[jeffshome]

I'm shopping for a 50" with a viewing distance of 10' to 12'. I've seen the reports of the new Fuji, Pio and Panny with the Panny TH-50PX20U catching my eye. But I'm still concerned about viewing HD 1080i on a 1366x768 pixel screen. At a distance of 10' to 12' would I notice any difference in resolution if I waited until next year for a native 50" 1080p? (I'm only assuming someone will have a 50" 1080p for sale next year). Will 1080i be converted to 540p on a 1366x768 screen?


Most of my viewing is 1080i and I've been waiting for the holy grail of a 50" 1080p but the new screens seem so good that I hate to wait six months or more only to find out that 1) 1080p at 10' to 12' does not make a difference or 2) the black levels on a 1080p are not as good as a 720p (smaller pixels leave less room for a black surround?) and I end up with a 1366x768 screen. I would hate to spend the $K's only to want to buy a 1080p for more $K's next year.

 

[Jeff Atchison]

My Pioneer 503CMX is stunning on 1080i. I sure am glad I didn't wait. If you wait for the "latest" technology, you will spend most of your days waiting for the next thing to come down the pike.


Jeff

 

[PooperScooper]

I missed it. What 1080p native 50" plasma is coming out next year?


larry

 

[rogo]

Thousands of "fools" in the projector space -- including many AVSers -- are buying $10,000 projectors that "only" have 1280 x 720 pixels.


They are watching them on 100+" screens.


Makes one wonder.

 

[djs]

In case you didn't catch it, Rogo was being sarcastic. (At least I hope he was. )


Just about every one here with an ED plasma is happy with HD on it (Granted, these are generally 42") But HD on an HD plasma is simply stunning. As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to wait is if you need prices to come down, or you want more integrated features like HD tuners, PIP, videophile-grade scalers, etc.


Or you're waiting for DVD-HD.

 

[rogo]

Fools was in quotes, indicating I didn't really mean fools.


There is not yet a shred of evidence that at 50" the extra pixels would truly prove meaingfully worthwhile. They will be here someday, of course. But other than the endless parade of well-meaning, but typically irrelevant comments as people stand 2 feet from a 30" LCD and proclaim it the grail because -- IMO -- it has a lot of pixels, there just isn't evidence that beyond a certain viewing distance anyone can actually tell -- let alone care.


It's one thing for Sony to show a 160" projected image and benefit from 1920 x 1080 pixels. It's another thing entirely for a normal person with a 50" plasma to tell (normal in the sense that they'd have the screen 8+ feet away from them).


Mark

 

[Tom_Bombadil]

I attended CEDIA and made two trips to the Fujitsu booth, looking at their plasmas. I didn't know their model numbering schema and so the model numbers hanging in front of each screen meant nothing to me.


The displays had a panel in front of them which allowed the viewer to select from D-VHS, HD, or DVD (there was a 4th option but I can't recall it right now). I circled the display, looking at about 6 different sets, comparing them very closely. I'd been there about 15-20 minutes when a Fujitsu rep walked up to ask me what I thought.


I told him that amongst the 42" models, that I perceived one model was clearly the sharpest to me, another was close, but the third was a bit grainier. He chuckled and said that I had ranked them in the "correct order." That is, I had ranked their 42HHA30 (or something like that) as the best and it was a higher res HD plasma with extra processing circuitry. Then I had the 42HHA10 next, which was also HD but with less processing. And the one that I found to be grainier, was a 42HVA10 (?) which was an ED 852x480 set.


The ED set still produced an excellent picture, as the difference was slight. But to my eyes, standing at about 5'-6' from each unit, I felt that it wasn't quite as sharp on any of the input sources, although it was closest on the DVD.


Now the 50" HHA models were also wonderful, I loved them. Likewise the Panasonic 50" looked excellent, decidedly better than the Panny 50" LCD that was right beside of it.


As to Panny vs Fuji, I can't say. They both looked great. Fuji had the better source material and so I feel like they had the edge, but the entire advantage could have been in the source.


I made the mistake of looking at their 55", 63" and 61" plasmas. It may have been due to the settings, as I believe the 63" is the higher end model, but on the floor, the 61" was the show-stopper. Absolutely stunning images.


Back to LCDs, to my surprise, the LCD set that impressed me the most was a 32" Samsung. Didn't catch the model number, but noted that it had a 16ms response rate. Colors, blacks, and motion video were all the best I've ever seen on a LCD. If this is the future of LCD, I'm excited.

 

[djs]

Quote:

Originally posted by rogo ...there just isn't evidence that beyond a certain viewing distance anyone can actually tell -- let alone care.

Care!? People will pay big bucks when a 1080p panel comes out. Why? Because it goes to 11.

 

[quadad]

Tom,

Your CEDIA comment about the Samsung LCD (I assume the LTN325W) was interesting. Most on this forum rave about the Sony and/or Mitsubishi 30" units. Did you happen to see and maybe compare those as well ?

 

[Tom_Bombadil]

Well, I blew it on the 30" LCDs. I was in those booths and just didn't pay enough attention to them. There were so many sets and I was looking more at the 42's and 50's and larger. Mit had a gigantic 82" RPTV.


Most of the time in the Samsung exhibit I was looking at their 43" and 50" DLPs, and they had an interesting 50" prog scan DVD player vs 50" 931 DVD with DVI output demo (the 931 looked much better!). But on the way out, I was looking around on their wall-o-LCD displays and noticed how nice the 32" was. It was better than the 40" next to it. And I had just looked at a LCD in the Toshiba and this looked much better.


So I wish I could make a statement about comparing the Mit 30 vs Samsung 32, but I can't. All I can say is that at a show with many fine sets, the Samsung 32 did catch my eye as looking great and showing a lot of promise for LCD technology. It makes me wish I could skip ahead a couple of years to see what's coming for the 42-50" models.

 

[rogo]

I would concur that -- even accounting for size -- the video on the 32" looks better to me than the 40" (both being Samsung). But I would also note that I'm not sure I can actually account for size. Maybe the "LCD-ness" is acceptable at 32" but break down when the image is 25% larger.