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Is it silly for me to buy a Plasma?

1069 Views 17 Replies 11 Participants Last post by djs, Sep 27, 2003

JuiceRocket

Discussion Starter · Sep 26, 2003

My wife and I watch maybe 35 hours of TV and watch 1-2 movies a week. I also play on average about 5-10 hours of xbox a week.

From lurking in this forum, I've gathered that watching DVD's on a plasma is the big thing. Not only do we have a low-end DVD player, we really watch more TV than movies.

From what I can gather, most cable looks worse on a HD plasma than it does on a regular tube TV. Is this correct? If it is...is it silly for us to buy a plasma? We're leaning towards a TH-42PWD6UY orTH-42PA20U.

Any direction, comments, would be helpful.

Thanks!

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1 - 18 of 18 Posts

tuquet

· #2 · Sep 26, 2003

Yes. But then, your viewing habit may change. Since I got HD, I often pick 2nd or 3rd choice HD over 1st choice SD programming.

silvergt02

· #3 · Sep 26, 2003

I can tell you that standard cable signals do look worse on a HD plasma than on a regular tube

jdallaire

· #4 · Sep 26, 2003

silvergt02

What kind of plasma do you have? Not all plasma are created the same. The purpose of a plasma is not to improve a SD signal. They rock with better quality signals HDTV and DVD. My expectations is that they don't make SD pictures worse. Some Plasma do an awful Job with SD some do a great job. Just search through the threads on this site. Use the search function key word SD quality. The panny model that were mentioned at the top of this thread are great with SD signals. Better then a Sony CRT tube sets IMHO. Thats saying allot. If SD performances is most important by all means make that the highest priority in your plasma search. You may want to take your time getting up to speed on all the things you will needs to know to avoid buyers remorse. My present 32"CRT TV's analog cable picture already looks pretty crappy. I don't blame my display device I blame the cable company.

slb

· #5 · Sep 26, 2003

JuiceRocket,

Your post is a little confusing. You apear to be concerned with how well an HD plasma looks with SD television, but the two plasma models you mention are ED displays. These two displays should look fine if your SD source is good. They will look awsome with DVDs and HD signals as long as your viewing distance is greater than 8 feet or so. If you are going to sit closer, then an HD display will probabaly look better.

FYI, I consider the TH-42PWD6UY a better choice than the TH-42PA20U because it allows different picture menu settings for each input. This is a critical issue for me.

-Steve

JuiceRocket

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 26, 2003

Well, right now I have a 19 inch Sony TV which I purchased in 1990. My wifes TV is a 15 inch TV/VCR combo. That should give you an idea of how crappy our current television situation is.

We just got married and moved into our new apartment. Both of us used to live in seperate apts, so we'd been using our roommates larger TV's. Now we are faced with the fact that our TV's are woefully inadequate!

Our new apartment is not large by any means (welcome to living in Downtown Boston), so we felt the best use of space for our front room would be a wall mounted Plasma. Our living room is also perfectly set for a 42 inch (or so it seems) because the viewing distance from the couch to the TV is almost exactly 9 feet.

A friend of mine has a large 50 inch HDTV projection, and truthfully, it looks horrible on ANY channel that doesn't broadcast in HD. Ignorant of plasma TVs, my wife and I kept seeing great looking (in our opinions) plasma's in Best Buy, Tweeters, and Circuit City. One day we thought "Hey, let's get a plasma...the space is great, they look fantastic, and we can hang that baby on the wall."

It being my duty to research the plasma, I've been lurking hear, taking notes, etc. As I did more and more research, and realized how much more TV we seem to watch than movies...I began to wonder if it was silly for us to buy a plasma.

However, like tuquet mentions, our viewing habits may change. We have been buying a ton of DVD's recently (we just haven't had much time to watch them) and we're both very interested in digital cable/HDTV.

Personally, I'm all for getting a plasma...I'm just nervous we'll buy one and be dissappointed if the hours of cable tv we watch every day (CSI, History Channel, Discovery, and typical Fox garbage) will look like crap.

Hence, me asking you all if you have any comments.

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dharu

· #7 · Sep 26, 2003

Juice Rocket,

I have been using a 42pwd6uy for a month now.I watch a lot of regular cable crap and it is actually pretty good.Infact sd programming is better on this plasma than my hd Tube.Just make sure you connect the cable to composite in.And if your cableTv gives you access to hd Man you are going to be blown away by CSI.Yes you will most likely will change your viewing pattern.

As for DVD even your old crappy player will give you a excellent picture but you should get a progressive scan dvd player (fairly inexpensive now)for the plasma to show you what it can do.

Some channels do look worse than others but HBO and the movie channels and your regular local broadcast do look fine ... You wont be dissapointed.

jdallaire

· #8 · Sep 26, 2003

Check out this post Is a 42"plasma better then a 36"sony CRT
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=304883

JuiceRocket

Discussion Starter · #9 · Sep 26, 2003

Thanks for the info everyone. Yes, sorry about my confusion with the ED and HD...from the info I gathered here and on other sites, it appears that ED for us "non-purists" is a good solution for a lower cost plasma. From what it sounds like, anything will be a huge step up from our current TV's, and the two we've been looking for seem like they'll do the job.

Interesting comment slb, about being able to choose different picture settings for each input. Does this allow you to customize your picture setting say for cable, dvd, and xbox inputs? Each having their own picture setting?

snipeman

· #10 · Sep 26, 2003

Yes, it's silly for you and everyone else here to buy a plamsa. It's quite insane.

Mine got here about a month ago.

What's keeping yours?

Andy

slb

· #11 · Sep 26, 2003

Quote:

Interesting comment slb, about being able to choose different picture settings for each input. Does this allow you to customize your picture setting say for cable, dvd, and xbox inputs? Each having their own picture setting?

Exactly. All of the Panasonic plasmas used to have this feature. Why they removed it in the new consumer model is beyond me. I have the older 42PW5UZ and I have the component inputs and composite/S-Vid inputs calibrated with different settings based upon the source.

-Steve

silvergt02

· #12 · Sep 26, 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by jdallaire
silvergt02

What kind of plasma do you have? Not all plasma are created the same. The purpose of a plasma is not to improve a SD signal. They rock with better quality signals HDTV and DVD. My expectations is that they don't make SD pictures worse. .

I have a 42" HD Philips. I do NOT have the optional e box as of yet (which has a scaler) That should definmitley improve the SD cable pic.

You would think for 5000 bux I wouldnt need to buy an external tuner/scaler for an extra 700 bux......go figure

drober30

· #13 · Sep 27, 2003

I purchased a Panasonic 42pwd6uy and want to stress that I love this display! I watch mostly SD (DirecTV) content and it looks great! Yea, some Chanel's better then others but I rate it an 8 out of a 10. DVD's a 10! I cant imagine what an HD signal might look like on this display. This particular "ED" display makes me wonder what a HD display could offer thats worth the extra thousands. This coming from an enthusiast but not a professional. I do however consider myself very critical and believe that my opinion on this display is on the money. A great purchase for under 3k. I also purchased from the forum sponsor Visual Apex and highly recommend them. Well I called placed my order, received my plasma and haven't spoken with them since but isn't that the way it should be!

edstalnaker

· #14 · Sep 27, 2003

I am very new to the Plasma forum. I'm curious how people set up their Plasma TVs. Obviously you can't put a traditional center-channel speaker on top of a Plasma TV, so what do people do for the center channel? Also, how can you secure the TV to keep it from being knocked over (like by your cat or by accidentally bumping it)?

I'm also curious if it's a good idea to get an extended warranty.....what kind of warranty does the Panasonic TH-42PWD6UY come with?

JuiceRocket

Discussion Starter · #15 · Sep 27, 2003

I'm sold! 42PWD6UY here I come!

Tomorrow (today I guess...since it's 2:41am) we're going shopping for front room furniture. I'll be sure we also wind up at a few stores to see if we can find a 6UY on display!

I worry about ordering online...my concern being how difficult it becomes to get your plasma fixed if, upon receipt, or during it's warranty, there are issues. I'm assuming purchasing from an actual store helps with the warranty?

Quote:

Exactly. All of the Panasonic plasmas used to have this feature. Why they removed it in the new consumer model is beyond me. I have the older 42PW5UZ and I have the component inputs and composite/S-Vid inputs calibrated with different settings based upon the source. -Steve

That's excellent, and just what I'd want.

Thanks for the info! I'm off to see if I can find and download some detailed information about the 42PWD6UY. Being armed with information is the most powerful weapon when purchasing an item...I need to keep learning and be able to walk into a store with at least some base knowledge.

Thanks for the info!

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elvisdoc

· #16 · Sep 27, 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by slb

FYI, I consider the TH-42PWD6UY a better choice than the TH-42PA20U because it allows different picture menu settings for each input. This is a critical issue for me.

-Steve

SLB,

Maybe you or Glauco or a PA2OU owner can tell me....has it been definitely determined that you can't do different input settings in the Service Menu on the PA2OU? If I have been paying attention, its only recently that people figured out how to get into the Service Menu on these...seems strange to me that the capability would not be there somewhere....

thanks.

elvis

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jdallaire

· #17 · Sep 27, 2003

Hi Silvergt02

I would guess you have the Phillips 42FD9934 model using 1024 by 1024 ALiS (Alternate Lighting of Surfaces) technology is that correct. The screen processing I heard is easier to implement for SD and DVD when using the standard 850 x 480 lines of resolution. The math algorithm's get tricky to implement in 1024 by 1024. This maybe why it suffers with different video signals. This all gets back to my point all plasma are not created equal. I have personal lowered my expectation of what a SD 50" panny plasma SD picture looks likes. It will never look like HDTV. I even warned my wife that the SD picture may not improve. She has not seen the SD on a 50" Panny yet. The Panny 50" I have seen hold their own with SD but never look like DVD or HDTV signals. Through the stretch mode in there and you get the picture. Price does not necessarily = picture quality on all kinds of signals. Thanks for sharing your experiences with the Phillps welcome to the forum.

djs

· #18 · Sep 27, 2003

JuiceRocket,

Yeah, SD looks like crap on my 433CMX. The solution - watch as much HD as you can! Comcast has been aggressively adding HD channels & I get all of the local Boston channels OTA in HD out in the burbs. (I use DirecTV instead of cable, but I'm getting ESPN-HD, Discovery-HD, HDNet & HDNet movies that way. Have an antenna in the attic for all the locals.)

I don't watch CSI, but I'm pretty sure it's HD. Discovery-HD is mind blowing in its picture quality.

Oh, and XBox looks amazing on a plasma, as do DVDs.

As for online shopping, seemingly everyone here who has dealt with plasmaextreme.us has come away happy, myself included. If you spend enough time browsing here, you'll find there are a number of reputable online dealers.

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