The big "How do I choose an HDTV?" thread.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

I'd definitely go with plasma if possible, but LED-lit LCDs are much, much lighter, probably about half of a similarly sized plasma.

Weight difference has also changed quite a bit. I mounted my 51 inch on a wallmount style TV stand by myself and had no issues whatsoever. It only weighs 49 pounds without the stand. Add the stand and it's 59 pounds.

My buddy's LED lit 55 inch LCD weighs 60. Without the stand.

You keep setting up the plasma negatives and I'll keep right on knocking them down

Except glare in a brightly lit room. That one's always going to be a thing.

Thin_J wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

I'd definitely go with plasma if possible, but LED-lit LCDs are much, much lighter, probably about half of a similarly sized plasma.

Weight difference has also changed quite a bit. I mounted my 51 inch on a wallmount style TV stand by myself and had no issues whatsoever. It only weighs 49 pounds without the stand. Add the stand and it's 59 pounds.

My buddy's LED lit 55 inch LCD weighs 60. Without the stand.

You keep setting up the plasma negatives and I'll keep right on knocking them down

Except glare in a brightly lit room. That one's always going to be a thing.

Your friend has quite a bloated LCD panel, then. Samsung makes a 60" LCD that weighs as much as your 51" plasma and half what a 65" Panasonic VT50 weighs. Its 46" of the same model weighs 30lbs, compared to an 46" ST30 that weighs 60lbs, so I'd say my point more or less stands.

Don't for a moment think I'd ever choose an LCD over a plasma though--if you've seen my posts here I've always preferred the latter. I'm just trying to present some reasons one might prefer an LCD.

The weight won't make too much of a difference for me. Something thinner would be nice. The Phillips I have is just such a pain to move when it comes to it.

So the Samsung is better than the Panasonic. Have to figure out if the price difference is worth it.

The samsungs I see on amazon do seem to have a more pleasing aesthetic. I'm a bit wary of them since I had a 32 inch from them a couple years ago that died after a year. I'm also not seeing any of the d7 series you talk about. See a bunch of PN_____ numbers though.

Another edit. Ok I'm an idiot. Didn't look deep enough into the model number.

Ok. I'm an idiot and thought I had a great price on the samsung lined up. That was a used price. Now with the 8-900 dollar price difference I'm strongly inclined to go with the panasonic.

So think turning my XBox output down to 720P solved the tearing on my new HDTV. I'm getting some stuttering playback from my TiVO right now, though. Not sure what that's caused by. Strange that my 5 year old 32" HDTV didn't have these problems.

On, and this is the model for those (Thin J) helping me out with this.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-LN46D630-46-Inch-1080p-Black/dp/B004SNA992

Any help is appreciated.

The new Panasonic 2012 Plasmas look awesome. I want the 65" VT but honestly the GT's look almost as good for $1000 less...

I'm buying myself a new present when I move into my new house in Oct.

Ok. I know the benefits of plasma, but when shopping with the wife, sometimes you end up with one that she thinks is "pretty".

Got the Samsung d8000 55 inch LED tv. Got it for a good price as best buy was getting rid of the model. Also got a free Blu-ray player and 2 extra pairs of glasses. Watching the muppets now. Seeing that the 65 would have been a bit much for this room. This looks absolutely fantastic. Blows my other tv away in my opinion. So far, quite happy though I have noticed a bit of random artifacting. Not much at all, though I'm trying to figure out if it is the tv or the redbox rented DVD.

TheGameguru wrote:

The new Panasonic 2012 Plasmas look awesome. I want the 65" VT but honestly the GT's look almost as good for $1000 less...

I'm buying myself a new present when I move into my new house in Oct.

Yeah, if I decide to upgrade, it will be for a GT. Not seeing the real worth in that upgrade cost.

MannishBoy wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

The new Panasonic 2012 Plasmas look awesome. I want the 65" VT but honestly the GT's look almost as good for $1000 less...

I'm buying myself a new present when I move into my new house in Oct.

Yeah, if I decide to upgrade, it will be for a GT. Not seeing the real worth in that upgrade cost.

It has the 96/24 playback but honestly I've never gotten used to that... it just looks weird to me... maybe its one of those things that you just have to keep at until you normalize it.

TheGameguru wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

The new Panasonic 2012 Plasmas look awesome. I want the 65" VT but honestly the GT's look almost as good for $1000 less...

I'm buying myself a new present when I move into my new house in Oct.

Yeah, if I decide to upgrade, it will be for a GT. Not seeing the real worth in that upgrade cost.

It has the 96/24 playback but honestly I've never gotten used to that... it just looks weird to me... maybe its one of those things that you just have to keep at until you normalize it.

96/24? Is that 24p or something?

obirano wrote:

Ok. I know the benefits of plasma, but when shopping with the wife, sometimes you end up with one that she thinks is "pretty".

Got the Samsung d8000 55 inch LED tv. Got it for a good price as best buy was getting rid of the model. Also got a free Blu-ray player and 2 extra pairs of glasses. Watching the muppets now. Seeing that the 65 would have been a bit much for this room. This looks absolutely fantastic. Blows my other tv away in my opinion. So far, quite happy though I have noticed a bit of random artifacting. Not much at all, though I'm trying to figure out if it is the tv or the redbox rented DVD.

Pretty? Is that really a consideration? Don't all flat-screens kinda look the same?

Thin_J wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

The new Panasonic 2012 Plasmas look awesome. I want the 65" VT but honestly the GT's look almost as good for $1000 less...

I'm buying myself a new present when I move into my new house in Oct.

Yeah, if I decide to upgrade, it will be for a GT. Not seeing the real worth in that upgrade cost.

It has the 96/24 playback but honestly I've never gotten used to that... it just looks weird to me... maybe its one of those things that you just have to keep at until you normalize it.

96/24? Is that 24p or something?

yeah I jacked that up.. its that 24p ... the VT's do it at 96hz instead of 48 like the GT.. it looks un-natural to me.

TheGameguru wrote:

yeah I jacked that up.. its that 24p ... the VT's do it at 96hz instead of 48 like the GT.. it looks un-natural to me.

I wasn't aware you could display 24p differently. I thought it was either displayed correctly or incorrectly. Hrm.

I do know that my Samsung I have now is the only set I've ever liked watching 24p on. On all my old HDTV's it always looked sort of jittery and uneven during smooth motion, and it always ended up driving me so crazy I'd just turn it off.

I gave it a shot on the new set and it looks very natural.

Strangeblades wrote:
obirano wrote:

Ok. I know the benefits of plasma, but when shopping with the wife, sometimes you end up with one that she thinks is "pretty".

Got the Samsung d8000 55 inch LED tv. Got it for a good price as best buy was getting rid of the model. Also got a free Blu-ray player and 2 extra pairs of glasses. Watching the muppets now. Seeing that the 65 would have been a bit much for this room. This looks absolutely fantastic. Blows my other tv away in my opinion. So far, quite happy though I have noticed a bit of random artifacting. Not much at all, though I'm trying to figure out if it is the tv or the redbox rented DVD.

Pretty? Is that really a consideration? Don't all flat-screens kinda look the same?

Pretty much. The super thin bezel definitely adds a nice touch though. Overall, I'm quite happy with it so I can't complain.

96/24 is generally an audio thing, so I was wondering why that mattered I don't even have audio turned on on the TV.

MannishBoy wrote:

96/24 is generally an audio thing, so I was wondering why that mattered I don't even have audio turned on on the TV.

It can be but in reference to what I was talking about its not..

http://www.vieraexperience.com/html/...

Can't find a really good tech article on it.. as its certainly not an exclusive "Panasonic" thing.. its an even multiplier of 24p to 96

TheGameguru wrote:

Can't find a really good tech article on it.. as its certainly not an exclusive "Panasonic" thing.. its an even multiplier of 24p to 96

I understood after I thought about it, but my first thought was audio.

If James Cameron had his way movies would run at 60 fps. With the slow death of film as the default medium for movies, he may get his way.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...

It would be nice to have that 1:1 compatibility between television refresh and movie frame rates now that so many people watch movies at home these days. I never cared about this stuff when watching a VHS on a 19" 480i. The only thing I obsessed over was finding a widescreen version that preserved the aspect ratio of the film.

Nostalgic Aside: When I was kid, my uncle, a video engineer, gave me the whole run down on aspect ratios when I asked him why the closing images behind the credits to a movie we just watched (Red Sonja I think it was) looked all stretched out. He explained it was because they were basically displaying a rectangle smooshed into a square. Then he showed me how they crop the edges and use pan-and-scan to deal with the incongruity. The whole thing ruined me. From then on it became a distraction. I would actually wait on watching a movie on the chance I could find a letterboxed version, which I would watch from about 8 inches away.Thank goodness DVD and widescreen televisions helped bring everyone around to letterboxing.

I'll never get used to the high framerate home video look

So, I had no plans for getting a TV, but I picked up a slightly used Samsung LN40C630 (edit: might be the LN40D630, I'm not sure without checking the actual model number) (40" 1080p) for $375 bucks (with a cheapo cabinet and a blu-ray player which I actually don't need and gave to my roommate for his room. My brother and sister-in-law had picked it up maybe 6 months ago or so, but their young kid was getting a bit too obsessed with it and they decided to get rid of it. I just happened to talk to him right after he had put it up on Craig's List and snagged it before anyone else.

Anyways, it might not be something I would buy new, but it was cheap and a huge step up from my old 21" Dell TV that had a vertical purple line going through it.

So, I got it all set up and want to color calibrate it. I don't have a calibration DVD, so I was hoping I could just hook up my laptop via HDMI and do something browser based. I found this website: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ which is geared to calibrate monitors. Anyone have a better idea (I assume yes)?

I can't wait to play Journey on it later tonight.

Edit: No responses. I tried the test from that website, but I didn't have any luck with those. Either they don't work quite right with a TV or I was doing something wrong. Anybody know of a good, free way to calibrate an LCD TV?

I have used the THX Optimizer that is on some DVD/Blu-rays. I believe all the Star Wars films have one built in. It provides some basic but useful test images. I believe it allows you to set contrast, brightness, and RGB (red, blue, green).

First, set your TV to the movie/cinema/film mode. Movie mode should get your color temp set properly and it should get the contrast/brightness closer to optimal. Disable all post-processing you can like dynamic contrast and edge enhancement. Often, movie mode will disable a good portion of the post processing, but there is often a few still enabled.

After that you just need a disc with the THX Optimizer on it. I only suggest it, because a lot of people own Lucas films and others that have licensed THX (Pixar blu-rays maybe?).

If it looks too grayed out when calibrated, try to adjust the black level by reducing the backlight. Dropping it down a little bit should improve color saturation, without throwing your other settings off too much or crushing details in dark scenes.

Thanks for the suggestions, heavyfuel! I guess I have the Star Wars DVD's. I suppose it wouldn't matter too much if it's DVD or Blu-ray for the calibration. I have a bunch of Pixar blu-rays, a bunch of classic Disney movie blu-rays, a bunch of Criterion Collection blu-rays (I think those just include color bars), and the rest of my blu-ray collection is pretty random. I'll have a go and see if I can find the THX Optimizer on one. I don't need a perfect calibration by any means. I just want to get it close to decent.

Edit: After looking into the THX Optimizer, I found this quick little guide that should help explain things I bit further. They also suggest going with Movie Mode to begin. I think I'm set!

One thing to keep in mind when calibrating, is to put a small watt light (15 watt incandescent or less) behind the TV in a pitch dark room. Give your eyes a few minutes to adjust, then calibrate it that way. Just a little extra touch. Setting up your TV and watching content like that will make the picture seem a little darker. Sometimes the dark bezel and pitch black room will remind you that the darkest black on your TV is actually just dark gray.

Tuffalo, do you have netflix? I think they may have one or more of those calibration discs in their library.

Edit: They have both Digital Video Essentials and Avia on DVD, and a Bluray version of DVE as well.

So plasma is still the way to go? I'm pretty sure my now-ancient 37" 720p Olevia is slowly dying and other than the superior energy consumption levels there doesn't seem to be any reason to pay the extra money for LED, especially since it's primary usage will be HD video content so color accuracy is of the most importance to me. Are plasmas still really bad when it comes to bright rooms, or is that less of an issue nowadays?

fleabagmatt wrote:

Tuffalo, do you have netflix? I think they may have one or more of those calibration discs in their library.

Edit: They have both Digital Video Essentials and Avia on DVD, and a Bluray version of DVE as well.

I didn't get around to the THX thing yet, but if that doesn't do the trick, I'll go the Netflix route. Thanks!

If the room is really bright, you'll probably prefer an LCD screen. (The LED refers to the backlight, and it's not that important... you don't care how the light is generated, just where it is.) But if you have any reasonable light control, plasma is thoroughly superior.

I have a somewhat older plasma at home and it's in a room with a south-facing sliding glass door. For the most part, unless the sun is hitting the screen directly I don't have a problem watching tv in a bright room.

All I did was put up a nice looking dark Roman shade on the glass door opposite the plasma. That removed any glare I had.

What about input lag? People on other forums complain that recent plasmas are pretty terrible with this sort of thing, but on the other hand I'm not certain if I'm the kind of person who would even notice it.