+1 i have a 27" that works fine, besides i'm on the internet way too much to pay any attention to the tv, i harldy watch tv unless the gf is over

geez that must make her feel special. :gay:

Plasma or LCD?

I personally really like the look of LCD better. The Sharp AQUOS looks pretty damn skippy to me. When my house is finished being build I want to buy something around 42"-50".

Opinions?

I just got the 42" HDTV Panasonic plasma. Very nice quality and great picture. The 50" is even nicer, but it was a little above my pricepoint and my living room is too small to justify a tv that big anyway.

I just hate the way you can't get native 1080P resolution in a Plasma or DLP t.v. unless it's like 50+".

What's the deal with that, Ben? Any ideas?

That haven't been able to produce pixels small enough probably. Remember when plasmas first came out? They were all 42" and above for a long time. There are much better technologies coming out in a couple years anyway. Assuming Canon doesn't ruin everyting, SED TV technology will be the next big wave. It can reproduce CRT quality color, black levels, sharpness, response, etc... but keeps the thin packaging of an LCD.

Jay.... I've seen a whole bunch... it's a toss at the moment for me between the newer Samsung 40+, the LG (they are OK) or the Sharp.... One of the boys bought the samsung (slightly older version) 40, before Christmas.... oh man, it's sweet. Especially, since he's been plugging the VGA on the laptop into it. Nothin' like surfing on a 40" monitor. <VBG>

Check them out though, everybody has their own preference.... I was looking at screens with 3 guys from the office... we decided we all liked the colours on three different models. <G>

Dave,

Hey Ben.... I'm curious.... what's the normal price on the 4306, or the 2307.... I know what they are roughly going for in CND (yes coloured money)... but I wonder what they go for down south.

I'm not askin' for "special" pricin' either, just off the street is cool.....

Dave,

this is fun and all but I just can't commit to a TV technology until something new and better comes out.

I'll keep rockin my HD toob.

BEN --
What's your price for a 42" flat?

once i move in and really see what will look good above the mantle I might end up with just a 42"

gotta love the add quote button

Personally, I'm not a fan of the aquos, but it's not my eyes that will be viewing the display. I generally only use a large lcd display if it will be installed in a high rise, or other building constructed of steal. As strong as steal construction is, I've found the weight of a plasma will bend the studs. LCDs are much lighter than plasmas, particularly because the plasma panel is glass, where the lcd panel is plastic. The plastic panel will also glare less. Generally, I prefer a plasma display for their enhanced contrast and brighter color reproduction. Also a plasma generally consumes less power than a comperable size lcd.

1080p is a fairly recent evolution and too many people still don't have 480p capable display devices. You'll see more and more 1080p small screens come to market at "reasonable" prices, especially as consumers start to own multiple HDTVs in one household (which isn't common in a typical household). 1080p sets look wonderful with hd content. Standard def content, and standard dvd content, imo does not look good on a 1080p display device. Seriously, if you want to make all your source content like dvds look like shit, get a 1080p display.

They're still for the most part 42" though some of the larger sizes are gaining popularity. IIRC, Panasonic is the only manufacturer to ever offer anything smaller, and it was a 37" panel, which actually costs the same or more than the comparable series 42".


Dave, sorry not in the office today, and it doesn't look like I have a denon price guide here at the house. If you're looking to pick up a receiver, wait a few months for the 08 models. They'll have big improvements, especially in the video switching.

Could you be any more specific?

If it won't bankrupt ya, go for the 50"; it's substantially larger than a 42. I regret not getting a 50 for my living room after getting the 42. Sometimes I'll watch tv on the 50 in the bedroom just because its larger.

Yeah, I'm currently running Xbox Media Center on my Xbox, and runs the OS natively in 720P and upscales std. DVDs to 720P with a bunch of post-processing filtering. On a 37" 1080i LCD, the 720P upscaled DVDs looked friggin' great! However, I've not seen what the 720P upscale looks like on a native 1080P screen.

That said, I was planning on getting an Xbox 360 with HD-DVD drive soon, so I wanted to have 1080P capability. There are several 360 games coming out soon that'll be 1080P.

Nope not really shopping. I've got an 1804, which I've had for years now.... And I would only trade up with a really, really good excuse. Definately can't complain about the functionality, etc.... The only thing I've ever had reason to complain was the functionality of the denon remote (and the codes for other devices). But hey, I've got stuff that works fine, so I'm OK with it.

If anybody is shopping, I would definately recommend the Denon stuff.... better than most of the off the street stuff. But not into the stupid pricing for the really good stuff. It's definately nice down the middle. It's not NAD level quality, but good enough for me.

The reason I'm curious Ben, was for the pricing for guys in the office. Some of them are shopping, and we are occasionally drooling over the stuff that's out there now. <G>

Dave,

I'm confused. Which is heavier? LCD or Plasma? What kind of weight are we talking about here?

Thanks for the opinions. When I go into a store it's always the LCD that grabs my eye, and from what I've read the Sharp is well recieved by critics.

720p hd content scaled to 1080p looks great. 480p dvd content scaled to 1080p is imo not so good. With a terrific video processor (been using the dvdo stuff) 480p can be made to look ok. My take on 1080p has been it looks fantastic with a fantastic source input (native 720p or better), and awful with a marginal source input (in this case marginal is anything less than 720p native).

I didn't know that the 360 was going to have 1080p games. I remember microsoft specifically saying that the hd dvd drive was going to be for movies only. If that's not the case, I'm gonna go get the hd dvd drive. Frankly I was waiting for a combo hddvd/blueray unit to hit the market under $500 before I personally took the plunge, but will go ahead if I can play 1080p Halo3. I'm still kinda pissed about sacd/dvd-a.

that's baddass.

The remotes are a joke. They actually are even worse with the newer stuff, where you have to turn the remote over and flip open a hatch. But it's kind of intentional. They say they come with universal remotes, but it's really just to have the feature on a spec sheet. The remotes were designed to easily program into REAL remotes via outputting their specific "discrete" commands.

If anyone needs something specific, I'll look it up tomorrow. But like I said, I'd wait a few months because the avr models coming up soon are better. Their dvd players and what not aren't going to be changed much, but the new receiver line is getting a good make over.

A typicall lcd display weights less than a typical, similarly sized plasma display. By weight, (going back to ye ol college physics) I of course mean weight x G or mass :gay:. Plasma displays may appear to be light, but they ain't. It's not an issue if you're securing the display into wood studs, though.

Pleasing your eye is what's important. Check out the LG lcds. I personally prefer them of the "mass market" lcds. The samsungs also rate well, but I don't like them at all. There are a couple of boutique brand lcd displays that are pretty impressive, but not worth their outragous cost.

Of course, if Sharp were to give me a free lcd display if I promised to rate it, of course it's getting a high rating. If you give it a low rating, they won't give you anything in the future, where if you give them a high rating, they will send you the new model every year. And if your publication rates them poorly, they'll pull their advertising $ out of your rag. Not kidding.

hahaha so much for unbiased reviews eh? :gay: