Plasma vs 120hz LCD vs 60hz?

[Sean Malone]

I'm looking at a few flat panels to replace my 50" rear projection LCOS. The Best Buy Magnolia guys are steering me to a 50" Panasonic Plasma TH-50PZ85U, which I'm leaning towards for these reasons;

Better 'fast action' performance (480hz native)
Truer color (not as over saturated as LCD)
Less jaggy edges


I've also been looking at a couple of 60hz 52" Sony and Samsung LCD's which asre decent for their $1800 price tag (same as the 50" plasma).

Is the plasma a no brainer or is the 120hz LCD worth the extra cost (and a couple of extra inches?)

[Al Czervik]

I'm looking at a few flat panels to replace my 50" rear projection LCOS. The Best Buy Magnolia guys are steering me to a 50" Panasonic Plasma TH-50PZ85U, which I'm leaning towards for these reasons;

Better 'fast action' performance (480hz native)
Truer color (not as over saturated as LCD)
Less jaggy edges


I've also been looking at a couple of 60hz 52" Sony and Samsung LCD's which asre decent for their $1800 price tag (same as the 50" plasma).

Is the plasma a no brainer or is the 120hz LCD worth the extra cost (and a couple of extra inches?)

Buy whatever looks best to you (or your family). You're the one who has to watch it. Check AVSForum for any known reliability issues.

[WickerBill]

Do you have natural light in the room this will be in?

Be very careful with plasma if there is even a chance of reflections. It will drive you crazy.

[KLang]

Last time I was shopping I preferred plasma but the reflective screen was a deal breaker for me.

Plasma's days appeared to be numbered. I read somewhere that Pioneer is getting out. I think that only leaves Panasonic now.

[oddlycalm]

The reason to buy plasma basically comes down to black levels, and the gap is getting very narrow between the best plasma and the best LCD sets, especially those with LED back lights under dynamic control. In those sets tiny clusters of LED's are turned on and off so that blacks are truly black. Sony, Samsung and LG offer LED back lit LCD's.

WB brings up a good point about ambient light. Plasma works best in very dim lighting and the screens are very reflective. LCD works well in rooms with much higher ambient light. Power draw on plasma is also higher and they dissipate more heat into the room. The LED back lit sets draw the least power of all.

If you look at the better Pioneer and Panasonic plasma sets and the Samsung and Sony LCD sets you won't go wrong.

BTW, Magnolia has been unable (so far) to match the level of people found in their own stores at the Best Buy/Magnolia joint ventures, so caveat emptor.

AVS forum is a good place to look for calibration settings when you get the new toy home. Not as good as a full ISF calibration, but much better than factory settings.

oc

[Sean Malone]

Do you have natural light in the room this will be in?

Be very careful with plasma if there is even a chance of reflections. It will drive you crazy.

Excellent advice. I asked the two Magnolia guys about lighting consideration with plasma because apples to oragnes comparison in store show that the whites are so much more gray than the LCD's, but their response was that the plasma displays 'actual' color, not over saturated like the LCD, although all of them can benefit from professional calibration as their Panasonic plasma has been.
I didn't even think about glare. Thanks!

[Sean Malone]

The reason to buy plasma basically comes down to black levels, and the gap is getting very narrow between the best plasma and the best LCD sets, especially those with LED back lights under dynamic control. In those sets tiny clusters of LED's are turned on and off so that blacks are truly black. Sony, Samsung and LG offer LED back lit LCD's.

WB brings up a good point about ambient light. Plasma works best in very dim lighting and the screens are very reflective. LCD works well in rooms with much higher ambient light. Power draw on plasma is also higher and they dissipate more heat into the room. The LED back lit sets draw the least power of all.

If you look at the better Pioneer and Panasonic plasma sets and the Samsung and Sony LCD sets you won't go wrong.

BTW, Magnolia has been unable (so far) to match the level of people found in their own stores at the Best Buy/Magnolia joint ventures, so caveat emptor.

AVS forum is a good place to look for calibration settings when you get the new toy home. Not as good as a full ISF calibration, but much better than factory settings.

oc

Thanks OC, do you think it's a mistake to go with a 'budget' 60hz when 120hz is the new 'performance standard' in LCD? There is a Sony that has 240 but it's in the $3000 range. I paid $3500 for my LCOS 4 years ago and I'm a little tired paying 'high performance' prices, so I'm trying to balance display performance/quality vs cost which is why I thought the Panasonic plasma was the one. I'm nervous now about the glare.

[oddlycalm]

Here's a stunner. No more Kuro plasma sets. :( The Pioneer Kuro PRO-111FD has been the standard by which all other sets are judged. If you want one better hurry. This absolutely sucks. Another victim of the wall street wankers...


02/06 12:12P (DJ) DJ Pioneer To End TV Production, Spin Off DVD
Development-Nikkei
Story 6368 (6752.TO, 6753.TO, 6773.TO, PC, SHCAY, JP3359600008...)
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Pioneer Corp. (6773.TO) will pull the plug on its
loss-ridden television business and shift its DVD player operations to a new
venture with Sharp Corp. (6753.TO) in a sweeping overhaul, The Nikkei reported
in its Thursday morning edition.
The company had been planning to end in-house production of plasma panels by
the end of March and outfit its TVs with Panasonic Corp. (6752.TO) panels
instead. Faced with worsening profit margins, however, it has decided to end
TV development and production altogether.
Pioneer will idle its lone domestic TV factory in Shizuoka Prefecture
sometime this year. Factories in the U.S. and Europe are already slated for
closure.
Sales of Pioneer TVs will continue for the time being. The company has not
yet decided what to do when inventories run out.
Meanwhile, Pioneer will spin off its DVD player operations, which are
equally steeped in losses, to a new company to be set up with Sharp as early
as this spring.
The company plans to eliminate several thousand of its roughly 40,000
groupwide jobs in the year ending March 2010. Pioneer is likely to post a
consolidated net loss of more than Y100 billion for the year ending this
March, wider than the Y78 billion loss it forecast earlier.

[cameraman]

I picked up a 120 Hz 40" Samsung LCD a couple weeks ago, part of the deal was professional calibration in the home. That really was the selling point because proper calibration is a huge component of picture quality.

[WickerBill]

Thanks OC, do you think it's a mistake to go with a 'budget' 60hz when 120hz is the new 'performance standard' in LCD? There is a Sony that has 240 but it's in the $3000 range. I paid $3500 for my LCOS 4 years ago and I'm a little tired paying 'high performance' prices, so I'm trying to balance display performance/quality vs cost which is why I thought the Panasonic plasma was the one. I'm nervous now about the glare.

Sean, if I may ask and derail a little bit, what's the reason the LCoS is being replaced? Did it die?

[Sean Malone]

Sean, if I may ask and derail a little bit, what's the reason the LCoS is being replaced? Did it die?

It's temporarily out of commission. Long story short; 18 year old daughter throwing our 3 year old German Shepherd's rubber football IN THE HOUSE. A few movie like ricochet's and we have a nasty 8" crack in the screen. :flame:

I have a few shops looking for a used/new screen for me but in the meantime I thought it would be a good opportunity to get a new TV while I still have a job (plus do my part for consumer spending :)). It's a fine TV although it has bugged me a bit that it doesn't accept a true 1080P source, sure it's a 1080P native display but...

So I did a quick buy last night and WB's advice steered me to a Samsung *630 series LCD (120hz). I got it home, set it up and was blown away by the image quality. yes I see a bit of an LCD jitter during image transitions, but overall it is heads and shoulders above my old SXRD and this is with default settings! One thing that jumped out at me is that I'm now seeing HD commercials on the HD channels which I wasn't on my SXRD. I assume this is because my SXRD wasn't interpreting the cable box signal correctly. During the initial setup of the new Samsung it asks what kind of digital source your cable is (Standard/HRC/IRC). My SXRD doesn't have this option. the 720p programs I'm receiving on cable look better than what my SXRD did receiving 1080p HDDVD! I'm totally blown away by this tv. Now I need to get it calibrated.

[Insomniac]

Here's a stunner. No more Kuro plasma sets. :( The Pioneer Kuro PRO-111FD has been the standard by which all other sets are judged. If you want one better hurry. This absolutely sucks. Another victim of the wall street wankers...

Pioneer was already getting out of the panel business. They have licensed the Kuro tech to Panasonic and they were going to buy panels from Panasonic for this year. So Kuro won't be dead, just Pioneer electronics.

Sean: I'm surprised that so many TVs at a Magnolia looked so bad color wise. They normally have them all calibrated (unlike Best Buy). They generally only have the higher end models.

As others said, go with what you think looks best. Prices are always going to come down. TV tech has been moving pretty fast and prices have been dropping like crazy the last couple years. Buy and don't look at prices after. :)

[Sean Malone]

A few follow up items that I’ve learned this past week; once again BUYER BEWARE when talking with Best Buy associates about technology. Especially the fast moving tech of HDTV’s and BluRay. I was told by 2 associates in 2 different Best Buy stores that in order for me to actually be able to view the 120hz feature (what Samsung calls AutoMotion Plus or AMP for short) is to purchase a 120hz capable HDMI cable, and they claimed that ONLY Monster Cable currently offered a 120hz HDMI (for the performance minded price of $149. It must be great!)

They even proved their statement by pulling two of the Monster cables off of the shelf, one in a red package, I believe it’s the 800 series that clearly states on the front that it is ONLY a 60hz cable. The other package (silver colored), I believe it’s the 900 series, clearly has 120hz printed on it. Well, there you have it! Proof!

Fortunately for me I’ve learned my lesson too many times and said no to the cables, went home to check AVS forum to see where ‘they’ were getting their 120hz cables from. Wha, wha, what’s this? Oh, you say any 1.3 standard HDMI cable can carry 120hz? And that the best place to get these and other cables is at monoprice.com? And that a 6’ High Speed HDMI 1.3a Category 2 Certified Cable 28AWG - 6ft w/Ferrite Cores (Gold Plated Connectors) at monoprice is under $4!!!! Shame, shame Best Buy.

The other erroneous piece of information regarding HDTV’s that was told to me by 2 different associates is that the newer 120hz format of LCD panels are better than 60hz because it’s a faster ‘refresh rate’. They told me to think of my computer monitor and how a higher refresh is better for your eyes. Bzzzzz, wrong.
Actually (as I learned on AVS Forum), 120hz is how the makers are accomplishing 5:5 pulldown. 5x24 (frames per second) = 120.

From Wikipedia; “One possible advantage of a 100 Hz + display is superior conversion of the standard 24 frame/s film speed. Usually movies and other film sources in NTSC are converted for home viewing using what is called 3:2 pulldown which uses 4 frames from the original to create 5 (interlaced) frames in the output. As a result 3:2 pulldown shows odd frames for 50 milliseconds and even frames for 33 milliseconds. At 120 Hz 5:5 pulldown from 24 frame/s video is possible meaning all frames are on screen for the same 42 milliseconds. This eliminates the jerky effect associated with 3:2 pulldown called telecine judder.”

Both of these tidbits where conveyed to me by the Best Buy Magnolia employees, not the blue shirt teens. So, they either know better and are told what to say by their managers, or simply are poorly trained. Possibly they simply say what they think a customer can comprehend instead of getting into 3:2 to 5:5 pulldown conversions. But misinformation is still misinformation regardless of intention.

[Methanolandbrats]

Idiots at Best Buy? I never woulda guessed. :gomer:

[dando]

Both of these tidbits where conveyed to me by the Best Buy Magnolia employees, not the blue shirt teens. So, they either know better and are told what to say by their managers, or simply are poorly trained. Possibly they simply say what they think a customer can comprehend instead of getting into 3:2 to 5:5 pulldown conversions. But misinformation is still misinformation regardless of intention.

Hence why I will NEVER buy anything from BBY ever again. I'll pay extra to buy from a specialty AV store, or buy from an e-tailer. FYI, Bluejeans cables are also highly recommended on AVS (where I bought my 35' long-run HDMI and component cables).

-Kevin

[Insomniac]

The other erroneous piece of information regarding HDTV’s that was told to me by 2 different associates is that the newer 120hz format of LCD panels are better than 60hz because it’s a faster ‘refresh rate’. They told me to think of my computer monitor and how a higher refresh is better for your eyes. Bzzzzz, wrong.
Actually (as I learned on AVS Forum), 120hz is how the makers are accomplishing 5:5 pulldown. 5x24 (frames per second) = 120.

From Wikipedia; “One possible advantage of a 100 Hz + display is superior conversion of the standard 24 frame/s film speed. Usually movies and other film sources in NTSC are converted for home viewing using what is called 3:2 pulldown which uses 4 frames from the original to create 5 (interlaced) frames in the output. As a result 3:2 pulldown shows odd frames for 50 milliseconds and even frames for 33 milliseconds. At 120 Hz 5:5 pulldown from 24 frame/s video is possible meaning all frames are on screen for the same 42 milliseconds. This eliminates the jerky effect associated with 3:2 pulldown called telecine judder.”

I don't think that information is mutually exclusive. It is a faster refresh rate. There are definitely 120Hz displays out there that can't do a 5:5 pull down also. They do the standard 3:2 pulldown and just display the same frame twice.

[Sean Malone]

I don't think that information is mutually exclusive. It is a faster refresh rate. There are definitely 120Hz displays out there that can't do a 5:5 pull down also. They do the standard 3:2 pulldown and just display the same frame twice.

But the reason they were pushing me toward a plasma was because a plasma is 480hz native. Their reasoning being that it's 4 X better than a 120hz. Point being that the increase in hz is not because of the reason they were promoting.

[oddlycalm]

Magnolia was successful over the years for all the reasons BBY/Magnolia is not; their people were older, knew more, and weren't ethically compromised by sleazy management practices. Their niche between the big box stores and the high end boutiques was a smart one.

BBY/Magnolia is a fail so far but they do carry some good brands and in some areas they may be the only game in town.

oc

[Insomniac]

But the reason they were pushing me toward a plasma was because a plasma is 480hz native. Their reasoning being that it's 4 X better than a 120hz. Point being that the increase in hz is not because of the reason they were promoting.

They should never be comparing 480 Hz to LCD refresh rates. Nowhere close to the same thing. I get that your main point is these guys aren't well informed. In your post, you only mentioned 60 and 120 Hz on LCDs. ;)