What to buy

[brocoli]

Ok, so I searched this thread for a while and I couldn't find one that would help me. Hopefully someone will have an answer as everyone tends to have an opinion on here.

I'm looking to buy a tv and I can't quite figure out what to get. The way our room is set up is that we have a large bay window directly behind the tv, a wall to both sides, and then half way down the room we have light that is coming in from the kitchen window which is just around a corner. If you are sitting at the back wall you can look out both windows.

I've looked at Plasma vs. LCD and by the sounds of it I should be buying LCD, but i'm not too sure. We do watch some tv, must mostly it is games and movies. Sports will be watched on it as well, but no HD package yet (can change with a good TV). I'm looking at getting a 50", although I'm not adverse to possibly something a little smaller. We have a 32" there right now, but it just seems too small.

Any help you guys could give me would be much appreciated.

[Rathji]

Might want to edit the title to reflect what you are asking about.


3 points:

1) If there is light, my understanding is LCD is better.
2) get a HD package.
3) make sure the distance to the TV is a major factor in deciding how large to go.

From http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/save...he-righ-130573

[Daradon]

Plasmas are definitely cheaper, but as Rathji mentioned the don't do well with light or glare. As well they use more energy than LCD.

The hz rate affects how smooth the motion is. I've been told for a good gaming experience you'll want to get at 120 instead of just 60. There are higher types too but I'm not sure how necessary they are.

[Hack&Lube]

I still prefer plasmas as they are cheaper and are as vibrant and have deeper blacks than some of the leading LEDs. The electricity consumption only works out to about $20-$40 extra a year.
The drawbacks are the plasmas are heavy since the entire front is heavy glass and that polished glass also leads to glare issues if there is a lot of light where the TV will be. If you have a lot of sunlight shining in and it will reflect on the TV, perhaps avoid Plasma but otherwise I always prefer them. With your bay window setup, I would definitely assume glare would be a big problem so perhaps avoid plasma and find a screen that works well with your lighting environment.

The hz rate affects how smooth the motion is. I've been told for a good gaming experience you'll want to get at 120 instead of just 60. There are higher types too but I'm not sure how necessary they are.

For gaming, don't bother with 120Hz TVs if you can save money by going for a 60Hz TV. 120hz offers no advantage to video games unless you are doing 3D. It can even be a negative experience since 120hz sets generally have worse input lag. Console videogames are almost all 720p (or lower!) locked to 30 or 60 FPS (or slower!) so 120Hz won't do anything unless you are PC gaming and have games and hardware that can actually run at 1920x1080 @ 120 FPS with a 120Hz v-sync to avoid tearing.

If you are watching sports on broadcast TV, every cable/HD satellite package is basically heavily compressed (with artifacting) 720p @ 60Hz anyway so again, 120Hz is useless. The only sports signal that used to be uncompressed 1080p (or maybe it was 1080i) used to be CBC HNIC OTA but I believe they've cut that down to 720p also a few months ago.

Honestly, most TV stuff is marketing and fluff and most people don't realize with current gen games and television, all they need is a 60Hz, 720p TV because your source signals are rarely any better than that. You only start caring about 1080p, 24p frame rate, 120-240Hz refresh rates, 3D, etc. when you are a big home theatre cinema-phile and watch everything on the highest definition Blu Rays with players with all the latest features, etc. Even in those situations, many people dislike the "soap opera effect" of many of newer features like motion interpolation on 120Hz+ sets.

For me, the most important things are response time (rarely advertised correctly these days, probably have to read home theatre forum reviews) and black levels. Plasmas and LEDs with selective dimming are best for this. The classic symptom of poor black levels is a washed out image, poor contrast, and grey instead of black. Plasmas are naturally good at black because of the gases used and LEDs are better than LCDs at black levels because they can selectively dim LEDs in the panel where black appears in the picture whereas LCDs rely on CCFL backlights which flood the image and cannot be selectively dimmed.

We really need to sticky a TV buying thread. There is a post like every week.

[brocoli]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all your knowledge and help. Sorry once again that I couldn't find a previous thread for this. I know how much we all hate double posters. Anyways. Looks like it's going to be an LCD for me, which is fine. Thank you

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I still prefer plasmas as they are cheaper and are as vibrant and have deeper blacks than some of the leading LEDs. The electricity consumption only works out to about $20-$40 extra a year.
The drawbacks are the plasmas are heavy since the entire front is heavy glass and that polished glass also leads to glare issues if there is a lot of light where the TV will be. If you have a lot of sunlight shining in and it will reflect on the TV, perhaps avoid Plasma but otherwise I always prefer them. With your bay window setup, I would definitely assume glare would be a big problem so perhaps avoid plasma and find a screen that works well with your lighting environment.


For gaming, don't bother with 120Hz TVs if you can save money by going for a 60Hz TV. 120hz offers no advantage to video games unless you are doing 3D. It can even be a negative experience since 120hz sets generally have worse input lag. Console videogames are almost all 720p (or lower!) locked to 30 or 60 FPS (or slower!) so 120Hz won't do anything unless you are PC gaming and have games and hardware that can actually run at 1920x1080 @ 120 FPS with a 120Hz v-sync to avoid tearing.

If you are watching sports on broadcast TV, every cable/HD satellite package is basically heavily compressed (with artifacting) 720p @ 60Hz anyway so again, 120Hz is useless. The only sports signal that used to be uncompressed 1080p (or maybe it was 1080i) used to be CBC HNIC OTA but I believe they've cut that down to 720p also a few months ago.

Honestly, most TV stuff is marketing and fluff and most people don't realize with current gen games and television, all they need is a 60Hz, 720p TV because your source signals are rarely any better than that. You only start caring about 1080p, 24p frame rate, 120-240Hz refresh rates, 3D, etc. when you are a big home theatre cinema-phile and watch everything on the highest definition Blu Rays with players with all the latest features, etc. Even in those situations, many people dislike the "soap opera effect" of many of newer features like motion interpolation on 120Hz+ sets.

For me, the most important things are response time (rarely advertised correctly these days, probably have to read home theatre forum reviews) and black levels. Plasmas and LEDs with selective dimming are best for this. The classic symptom of poor black levels is a washed out image, poor contrast, and grey instead of black. Plasmas are naturally good at black because of the gases used and LEDs are better than LCDs at black levels because they can selectively dim LEDs in the panel where black appears in the picture whereas LCDs rely on CCFL backlights which flood the image and cannot be selectively dimmed.

We really need to sticky a TV buying thread. There is a post like every week.

While I agree with most of your post, the bold part is actually no longer as true as it used to be. When I got my Gateway installed, I was shocked to find that it actually had 1080p.

The only time I have regretted not having 1080p, in the nearly 5 years I have owned my TV.

[Rhettzky]

It's also not as simple as Plasma's Vs. LCD/LED's. The spec's vary from brand, model, series, etc. You can pick up plasma's with crappy black levels and poor motion handling if you are not careful. Also, be careful with just picking the best looking ones in the stores. Some TV's get hooked up with fancy loop programming with slow motion and bright color scenes and look amazing in the store. Once you check them out for a hockey game it might be a different story.

Check out www.televisioninfo.com for some great technical reviews of all the latest models. Also, AVS forum is pretty good for user reviews but there are a few fanboys there that answer questions about LG's with "get a panasonic". So things can get derailed.

There was a great post on here about them a while back, so try searching this forum for some input as well.