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LCD or Plasma?????

dustyfox

By dustyfox,
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jinxy72

jinxy72

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LCD ...... the prices have come down now so they are virtually the same as plasmas .... main difference being at some stage a plasma will need a re-charge..... and costs a fortune so u might as well buy a new one.

:good:

u can get probs with LCD .... its whats called ' a dead pixel ' and u can see a different coloured dot on the screen when it happens.... not that common and my advice if ur buying new would be pay a little extra and extend the warranty so ur covered for when it gets out of its normal warranty. ;)

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Peter De La Mare

Peter De La Mare

Posted
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LCD, but make sure it's an up-to-the-second model. You're wasting your time if it's not 1080p.

 

They're thinner, lighter, quieter, more energy efficient and last a lot than Plasma, and now equal Plasma in their previous weak area of Black depth and motion blurring.

 

Not much development of Plasma going on now. S'all FED and carbon nanotubes.

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Imperfection

Imperfection

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Im looking at the curry's website and is this any good http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_...mp;page=Product

 

Its a LG 42" LCD 1080p

 

I'd seriously go to see which you think has best picture Dusty because when i go upstairs to my local Tescos where the tv's are on display-i can see an enormous difference between brands.

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Peter De La Mare

Peter De La Mare

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Didn't know they had a place in Glasgow till yesterday :good:

 

http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.ph...ONY-KDL32P3020U

 

Richer Sounds only sell end of line old ****e that's cluttering up the shelves when the new models turn up. S'why they're cheap.

 

 

This one isn't 1080p

 

I'd doubt if Richer sells any yet. Maybe soon though.

 

I'd seriously go to see which you think has best picture Dusty because when i go upstairs to my local Tescos where the tv's are on display-i can see an enormous difference between brands.

 

Can be a little misleading, as anything other than a dedicated AV shop won't be displaying them very well. By that I meant they'll all be sharing a grossly overused RF feed that'll produce ****e images on screen. If you are serious about a good image then ask for it to be demonstrated on your method of connectivity, that may be HDMI (hopefully) or Scart/Component etc. Also, the grunts sellin (box shifting, more like) at Tesco won't know *** they're talking about.

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Peter De La Mare

Peter De La Mare

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Richer Sounds do sell the the latest tvs ive just got this one http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.ph...SONY-KDL40W4500.

It also got product of the year from What HI FI http://www.sony.co.uk/article/id/1226589498692

 

Blimey, they've changed their ways a little since the old days.

 

Looks a good deal, good result !! :good:

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Raja Clavata

Raja Clavata

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Umm, a very subjective one this...

 

Had our Bravia LCD nicked last year when we were burgled, it was the only positive to come out of the whole event.

 

Did a bit of research and found that the Pioneer Plasmas beat everything else hands down including 1080p LCDs and came with a free 5 year warranty. Splashed the cash for that and got a Panasonic 37" LCD 1080p for the kids in the back room as a replacement for the one that was nicked- both are very good products. Sony may have improved dramatically in the last 12 months but at the time they were relying on the brand name more than the performance of their product.

 

One other point worthy of note, sorry if it's already been mentioned, but lots of different manufacturers use the same screens, it's the quality of the software signal processing engines that differentiate the best from the rest.

 

ATB

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nickb

nickb

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My advise is to get a few mags, What Hi-Fi etc, if you gonna spend a few hundred pounds, you want to know the ins and outs eh?

I have a Samsung LCD, its great, but different rooms with different lighting suit LCD/Plasma.

Read what the experts say, take your time, and buy!

The next week, will be a better buy, different telly, so its really a no win situation, but read up as much as you can fella :good:

There are all dead good in the end anyway ;)

ATB

Nick

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dunganick

dunganick

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Oh yeah, if you need a HDMI cable, get a cheap one, believe me, spend money and it aint any better :good:

;)

 

 

depends if the 'cheap' one is 1.3a spec or not.

 

If the topic starter (too tired to read whole topic) wants my opinion (wont post on another topic as there are too many people who will disagree because 'they have one and its amazing', they are welcome to PM me, i have a reasonable knowledge of the actual reliability of different brands as well as after-sales service, as opposed to what people think the reliability and service is like.

 

I will also give them my take on plasma v's lcd.

 

BTW, its rubbish that richer sounds only do end of line models. They will now do current line stuff. They are just becoming 'another retailer' like any of the electrical stored. They stock all of the current line Panasonic kit, as well as the latest sony kit (to name just 2 that i am sure of).

 

Now im off to get two ducks ready for a dinner tomorrow :good:

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paul1966

paul1966

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i certainly would not rule out plasma's years ago i would agree they had problems with screen burn and picture quality. at the end of the day its down to your personal preference if you like lcd or plasma, i think plasma gives a more natural looking picture, i have just got a 42 inch panasonic pz81b with built in freesat and the HD picture is very impressive. your best bet is to look at some screens that have been properly set up and then decide

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dunganick

dunganick

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ok, ive had a sleep so ive got the energy now to make a post that might actually make sense :good:

 

Some key points from the topic so far.

 

Plasma tv's are only available (as a general rule of thumb) from 42" and above.

 

Plasma tv's can not be re-charged/re-gassed. However for an example Panasonic now quote their Plasma Panels to last 100,000 hours and their LCD panels 60,000 hours. So that would make the LCD having the shorter life span.

 

Plasma Tv's do suffer from something called screen burn. This comes from leaving a still image on the screen for a long time. Say for instance if you play games with graphics that dont move or use your pc on the screen. However where i work it is not uncommon for the power to be switched on and all the tv's reach a dvd menu which stays on the screen untill a member of the TV staff comes and plays the demo/turns on loop. Sometimes these are switched on at 8.00 in the morning and i come into work at 5 or 6 in the evening. (so a pretty long time with a paused picture on the screen with no screen saver) these tv's are i can promise you undamaged. They suffer for about 30 mins with something called image retention. But then you cannot tell that the tv's were ever left on that picture.

 

Dead pixels are pretty rare these days on LCD's, stuck pixels are more common (if the pixel has a colour it is stuck) there are programs and techniques that can sometimes sort this, but largely speaking this will always be here.

 

When it comes to stuck pixels and warranty, it very much depends on how long you have had the tv when you notice and also which company it is. Much like TFT monitors many companies have levels of stuck or even dead pixels that they consider acceptable.

 

Buying 1080p. Sets with a native resolution of 1080p will when fed with a 1080p source (bluray player with 1080p movie or a console with 1080p game) give you a better picture quality that a 720p set. This number stands for the number of lines of pixels top to bottom. However, Sky HD, virgin HD and Freesat HD only currently broadcast in 720p, so you wont currently see the advantage of a 1080p set on broadcast HD. You will also defiantly not see an advantage of buying an HD tv when watching Standard definition, besides the advances in the screen technologies, software manipulation of the image and cable technologies.

However it fair to say that 1080p broadcast signals will be available in the not too distant future.

 

LCD is more energy efficient, they are lighter, can be quieter depending on if the Plasma is running with cooling fans as many do. However these are near silent. Size wise it depends on the make. Current Sony LCD's are actually probably deeper than most of the plasmas on the market. But like i say depends on the manufactor, for all intents and purposes they are about the same.

 

LCD and plasma repair costs are both similar, i.e very expensive. However it is very rare for a customer to repair their tv if it isnt under warranty, the repair trade does not seem to currently exist. The prices they are falling is too fast to justify repairing unless its a small shop that specialises in it and its not one of the major components that goes wrong.

 

Looking at the best picture quality in the shop can be a bit of a waste of time. It depends what signal they are running their tv's on. Take for instance where i work, we still use a 20 yr old RF cable system, the end result the picture is worse than you will probably see at home. We can improve the picture quality using new leads, which we try to do as and when we get new leads. This means that some tv's have better pictures than others. Alot of stores now use a component setup. however their disc is not HD so its still not the picture quality the tv is capable of neither will it give you any idea of how the tuner in the tv performs (one thing that will affect your terrestrial and digital picture.

 

As has been mentioned, Richer sounds are just another retailer these days they sell up to the second stuff as well as older lines for cheap prices.

 

As has also been mentioned, there are 3 or 4 lcd panel factories in the world, different manufactors share them to share the risk of producing such high value batch products. I cannot currently remember who shares what factories, i seem to recall sharp and sony were in the same. And as said by Raja, it is what the tv does with this signal afterwards that dictates the real quality.

 

A few other points:

 

Main difference in picture between LCD and Plasma.

 

Plasma will produce richer (inky) blacks and typically produces more natural colours and a larger range of them.

 

LCD can have problems with the backlight showing through if the room if badly lit, this results in a grey/purple type picture.

 

The whites on LCD's can be much brighter (this is where your massive contrast ratio has gone) However unless you want everyone looking like they are in a dazz comercial its worth backing this down to get the shadows back in your whites.

 

Plasma tends to be a more forgiving technology on poor pictures, much like CRT tv's where as LCD's often over sharpen a poor picture making it look even worse.

 

When transporting Plasma it is defiantly not recommended to transport it lying down. You can lay them down, however you need to be very careful the panel is not flexed as this could damage it internally. In the 2 yrs ive worked in this area of retail ive never once seen a problem with this.

 

Other than that.

 

Avoid Philips, we seem to have massive problems with them. I cant remember the last time i sold a philips.

 

Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, Pioneer Even LG are all worth considering (missed some there im sure)

 

Toshiba are the only big brand i would currently avoid in big tv's. Had 3 come back from their recent efforts, considering we only sold about 10 tv's its not been impressive.

 

 

Please take some of the stuff i have said with a pinch of salt. There are always exceptions.

 

I dont wish to start a massive plasma/lcd slagging topic or a 'ive got this tv its great' topic. Just dont like seeing peple get miss informed about their purchases.

 

For what its worth. If i was buying a 42" currently it would be a Panasonic (plasma) 42pz80b http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.ph...d=PANA-TH42PZ80

 

Hope this lot helped.

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lord_seagrave

lord_seagrave

Posted
Posted (edited)

What a great post Nick - I wouldn't even know where to begin with a big screen TV, (I'm much more at home on the toaster thread :good: ) but that's the kind of advice you don't get in the shops.

 

Do B&O make these fancy new tellies? The one I've got I inherited and it must be 10 years old (mmm... lovely veneer), but it's solid and reliable (the remote could probably stand in as a murder weapon in Cluedo). Inevitably it will have to be replaced at some point.

 

LS

Edited by lord_seagrave
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dunganick

dunganick

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What a great post Nick - I wouldn't even know where to begin with a big screen TV, (I'm much more at home on the toaster thread :good: ) but that's the kind of advice you don't get in the shops.

 

Do B&O make these fancy new tellies? The one I've got I inherited and it must be 10 years old (mmm... lovely veneer), but it's solid and reliable (the remote could probably stand in as a murder weapon in Cluedo). Inevitably it will have to be replaced at some point.

 

LS

 

They do but i have no experience with them. They used to use weird connections so you had to buy B+O dvdplayers etc... however i believe they have abandoned this.

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