[R Harkness]

Hi folks,


My experience with the larger, 50" Plasma screens (Pioneer, mostly)has left me with some questions.

I've always noted that there seems to be a penalty in picture quality whenever screens get bigger - I see the defects in the picture much more.


First, people keep mentioning that, with a smaller 42" plasma you can sit closer, and that you don't want to sit as close to the larger screens. That doesn't make sense to me: if the larger screens have finer resolution then you should be able to sit *closer* than the smaller screens without being distracted by pixels. And in fact when I view the bigger screens from closer up, this seems to be the case.


Any comments?


Now, about large plasmas and artifacts: Do the larger 50" screens tend to show more defects and artifacts on a greater variety of source material?

I just saw the new large Pioneer Plasma at a home entertainment show (it was the Pioneer with the "ugly" plastic frame, as some called it).

It looked amazing on an HD signal. But when they played a DVD, "The Mummy," it was horrible. I could not believe the severity of the artifacts.

On all shots there was a shifting, drifting, focus and re-focus effect of digital processing going on. The picture had that old LCD artifact of smudging and blurring to motion. Some shots were so bad that when the actors moved it was literally like looking at an impressionist painting.


My question: is it likely the smudging of the picture was due to the Pioneer Plasma processing, or artifacts contained on the DVD transfer? And, if it was the DVD transfer, do the larger Plasmas reveal these artifacts more readily? (I had seen "Dinosaur" on a larger Plasma and it looked tremendous).


This experience has me wondering if larger plasma screens will look worse more often than they look better.


Any comments?


Thanks,


Rich

 

[leslie]

Rich

I have the 50" Panny and, as you stated, the picture on true hi def is fantastic. Because I have a Skyworth DVD player, I cannot report any artefact problems on DVDs. So far, I haven't seen any and I've watched a number of films with a lot of movement (Crouching Tiger, etc.). Of course, the Skyworth has the Faroudja chip which is why I got it as a "starter" DVD player.So far, I've been happy with it, but do expect to get a better unit once the manufacturers get their act together and provide BOTH a great picture AND aspect control.


The standard digital TV picture (via TWC cable) is really not so hot, although I can improve it by bringing it in on the component input. However, I don't do this because of concerns about burn-in problems on the screen. Darn those news channels and their potentially deadly banners/logos/etc. In fact, I've been wondering if some sort of scaler would help. And, if you really want to see bad stuff, try to watch a VHS tape that you've timeshifted!


I sit about 8' from the screen, at an angle. No problem and the picture is great. Others' experiences may differ.

Leslie

 

[billharris4]

Rich,

You didn't mention the DVD player as a possible source. Perhaps it was non-interlaced and showing through the s-video input, although even then you wouldn't expect the severe problems you saw. I don't think a high-quality DVD player paired with the screen would have that problem.

 

[Pete Putman]

One reason for visible picture artifacts in larger panels is that the pixels themselves are larger. Typical pixel sizes for 42" plasma are under 1mm (about .9mm), while the 50" and 60" panels are over 1 mm (1.05 - 1.1mm).


You will see the pixel structure when you sit too close to these larger panels.


Pete

 

[John Mason]

Quote:

Originally posted by leslie The standard digital TV picture (via TWC cable) is really not so hot, although I can improve it by bringing it in on the component input.

Sorry to see TWC isn't delivering good quality digital cable where you are. I've been raving for some time about the superb quality I get from TWC here in NYC. Believe there's a fiber optic cable going into my medium-size apartment building (fewer cable amps often means less noise). Not infrequently, I notice cable digital movies that easily match the quality of the best DVDs. They're both MPEG-2 encoded video with a 700+ horizontal resolution; prefiltering generally trims this figure on screen.


Assume you're not watching analog cable via the S-video outputs. With S-video, you're using a poor-quality filter in your cable converter. But digital cable channels are already filtered into luminance and color. For analog cable, I find composite or RF, which employs my set's digital comb filter, delivers the best pictures. Severe dot crawl along colored horizontal lines is eliminated as well as artifacts over the entire image. Component outputs from a HDTV cable converter are worst here. The converter's moderate-quality circuits would be changing 480i NTSC into non-HDTV 1080i. -- John