• This topic has 35 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 13 years ago by DezB.
Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)
  • New telly
  • reluctantwrinkly
    Free Member

    There is nothing wrong with my old tubby Panasonic flatscreen CRT (6 years old) but I am being seduced by a larger, slimmer model with a bit of future-proofing-a Panasonic Plasma beauty. Now then, when I get it home, am I going to be a bit dissapointed with the picture compared to my old CRT on standard definition viewing-I know it is more up to date but I still have this nagging feeling!-Obviously it is going to be better on HD & Bluray.also , are spendy £20-30) HDMI cables worth it or is there a particular price point to aim for.

    rootes1
    Full Member

    also worth buy tele from M&S or John Lewis to get a 5 year warranty in with the price

    DrRSwank
    Free Member

    Don’t buy plasma. I did this when they first came out and they have a limited life span due to screen burn. It gets really annoying when the Dave logo is etched onto your 3k panel no matter what side you’re watching!

    LCD will / may look worse than CRT.

    LED should look better.

    Go and nose – and the advice about John Lewis is sound. They should also price match.

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    Hohum
    Free Member

    ^^^^

    I thought that modern plasmas were much better at dealing with screen burn. That was the opinion on avforum.com when I was looking for a new TV last year.

    I bought a Panasonic plasma in the end as they were also offering a free 5 year warranty at the time.

    The opinion on this forum is that there is no need to upgrade your standard HDMI cables.

    Spongebob
    Free Member

    Don’t buy plasma. I did this when they first came out and they have a limited life span due to screen burn

    UTTER TOSH!!! Mine is fine after 6 years! They install plasma screens in airports and after several years of displaying flight arival information, some screen burn is inevitable. However if you factor in the 7×24 switched on hours of an airport monitor with the much lower hours of a domestic unit, it would take more than time than you are likely to want to own the set before it reaches the same condition. As you won’t be watching a static image, this screen burn probably wouldn’t ever occur.

    In terms of longevity, an LCD with a CFL backlighting is more likely to fail than a plasma because of the tube and it’s driver electronics.

    In practice, either technology is reliable enough for domestic use.

    LED should look better

    Should it? More nonsense! LED is a form of backlighting for LCD TV’s. There are two types: Perimeter and dynamic matrix.

    reluctantwrinkly
    Free Member

    My understanding too is that modern plasma is worlds apart from the original ones . Agree with John Lewis, whenever we have had problems, they actually sort it. Panasonic does offer it’s own 5 year warranty at the moment though but am still tempted to buy from John Lewis rather than risk iffy service from an independent

    uplink
    Free Member

    Don’t buy plasma. I did this when they first came out and they have a limited life span due to screen burn

    We run big plasmas with a static logo on them 14hrs/day
    It takes around a year to burn them to any noticeable degree
    So not really an issue for home use

    Hohum
    Free Member

    Mine was direct from the Panasonic store.

    On screen burn I read that you still have to be careful when burning them in, i.e. keep the brightness and contrast down, but after a couple of hundred hours viewing they should be fine.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Having the same dilemma.
    We’re going for a 46″ – I’m told Plasma is better at that size than LCD – is this true? (that’s all I need to know to make my decision!)

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    As already said, plasma is fine now re. screen burn.
    I didn’t miss the quality of our [decent] CRT wen we changed to a plasma 4 years ago but obviously YMMV – I presume you are going to look at the display before buying one 😕
    TBH we went from a 26″ crt to a 42″ plasma and the size difference alone will blow you away let alone any HD stuff.

    Hohum
    Free Member

    DezB – Member
    Having the same dilemma.
    We’re going for a 46″ – I’m told Plasma is better at that size than LCD – is this true? (that’s all I need to know to make my decision!)

    At 46″ I would take a plasma.

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    We’re going for a 46″ – I’m told Plasma is better at that size than LCD – is this true? (that’s all I need to know to make my decision!)

    Yes. I don’t really like LCD anyway. Apparantly the size screen you should have is basically related to the distance you are sitting away from the telly – go too big and it’s hard work watching.

    hp_source
    Full Member

    We have a 37″ Panasonic plasma and a 32″ Sony Bravia (the product of merging 2 houses into one)! You’d be hard pushed to say one was better than the other. Black is black on the Plasma, but the Bravia handles it very well too.

    A standard definition signal looks a bit worse than a CRT on all flat screens in my opinion (most likely because they’re generally larger so stretched further), but you’ll forget about it pretty soon, and the advantages of brighter colours, compatability (hdmi etc) far out weigh it.

    As for the HDMI, yes there’s a nice debate somewhere on here, but for a normal length (i.e. bluray under a TV on a stand a poundland job will be just as good as a £30 job as it’s a digital signal… 1’s & 0’s in one end, 1’s and 0’s out the other, job done).

    Considered holding on until January for a bit of sales action? Might get a better deal… Or try Richer Sounds for one off’s/end of line.

    Spongebob
    Free Member

    The opinion on this forum is that there is no need to upgrade your standard HDMI cables

    This is an interesting one. HDMI is a digital interface which uses parity correction. Looking at the situation from a purely technical point of view, digital is digital (just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s) and parity takes care of any losses. Like some types of digital audio interface, there may be some issues with jitter (which is about timing), but I wouldn’t get too absorbed with the hype. Let your eyes and ears be the judge.

    There are a lot of companies making high quality cables and when you enter the world of analogue HiFi, these really do matter. There is an element of “perceived” rather than real benefit about all of this, but I have heard significant improvements when switching from one cable to another. Unfortunately, the cables that bring your systen to life always tend to cost vastly more than run of the mill stuff – what a surprize! Finding the middle ground is the challenge (and it is a challenge).

    Some cable manufacturers like to talk technical, but i reckon a lot of it is speculative waffle as there is no formulae for matching cables, or specification that you can use to make comparisons.

    In the end, cables are part of the chain and each component of the system interacts with the other. Measuring reactance and capacitance is impossible as everyone has different kit. When you change cables, you change resonant frequencies across the spectrum and this simply can’t be measured. It’s all about trial and error which is tough because getting a mix of different cables to tryout on your own system at the same time is pretty well impossible.

    Back to digital: don’t buy the cheapest cables, but don’t spend a fortune. The purveyors of esoteric bits of string will have you thinking your life depends on spending vast sums on their blinged up offerings. My advice is don’t be taken in by it all. £20-30 is more than enough to spend on a decent HDMI lead.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Excellent. Plasma it is.

    Samsung or Panasonic? 🙂

    Hohum
    Free Member

    Dez,

    Go for the Panny!

    Cougar
    Full Member

    Toshiba.

    (-:

    Cougar
    Full Member

    TBH, all three are good. That was my shortlist when I bought mine last year.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Panasonic it is! Job done.

    Hohum
    Free Member

    I bought some of these HDMI cables clicky and I see that they are even cheaper than when I bought them a year ago.

    DrRSwank
    Free Member

    Ours was old so maybe the tech has come on.

    Pioneer 50″ and was pretty cutting edge when we brought it.

    It got screen burn after a couple of years. Logos would just ‘get stuck’ on screen for a few weeks if you’d been watching for more than a few hours.

    The picture quality (HD) was excellent though.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Dammit! I’ve gone against the STW hive mind… just been to look at TVs and the Sony LED one is astounding! So I’m going for that rather than the Panasonic I was going to get. Sorry…

    Hohum
    Free Member

    Apparently the LCD and LED televisions are set up in store to look far better than the plasmas in Currys/Comet/etc.

    Just something I read that had been reported by quite a few TV heads.

    This then leads to disappointment when viewing at home.

    reluctantwrinkly
    Free Member

    I had a feeling that may be the case-Plasma always looks a bit duller but when you look closely the colours are very natural as opposed to the overblown colours on the retina-ripping LCD sets.

    MrWoppit
    Free Member

    set up in store to look far better than the plasmas

    So er, why can’t you “set” them up the same way at home. To look better than the plasmas…

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Got one with iPlayer built in? If I were buying a telly that’s what I’d go for. Great idea.

    Hohum
    Free Member

    Mr Woppit – Member
    set up in store to look far better than the plasmas
    So er, why can’t you “set” them up the same way at home. To look better than the plasmas…

    The theory also states that they choose the best looking source for the LCD and the worst for the plasma and adjust accordingly.

    Also, the lighting in the store is harsh fluorescent rather than natural home lighting, which has an impact.

    DezB
    Free Member

    The TVs were all displaying from the same source (well, they were all displaying the same thing at the same time anyway).
    You could look at the LCD from a foot away and it still looked great, the plasmas looked more broken up the closer you got.
    No harsh lighting in the shop.

    I was struggling to choose between them, and probably would be completely happy with either – but the Sony just looked better. And when I stick it up on my wall it’s not going to suddenly deteriorate, so I’m havin it 🙂

    Hohum
    Free Member

    ^^^^

    Enjoy your new television Dez!

    DezB
    Free Member

    thanks mate!

    CountZero
    Full Member

    I had a feeling that may be the case-Plasma always looks a bit duller but when you look closely the colours are very natural as opposed to the overblown colours on the retina-ripping LCD sets.

    LCD’s are usually on a default setting which is garish, but sitting down with some setting suggestions for the model and spending some time tweaking, watching and tweaking again you can get a lovely natural colour. I’ve got a nearly three year old 40″ Bravia, and with a 1080p HD feed the picture is just beautiful. It does show up standard quality transmissions though, they look pretty ‘soft’ by comparison. Don’t settle for default, spend time looking for setup hints and play with the settings, it makes a huge difference.

    DezB
    Free Member

    Will do, cheers for the tip

    jools182
    Free Member

    What was all that stuff about plasma being phased out because of the power it uses? A load of internet nonsense?

    Hohum
    Free Member

    jools182 – Member
    What was all that stuff about plasma being phased out because of the power it uses? A load of internet nonsense?

    The old ones ran hot enough to toast your bread on for breakfast…

    The more contemporary lot are much better.

    DrP
    Full Member

    Mr DezB seems to be doing alright 😉
    New road bike, new TV….
    You’re not blackmailing Wills are you, now he’s engaged!

    DrP

    DezB
    Free Member

    Well spotted Mr DrP
    🙂 Some money
    🙁 My auntie died

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