So, our main TV died...

[nfotiu]

A couple clarifications.

You don't necessarily a need 1080p signal to realize advantages from a 1080p display. A 1080p display will display more unique information from a 1080i source (providing it is scaling/deinterlaciing properly) than a regular hd 1366x768 display will. So 1080i should look a little better on a 1080p provided you are sitting close enough to notice (see chart in above post).

Also, there will be less of a screen door effect on the 1080p display, again if you are sitting close enough to see one on a 720p/768p display.

Again, resolution should not be the first consideration, but all other things being equal, it can have advantages even without a 1080p feed.

[return to the red]

wow I never realized how little i know about TV's. Whatever happened to the days of pulling the knob and turning the dial

[fanforever1986]

What is all this Garbage about LCD's not having a good picture?
tt
I agree that 3 years ago LCD's were more pricy and you had to spend a lot to geta nice looking LCD, but that's definetely not the case anymore. Go walk aroung bestbuy and have a glance at the latest stuff from sony and sharp...don't take my word for it.
I also read someone say LCD's are horrible for movies? Go ask for a Bluray demo at a store that has them. I gaurentee they'll be demoing it on a LCD...because plasma's simply can't show the clarity that bluray offers.

Oh and the reason I have a hate on for plasma is that I've had 4 friends buy them, and they are now all proud owners of burn in TVs...not from video games either...from watching widescreen movies.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by fanforever1986

Oh and the reason I have a hate on for plasma is that I've had 4 friends buy them, and they are now all proud owners of burn in TVs...not from video games either...from watching widescreen movies.

So, all your friends don't know how to set their screen aspect ratio, enable pixel shifting or do screen wipes? Perhaps they should actually read the manuals so they know how to operate their televisions correctly.

I watch widescreen movies on my plasma all the time and every time I change the aspect ratio to the appropriate format so it displays appropriately. No permanent burn in here.

I prefer plasma over lcd for hockey as there is better contrast and less motion blur.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Reaper

I watch widescreen movies on my plasma all the time and every time I change the aspect ratio to the appropriate format so it displays appropriately. No permanent burn in here.

But doesn't that either stretch the movie or cut off the ends?

[Bobblehead]

I've read LCD has a problem displaying good Black shades since it is backlit. I know it has gotten a lot better.

Both plasma and LCD have issue but in the last couple of years those issues have really been minimized.

My biggest question is will the next generation TVs (S.E.D. et al) cost too much when they come out that they won't have a chance to mature and become competitively priced? There are new technologies out there that solve the LCD and Plasma issues, but they won't be cheap and will they be a big enough improvement to justify their much larger price. With the advances in current tech, I'm not sure.

[Sample00]

Originally Posted by I_H8_Crawford

If you are looking at 70" from Sony, you must be looking at their SXRD lineup, which is NOT LCD, it is LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicone) and as such has a great contrast ratio, excellent colour reproduction, and is a full 1080p.

thanks for the info. now if it was only a bit cheaper than the 8K that the Brick wants

[The_Dude]

The good thing is that prices have dropped a lot int he past 2-3 years. I bought a panasonic Plasma and a Sony Lcd 2 years ago when I moved into our new house. Back then each one costed me $6000-$7000.

[Saint Troy]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

I've read LCD has a problem displaying good Black shades since it is backlit. I know it has gotten a lot better.

Both plasma and LCD have issue but in the last couple of years those issues have really been minimized.

My biggest question is will the next generation TVs (S.E.D. et al) cost too much when they come out that they won't have a chance to mature and become competitively priced? There are new technologies out there that solve the LCD and Plasma issues, but they won't be cheap and will they be a big enough improvement to justify their much larger price. With the advances in current tech, I'm not sure.

I don't think SED is really going to happen anytime soon, Toshiba just bailed and sold their share of the joint venture to Canon, due to the cost of production. Toshiba also is leaving the plasma market as they, like sony, were using another company to make their plasmas for them (lg in Toshiba's case) and this practice is not profitable with increasing price erosion. As far as LCD vs Plasma, I feel if you are looking for a TV larger than 40", then you should look at Plasma, they have better black levels, and much better response time. LCD is great for smaller panels, or if you are watching in a bright environment, as plasmas will give off significant glare. Panasonic are making great plasmas imo, and at very reasonable prices (and no i'm not a rep).

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Saint Troy

I don't think SED is really going to happen anytime soon, Toshiba just bailed and sold their share of the joint venture to Canon, due to the cost of production. Toshiba also is leaving the plasma market as they, like sony, were using another company to make their plasmas for them (lg in Toshiba's case) and this practice is not profitable with increasing price erosion. As far as LCD vs Plasma, I feel if you are looking for a TV larger than 40", then you should look at Plasma, they have better black levels, and much better response time. LCD is great for smaller panels, or if you are watching in a bright environment, as plasmas will give off significant glare. Panasonic are making great plasmas imo, and at very reasonable prices (and no i'm not a rep).

The story I read said the issue with SED was patents. The company with the patent licensed Canon to use SED. When Canon joined with Toshiba the patent holder cried foul saying that Toshiba was NOT licensed to use SED. It was Toshiba who was going to do the production of the sets. So now Canon has bought out Toshiba's share and needs to figure out how to economically produce these sets. From the timelines I've seen this has pushed SED back at least 18 months and maybe permanently if they can't get production ramped up fast/cheap enough.

There is another tech similar to DLP except instead of using tiny mirrors it uses lasers and has another level of potential brightness/colour saturation.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by fanforever1986

What is all this Garbage about LCD's not having a good picture?
tt
I agree that 3 years ago LCD's were more pricy and you had to spend a lot to geta nice looking LCD, but that's definetely not the case anymore. Go walk aroung bestbuy and have a glance at the latest stuff from sony and sharp...don't take my word for it.
I also read someone say LCD's are horrible for movies? Go ask for a Bluray demo at a store that has them. I gaurentee they'll be demoing it on a LCD...because plasma's simply can't show the clarity that bluray offers.

Oh and the reason I have a hate on for plasma is that I've had 4 friends buy them, and they are now all proud owners of burn in TVs...not from video games either...from watching widescreen movies.

This is why: Sony XBR

[Red]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

This is why: Sony XBR

What is this picture showing? Sorry, I am not following.

[BlackEleven]

I've been looking at a new tv for a while now. The one I want (Panasonic 42" plasma) is on sale at futureshop:

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...on=&langid=EN#

Pretty good deal if you ask me.

[fanforever1986]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

This is why: Sony XBR

well thats convincing.

my blue screen can beat up your blue screen with white squares in the corner.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by I_H8_Crawford

Bell is working on a High Def receiver that uses MPEG 4 encoding for their signals, with less bandwidth used up due to compression, would this potentially lead to 1080p signals on TV?

Haven't heard this but it's probably true if they are developing a box that uses MPEG 4. Encoding is done by h.264 developed from Apple's Quicktime format. Here is some good info from Apple's site about H.264 that can scale from 3G phone content to HD. Bold emphasis mine but think about what this will do to reduce bandwidth!

In which industries does H.264 play a role?
H.264 is an extremely scalable codec. From 3G to HD and beyond, H.264 provides excellent quality to the broadest range of bandwidths and user scenarios. Best of all, H.264 is a standard — so companies across the telecommunications, consumer electronics and broadcast industries can create products that will interoperate with one another. H.264 has been broadly adopted by organizations representing everything from mobile phones to HDTV, and you will find a broad spectrum of interoperating products — consumer and professional, hardware and software — supporting this standard. Visit mpegif.org for news and product announcements about H.264.

How does H.264 compare with MPEG-2?
HD MPEG-2 content at 1920x1080 traditionally runs at 12-20 Mbps, while H.264 can deliver 1920x1080 content at 7-8 Mbps at the same or better quality. H.264 provides DVD quality at about half the data rate of MPEG-2. Because of this efficiency, H.264, an ISO standard, stands to be the likely successor to MPEG-2 in the professional media industry.

[Bobblehead]

I've heard rumours that the Sat providers are wanting to make sure the hardware they release can handle MP4. I'd be curious of the timelines on this but I'm sure it is in the plans for some point in time.

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by fanforever1986

What is all this Garbage about LCD's not having a good picture?
tt
I agree that 3 years ago LCD's were more pricy and you had to spend a lot to geta nice looking LCD, but that's definetely not the case anymore. Go walk aroung bestbuy and have a glance at the latest stuff from sony and sharp...don't take my word for it.
I also read someone say LCD's are horrible for movies? Go ask for a Bluray demo at a store that has them. I gaurentee they'll be demoing it on a LCD...because plasma's simply can't show the clarity that bluray offers.

Oh and the reason I have a hate on for plasma is that I've had 4 friends buy them, and they are now all proud owners of burn in TVs...not from video games either...from watching widescreen movies.

I have a LCD projection, plasma and lcd tv and there is no comparison. LCD tvs suck compared to the other too. Picture is blurry crappy and the black is definately not black enough. Also the LCD(sony bravia) cost more than the plasma and lcd projection combined. hehe.

Also you must have the stupidest 4 friends in the world and don't deserve to own plasma tvs if they get burn ins from widescreen! hahahahaha It doesn't even sound real. Maybe if you said 1 friend had that it would be more believable.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

I've heard rumours that the Sat providers are wanting to make sure the hardware they release can handle MP4. I'd be curious of the timelines on this but I'm sure it is in the plans for some point in time.

I've heard Bell will be going that route this year. They get the same equipment as Dish and new Dish receivers are MP4.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Red

What is this picture showing? Sorry, I am not following.

That screen is supposed to be just a blank black screen. Notice the difference between the top screen and the bottom? The top is very unevenly lit. You can see it below with the picture of the shuttle launch. The background is supposed to be all black, but the black is crappy/uneven.



another:



and one more:



Here's a plasma showing black:

[Inferno]

Though not perfect the blacks look fine on my 40 inch Samsung. But maybe it's just not something I'm picky about.