be viewed in ambient light or more. The FP must illuminate a large screen BUT to do it with great brightness needs a high wattage bulb or bulbs with a large amount of heat needed to be expelled or face machine melt down. Noisy fan and a hush box with fan exhaust. Not likely. That's why them idiot projector designers design such low ANSI lumen machines.

Review at http://www.avrev.com/equip/sony_kdl46xbr2_lcd/

Yes. Sony prior to release of its BluRay player loaned many dealers a HD server and a disc for it to play on its new HD sets. I do not remember the brand name of the server (I have one but I am at home today), but it uses a Samsung drive. It outputs 1080i, not 1080p. there are several bands that the dealer can select to play. There are some movie trailers and the one most dealers use, the river and buildings etc. I posted this earlier. I expect Sony to take these back soon requiring dealers to use the BluRay player outputting 1080p 24.

This post amazes me, if only how it serves as a gulf between the experiences of various forum members.

Mark I assume you are referring to the Panasonic 65" plasma you just bought.

Although I'm deciding between front projection and this plasma, I keep getting drawn to the Panasonic for what I find to be it's strikingly palpable, dynamic image (although I might wait until next year's model). I don't expect projector fans like yourself to feel the same, but it is fascinating that the display I've been scraping my pennies for as the center of a new HT set-up is, to someone else, a "casual-viewing" TV, warranting only a cheap surround receiver etc.

Wow. (Ha, when my friends envy the fact I was first with a plasma, this forum serves to put me in my place. )

High ANSI CR is the norm for LCD and Plasma flat panels. Their ANSI is typically close to or equal to the on/off CR. Actually, as I write this I am not sure that I have ever measured ANSI on one. I may just be relying on what I have read over the years.

There is no standard way to measure on/off CR for panel TVs. The problem lies in that these displays can make a small white square much brighter than they can make the whole screen. So just how big of a white square should they measure when making on/off CR measurements? Some of them use a white square the size of a postage stamp and post a 10K:1 on/off CR.

1000:1 is a much more realistic figure for last years models.

But don't worry. There are some very high contrast panel TVs in the pipe and they should be showing up late this year and early next year, but how much will they cost?

Glenn

BTW,

Related to the OP, in terms of wanting the flat panel characteristics at front projector size:

Over the past month I've been able to spend quite a bit of time checking out the new Panasonic 103" 1080p plasma, in a dedicated room (a room normally used for projectors), with light control etc. I watched some of my favourite SD DVDs, along with several Blu Ray films and broadcast HD. While not surpassing the best projectors in every respect, it did surpass every projector I've seen in terms of pure "impact" and you-are-there palpability to the image. A truly thrilling experience.

Ironically my wife and I saw the 40" version last night at BB. It was quite funny, because I was suprised to hear my wife ask me what kind of technology the TV was, as she, like I, was very impressed. When I told her it was LCD, she said "I thought you always said LCD sucked"?!

This was, indeed, a very impressive looking picture. The depth and clarity was amazing. The image truly popped off the screen! It was almost $3000 for a 40" version though. But man, I think you may be getting what you pay for with this set!



The bigger question in my mind is what the hell are you doing with a 1080p projector that you tweak the crap out of to get the best possible PQ, and you don't even have a HD disc player!?!?!

glenned
Are you talking about Sharp Megacontrast lcds?

Plasmas run out of power with a full field white pattern and thus can not measure insanse on/off values.

LCDs just suck at stopping light finding their way through for what is supposed to be a black frame. Thus they measure low on/off values.

Have you ever seen plasmas vs lcds playing ice hockey in the store? The plasmas look like they are defective in comparison.

In the US, hardly anybody watches hockey, and it hurts me to say this because I was on my college hockey team.

Really, I am spoiled. I enjoy my 9 inch CRT HT. I really don't care very much for plasmas or lcds. We have a small lcd in the kitchen. It is mounted on the wall on a swing out arm. Serves it purpose, but PQ? Please! Also too small to watch seriously. My wife wanted the large plasma in our great room, she wanted the large piano black Pioneer Elite box CRT 64 incher gone. I hope to install it next weekend. Need the $600 Chief articulating mount first and about three helpers to lift and secure it. Plasmas just do not have a real enough picture for me. Besides, the Panasonic is no great shakes but it is big and cheap for the size, being the minimum size we could get away with in our great room and 1080p. The outboard processor will help it a lot. We have never had surround sound in our great room. Since my wife will watch some DVDs there, I might as well put in a cheap ss receiver and a sound bar. She will like it.

I haven't seen the LCD set that you are speaking of, but I have seen a Qualia 004 driven by a harddrive running these or similar loops (110" Diagaonal). It blew me away, even with the meek CR. Simply the best picture that I've ever seen. I later saw another 004 driven by another (non-harddrive) HD source, and was underwhelmed because I was expecting to see what I'd seen before. Still good, but not the best. My guess is that you where seeing a great TV driven by the best source material available. If you drive another great 1080P projecter with good optics or a high end flat panel with the CC source, I'll bet you'll be similarly impressed. With the same source, I think the equalizer between flat panels and good projectors is the optics in the projectors. I may get trounced for this, but I also think the quality of optics plays a big role in image depth and pop. I hope JVC worked an optical miracle (for the price) to bring the picture you saw to a 110" diagonal screen at my house.

Why would you get trounced when you speak the truth?

Fascinating mark, thanks.

My problem is exactly the opposite as I look for my next display (either projector or plasma). After having owned a plasma for years and having spent considerable time with the big plasmas, I'm having trouble finding a projector (of any price) that looks "real" to me, as projectors strike me more as "shadows on a screen" vs plasmas which produce images that feel more vibrant and more palpably real.

Fascinating how different our perceptions can be.

Rich

See if you can find a demo of 3 chip DLP in your area. Thats the closest I have found to that Plasma Back lit look with that pop even with the lights on. Many on this forum have commented and compared the look of 3 chip to plasma because of the brightness.

You are off the hook....for now!

Partly. Also, Pioneer has a 20K:1 Plasma prototype shceduled for release this year, and Toshiba has SED that is supposed to be released this year.

Glenn

Well, here's the question:
For film lovers, is the plasma look preferable to the film look one gets in a first run theater? Doesn't sound very accurate to me...

Hey Alan, thanks.

Yes, I've demoed several 3 chip DLPs and they certainly do "pop." I can see why some feel they look more plasma-like.

But actually I just demoed a projector that, to my surprise, blew me away in terms of giving plasma a run for it's money in the ansi contrast, vividness race: The new Sharp
Sharp XV-Z20000U 1080p DLP Projector. I actually went to this store looking to see the Pearl but they "only" had the Sharp XV-Z20000U set up at that time so I gave it a spin with SD DVD and Blu Ray. It was projecting on to a Stewart Firehawk (G3 I believe). Holy Cow! I have never seen such brilliant ANSI contrast from a projector in my life!

I've often mentioned watching scenes like the opening of SW Attack Of The Clones - the night chase through the city. The thing that turns my crank watching those images on a plasma is that the city lights look REAL on a plasma, like real, brilliant light sources, not just light reflecting off a screen. The Sharp re-created that type of brilliant contrast, the very bright light cutting through the city darkness, more convincingly than any projector I've ever seen (and by now, I've seen a heck of a lot). No wonder it was this type of quality that stuck out to Greg Rogers in his Wide Screen Review of that projector.

I came home, put the same scenes on my plasma (lights out) and yes the plasma still did the city lights thing somewhat more convincingly, but I've never seen a projector come so close!

This is really at the level of personal quibbles - the vast majority of sane viewers I think would be happier watching films on that brilliant, huge projector image. Its just too bad
I also saw rainbows all over the Sharp image.

And then, I still have the problem that I have a room that I can't really turn into a bat cave, and since I'm as itchy a perfectionist as everyone else here, I'm afraid I'd be frustrated with a great projector whose image I could never view to it's full potential.

Rich

I lived with the Sharp 20K for a week and it has great contrast. I used it on the Dalite high power and it was bright. Very sharp with great colors. Shame you are acceptable to the color separation. No fear, plenty of other fish in the ocean for you to choose from

I'm a film lover (have been a film lover all my life, have been in the film business many years, shot, edited tons of film etc). In fact, I think it's my film background that has, ironically, actually made projection something of a harder sell. To me projection set ups had always looked like video blown up trying to pass as film. As projectors have gotten better, and as source transfer methods improved, it has gotten closer to looking more like film. But I still get the "video-projected-on-a-screen" vibe from a lot of front projection. I think HD-DVD and Blu Ray is going to help with this niggling problem (and does so pretty well from what I've seen so far).

But the best front projectors really can give me the taking-me-back-to-the-cinema-vibe, which I see as their greatest strength.

Plasma to me is a different animal. I find plasma, being a direct-view technology (along also with it's greater brightness capability), produces a different "look" to images than projected film or projected DVD/HD.

So it's not going to reproduce that film-vibe in the same manner as a projection set up.
It *can* accurately reproduce the basic elements of film, in a way much like CRT direct views could (excepting lowest black levels). And a lot of people always felt CRT tube sets could reproduce the most accurate, "film-like" images out of tube sets/flat panels.
With my ISF'd settings, I'd never mistake a filmed image for one shot on video.

But at the same time, as much as I love film, it's the very difference of the plasma images from a theater that acts as a sort of compensatory charm, for it's smaller size.
To me (and not a few other folks) images on the plasma can just seem more "alive," more dynamic, richly vibrant and mesmerizing in it's own right. When I watch a front projector, I'm expecting it to re-create the look of film and can get disappointed when I notice the difference (the digital nature or video-vibe). Whereas I don't have that type of expectation for plasma so much, and just enjoy it for it's vibrant take on images - giving movies I've seen all my life on projection a sort of new "life" and aliveness.

I'm not sure I actually want my front projection to re-create a plasma-like image (I haven't figured out if that's what I want), vs a film-like image. But I can say the closest I've ever seen to the plasma look came from the Sharp projector described above.

This is true for plasmas, not for LCDs. They can't make small squares any brighter than large squares - they have a single or few backlight elements, unlike the per-pixel lighting and power requirements that causes this phenomenon on plasmas. Its very noticeable if you use a plasma as a computer display - maximize a white background window (like Internet explorer) and you'll see the average brightness drop noticeably. Does not happen with LCDs.

Hey. With all this talk of the great-looking RPTV mentioned in the original post, I have to ask... Does said TV not exhibit the horizontal "bar of brightness" that I have come to associate with every RPTV I have ever seen?

I don't know the official name for the phenomenon, but I'm sure most people know what I'm talking about. You can see it readily enough if you stare at a RPTV screen while standing up / sitting down a few times. The brightness of the screen is not uniform from top to bottom; far from it. And the effect moves up and down with the elevation of your eyes. You do not get this with plasma, LCD, CRT or front projection. I would rate only DLP rainbows as a more distractful display artifact.

And correspondingly, I would never rate a TV with this artifact as being great, as in worthy of purchase. So I'm interested to learn whether this great RPTV has solved this classic problem.