[kam1996]

I am in the market for a 50'' HDTV. I cant decide between a 50'' plasma or a 50'' DLP. I know that the Plasmas are more expensive but I am willing to pay the price if it means better quality. Most of the TV I watch is satelite and DVDs,

So I am asking all "HDTV experts" which TV is better. I know that there is space savings with the Plasma, but all I care about is better picture quality in most medias i-e cable, satelite, dvds and HD input.

Sorry if I sound confused, well its because i really am very confused.

 

[Alex Wetmore]

I was in this same position two weeks ago.


My best advice is to go to the store and compare the picture quality for yourself. Make sure to do so with the sources that you will use.


I thought that the PQ on the Samsung rear projection DLPs was great for high defination material and pretty good for DVD. I thought that they looked terrible with standard television signals. We still watch a lot over standard television, so that was a deal breaker.


The 42" SDTV Panasonic Plasma that I bought looks as good for high defination material from my normal viewing distance and a lot better for television.


Price was about the same (I was looking at 42"/43" models) so it was a no brainer for me to go with the Plasma.


Other things to consider are burn-in (plasma can burn in, DLP can't) and room lighting (the rear projection units are bright, but not as bright as a good plasma).


alex

 

[Andrzej]

I was also considering 50 inch Sammy DLP (which is HD) versus 42 inch ED Panny. HD material looks very good on DLP (probably better than on Panny - based on my unscientific observations from a distance shorter than my regular viewing distance of 11-12 feet). However, SD is painfully not watchable on Sammy DLP. It is worse than on a $200 CRT while Panny is better than most CRT's I have seen.


Andrzej

 

[JoeCane]

I started looking at the Sammy DLPs. Size, price an quality were very good to me. SD did not seem that bad. I went to tweeter 5-6 time and watched moves, cable and Sat. HD is great. The real problem for me was the whole rainbow effect. Also these are Sammy's 1st gen Dlps. If I could wait I would, and maybe I would find next gen better.


If they had 2x or 5x color wheel I think it Sammy DLps would really rock, but rainbows sent me to Plasma land.


I still cannot believe I an getting ready to spend 4000+ for at TV, but I see nothing else that is what "I" really want.


Well I really want a high end DLP projector and an 80" screen with a big dedicated HT room with popcorn maker, but reality it what it is for me.


Joe

 

[john doran]

well, i was convinced that i wanted a DLP RPTV, but when i went to see the samsung there was a small jvc plasma there that was just stunning and which made the shortcomings of the sammy even more obvious.


so i went plasma; as good as the DLP set was (and it's a good unit - i didn't see any rainbows or anything), it was just nowhere nearly as clear or as crisp or.....well, as anything as a plasma. except cheaper. for the same size display, anyway.


- jd

 

[ConceptVBS]

Best bang for your bucks? DLP


The Samsung DLP uses 6 color wheels compared to Panasonic's 3. People say that they see more "rainbow" on the Panasonic than the Samsung.

 

[Sunnyman]

The Panasonic 50" DLP set has a beautiful picture and is half the price of the plasma set.

 

[Doc Tonic]

Actually, if you are in the market and willng to spend the money on a 50 inch plasma. You should definitely see if there are any Toshiba LCOS units you can view in your area. Far superior to the Samsung DLP, but costs about $1500 more. Its on par with the plasmas, but has no burn in. Also, no rainbow artifacts. Its 57 inches, not 50 though....not sure if you are limited on space.

 

[saltydawg]

I very strongly considered the Samsung DLP RPTV because of lack of burn in concerns. The picture quality compared to a plasma however is not even in the same league, and I'm not talking about rainbows. The DLP RPTV is

very grainy and digital looking. Also very two dimensional in appearance and a lot of "clay face" artifact. Totally unacceptable to me and vastly inferior to a plasma or a direct view CRT.


I have decided I need to go with a plasma and be careful with the burn in issues. I will not buy one until I can get one with DVI-HDCP however.


If you want a digital RPTV, I suggest you wait for LCOS.


Rich

 

[R Harkness]

I actually demoed the Sammy DLP today, kinda by accident (I was in the stores looking at direct views for my father).


It was in a large room surrounded by other RPTVs playing HD content, and the Sammy DLP clearly stood out as the sharpest, most vibrant picture. In fact, I was amazed at how clear and realistic it was: one of the only displays I've seen that gave plasmas a run for their money with HD.


Then I played some DVDs on it and it s-u-c-k-e-d. I was really disappointed - more like shocked - at how badly DVDs faired on the display, vs HD. The picture lost it's clarity and sharpness, and looked much more crude and pixelated. As well, the black levels were clearly not great (which was not evident on the HD images, as they were all day time images).


The big Hitachi RPTV near it was much, much better with DVD images.


Too bad...it looked so promising with hi-res stuff.


Rich H.

 

[HDTV888]

The Samsung 50 DLP looked great at Best Buy (about $4000).

The Sony Grand Wega 50 LCD projection looked great at Good Guys ($4000).

Any 50" HD plasma is at least $8000, and they all look great.

I have yet to see the above combination side by side, playing the same HD source, and calibrated equally correctly (impossible). So forget true comparisons. But let's say they are all equally great, then for $8000 I would buy the DLP and the Wega, one for the family room, one in living room.


If 50" plasmas drop to $5000, I'd go plasma. (but then the others would be $3000, so where does it end...)

If money is no object, I'd go plasma.

 

[jrnewquist]

Due to a constraint in room space, I need a TV more shallow than 20 inches. For this reason, I've been considering RPTV and plasma, both in the 42-43" size area.


I started off considering the Panny 42" ED, but then the allure of RPTVs set in. I investigated the Sony GWII, but I didn't like the picture.


The Samsung 43" DLP (HLN-series) was pretty good, but compared to other sets, it had pretty bad color banding. I noticed no rainbows (though I looked for them), but the banding and color blotching was intolerable. I attempted to tweak the settings, but to no avail. I looked on other sets displaying the same signal - other RPTVs exhibited the banding more or less than the unit I was examining, but the plasmas -- not at all.


But the Panny 42" doesn't have an HDCP-compliant DVI port, which bothers me. However... the salesman suggested that I look into the Fugitsu 42" ED, which does have such a DVI input. I did a side-by-side comparo against the Panny and... wow. It held up really well. I checked the settings a bit, adjusted, and... well, I'll be damned if the Fugitsu didn't really impress me. It costs more than the Panny, but the picture quality is *close* in many respects, on par in others, and maybe a little better with respect to brightness and vividness of color.


So I think I'm back in plasma land - and I think I want to buy locally. Too many possible problems with this new-fangled technology. Having said that, the price difference between the Panny 42" ED and the Fugitsu is about $500... plus the cost of the feet (nothing fancy). Which is about 15% of the total. Which means I think I'm leaning toward the Fujitsu, all things considered.


Or I could just buy a $500 CRT, put it somewhere, and live with a 27" TV for a year until things settle down...


Nah.


Update: Various B&M stores in the area are selling the Fujistu feet for $299. So the Fujitsu is about $600-700 more than the equivalent Panasonic. The more I think about it, the more I think that HDCP, the style of the picture, and the greater flexibility with inputs puts the P42VHA20US ahead of the Panny, in my case. And given that Panasonic has (to the best of my knowledge) no intent of incorporating HDCP into its next-gen sets this summer... there's really no reason to wait, if HDCP is important to me.


(Except if overall cost was a factor. Which... at $5300 for the set + feet... not cheap.)

 

[rogo]

Way too much burn-in fearmongering in this thread.


I suggest reading the FAQ here and ignoring this thread on that topic.


Unless you have young kids or plan on using the display with a PC as a computer or gaming all the time, the burn-in fear should simply not be a major factor in the purchasing decision. It's no more relevant that worrying about where you'll buy your new lamp when it burns out on the DLP.

 

[steuert]

When I was in the market several months ago, I first considered a Samsung DLP, which was available pretty cheaply then via an AVS Forum power buy. However, after reading about a thousand posts on the subject, it appeared to me that (1) There was a severe problem with PQ on the DLP for SD broadcasts, and 90% of my viewing is DirecTV via DTiVo; (2) DLP for RP sets is really an evolving technology, and the Samsungs seemed to have a fair share of growing pains.


I decided to spend a few hundred $ more and buy a Panasonic plasma, and have never regretted the decision. And I agree that burn-in is not nearly the problem one might think from many posts. I have watched TV in 4:3 mode (w/ dark gray sidebars) for an average of about 3 hours/day for seven months, and there is NO visible burn-in for normal full-screen viewing. If I look hard at a solid white screen, I can see evidence of very slight burn-in, but it is not even close to being a significant problem.


I suspect that objectionable burn-in occurred occasionally in the past when very bright static images were displayed for weeks or months in commercial applications, and this has evolved into an urban myth that "plasma = burn-in problems." Not so in my experience.

 

[oferlaor]

The only DLP RPTV that I've seen so far and liked was the Sim2 display. It is a really nice display.


Still, the "feel" of these two technologies is so different that you have to look for yourself before deciding.

 

[technofan]

I was about to purchase the Samsung 50" DLP and brought my wife to look at it at BB. They are displaying the same HDTV signal on all TVs. She knows nothing about TVs but immediately noticed the lower brightness of the Sammy DLP (400 Candelas/meter square) vs the Plasmas (>500 Candelas/meter square). She also complained about a film-coated appearance of the DLP HDTV picture that makes the picture look artificial. I was also annoyed by the limited vertical angle of view on the DLP. A very substantial drop in brightness is noted when I look at the DLP on its factory stand while standing up versus sitting down even at 20 Ft. None of us see any rainbows and we agree that the DLP was the best RPTV there. We bought a Panny 42"HD Plasma instead. You need to go and see them yourself to decide what looks good to your eyes.

 

[Ken Ross]

Quote:

Originally posted by R Harkness I actually demoed the Sammy DLP today, kinda by accident (I was in the stores looking at direct views for my father). Rich H.

Rich, you've got it get your dad some plasma religion. Directviews????

 

[Bill Gehring]

Quote:

Any 50" HD plasma is at least $8000, and they all look great.

Not true at all. A 50 inch Pioneer PDP-503CMX can be had for around $5,700 and can be upgraded to DVI-HDCP compliance with an Aurora card.

 

[oferlaor]

Rogo,


Let me continue the fear mongering ("we're not fear mongering, this is really happening, happening... Ice age coming, Ice age coming" - Radiohead).


Back on topic: DLP has the rainbow effect and also it is more tiring to watch than plasma. I spent last night watching one of the best pictures I can recall at a friend's house (Sharp Z10000, firehawk, with a scaler and SDI panasonic DVD). It was an awsome FP image and Star Wars AOTC was awsome and 3D on it. But, when I came back home my eyes were tired much more than "normal".

 

[R Harkness]

Ken,


Yep, direct-view or bust. I can't afford to get my Pop a plasma (I'm pitching in).


BTW, I recently did a shoot-out of my Panny vs the Loewe Aconda, and posted the results in the direct view forum.


Rich H.