Flat Screen TV's

[MossRoad]

Not necessarily w TVs but I've always in the bigger the better camp.

But anyway, I'm a bit lazy (busy!) right now, so if you don't mind, what is the diff bet plasma and LCD as far as pic qual goes? And does plasma really heat up your house in the summer??? Seems a bit far fetched to me.

Bear in mind, you're talking to a guy who's watching CRTs right now! :laughing:



.

Plasma has a higher refresh rate. For example, your CRT TV probably refreshes the screen 60 times per second(or something like 1/2 the lines 60 times and the other half 60 times), anyhow, about 60 times per second. LCDs are typically 120 times per second and newer ones are 240 times per second. For most viewing, it looks fine. However, with motion, you can see blurring, as the motion has to be redrawn. My plasma has a 600 times per second refresh rate. It redraws the screen 5 times faster than a 120 LCD and 2.5 times faster than a 240 LCD.

My best example I saw was a western movie on a very nice LED TV. Some guys were going to shoot it out in the street. The scene was a typical view of the guys walking towards each other, the camera on a side profile switching to the faces of the oponents one, then the other and back.... of course, one had a black hat an the other a white hat. The picture looked great, except....

Every time the guy with the white hat walked in front of a post holding up the typical western town roofs over wooden sidewalks, the white where his hat was would stay on the posts for an instant after he passed them and until the screen could refresh. Most people would not notice it, but I was looking for it and there it was. So it gave the appearance of white motion blur behind the trailing edge of his hat. White is a very good test, because it wipes the screen (so to speak) and how fast the white area fills in with the colors that are supposed to be there shows the difference.

Go into a TV shop and watch a lower-end LCD TV with a football team wearing white jerseys and you'll really see the difference. Then watch the same game on a 240hz LCD and it will be quite less. Watch it on a good plasma and WOW! Its gone. It really does make a difference.

As for heat.... I can feel the heat off my plazsa screen from about 2-3' away if I stand in front of it. I believe mine cosumes on average, about 3-400 watts on the settings I have it on. So, if you turn it on to watch the news at 6pm and off at 11pm bedtime, that's the same as turning on a hair-dryer on low for 4-5 hours a night.... so yes, its a real, measurable thing. My in-laws have a very large LED TV and you can't feel any heat unless you actually touch the screen.

 

[sd455dan]

Thanks for all the replies!!!

I can't use the net for TV, as our connection (the only fairly decent fast connection we can get) is a Verizon Hotspot. It works great, but has a very narrow bandwidth. If we watch one video, our charges go up.

The former owner of our house left a large antenna on the roof. As I said in my original post, I'm recovering from back surgery, but when I'm able I will attach the little TV to the antenna and see what we can pick up, so thanks for that info, buickanddeere!!!

we needed to replace our 42" sanyo lcd- flouresent backlighting failed, and after a lot of looking picked up an LG 60" plasma for $600 at walmart and couldn't be happier with the picture quality- if there is a better 60" set for the money i would be surprised..

 

[alchemysa]

In my opinion the first thing to look at is the remote control and the EPG. (i.e. the on-screen program guide.) Some remote controls are utterly ridiculous with tiny buttons for the functions that you use most often. And some program guides only show one station's line-up at a time.

LG and Panasonic have good remotes and guides. I think Samsung were good too. The generic and supercheap TV brands seems to have the worst guides and remotes.

If the remote is good then I start looking at picture quality etc. I reckon if the remote and the EPG are bad you will hate that TV no matter how good the picture quality is.

 

[aczlan]

In my opinion the first thing to look at is the remote control and the EPG. (i.e. the on-screen program guide.) Some remote controls are utterly ridiculous with tiny buttons for the functions that you use most often. And some program guides only show one station's line-up at a time.

One other thing to look at is if you can name the inputs. Much easier to set HDMI1 as "Blueray" and HDMI2 as "Roku" than trying to remember which is which.

Aaron Z

 

[Bird]

We've had Toshiba LCD TV/DVD combo in our bedroom for maybe 7 years.

We've had a 21" Insignia (Best Buy's house brand) LCD TV in the bedroom for more than 6 years and I'll bet it doesn't have a total of 12 hours use on it.:laughing: There's been just a very few times that my wife wanted to watch something on that TV when I was watching something else on the TV in the living room. But it worked just fine the last time I turned it on to set the clock on it.

 

[MossRoad]

Our bedroom TV is reserved for:
1. 11:00 news.
2. Late night talk shows as background noise to fall asleep to.
3. Old movies on rainy days.
4. I get out-voted by the wife and daughters and have to watch Extreme Ice Road Swamp People on the little box while they watch The Notebook.

 

[dan ny escarpment]

If that older set is analog only, it wont work for the majority of signals over the air, which are now digital. All new sets are digital, and with a decent antenna and proximity to transmitters, over the air hd reception is clear and much different than the old days. It is either on or off. TV Fool can tell you the best direction to point your antenna based on your location, and older antennas properly cabled and connected work fine for picking up digital signals. We dumped cable for OTA and roku web streaming, and get 15 - 20 channels over the air, way up on a hill in W NY and maybe 10 - 15 channels in NE Ohio. If you can add the ability to rotate the antenna, that may open up other stations in differwnt directions.

Particularly for someone like you who is busy and doesn't watch much, digital over the air at zero monthly cost is a decent way to go. Local/regional sports, news, mostly older movies, many pbs channels, and new channels seem to be popping up.

 

[Tomtint]

I will try to make a long story short. We bought a 60" plasma, did not like the picture quality and returned if to Best Buy. Wanted a LED because of the bright picture. Looked at them all but they were 2500.00 plus. Against my better judgment bought a 60" Sharp LED. ( always thought Sharp was the red head stepchild of electronics ) had it for 16 months and it was rarely used. Maybe...maybe 20-30 hours at most. A green line appeared down the screen. ..out of warranty. In my web search about the issue, I came across some random guys FB page with the same TV same problem. I posted that I had the issue and that it would be the last Sharp product I ever buy. ..well about 15 minutes later I get a email that Sharp customer service will be in contact with me... Then 10 min after that they call me..! My phone number is unlisted and not on my FB page ! They ended up getting us a new model with more features for 600.00 and a 2 year warranty.... The web is a scary place.