Going to need a TV soon

Why not keep the PJ and use the TV for daytime viewing. Fire up the PJ and screen for movie watching in a 2-way system. I mean you already have everything, if I were you I'd keep it unless you need the funds for the TV purchase. If so PM me your asking price on that HD20. As for TV rec, Panasonic Plasmas are outstanding, if you seek LED then Samsumg.

Definitely look at Samsung both LED and LCD. Price is going to be your biggest factor.

Plasma is the way to go unless you want to blow a bunch of money on an LED. But I wouldn't recommend that unless space is a major concern.

If you can hold out another 6 months TV's will get really cheap. Your probably in the states so black friday. Up here in Canada its boxing day but same deal. 3D tv's are the "new" thing and plasmas will be really cheap.

Last boxing day(dec 26) I picked up a 42" samsung plasma and I love it. Around the same time we picked up a panasonic 50" plasma and that ones awesome to. My 42 is in my bedroom basement. The 50 is in the living room and its easy to see(we have 2 extremely large picture windows in the living room so lots of sunlight). Power usage is starting to come down on the plasma TV's and you get a lot better picture then an LCD.

My 42" was $600 Canadian. By boxing day you will probably be able to get a 50" for that price.

No doubt there are good LCDs out there, but in the 50"+ range, plasmas will take the cake for picture quality, dollar for dollar.

+1 on the panisonic plasma tvs. I bought a 42 inch myself and have been very happy with it. If you have the money the pioneer Kuro is the one to get.

Are you narrowed down to a couple of models/brands?

I know you mentioned LCD is out for you but if you have the time I would suggest going to BestBuy again and looking at the Samsung LN55C630 (55" LCD).

I too was in the market for a plasma or LED but one day I went to Bestbuy just to have a look at them. After being disappointed in the 58" plasma I was interested in, I looked over to my left and saw the LN55C630 and was blown away. It was right next to a 55" LED and there was no difference (maybe the LCD even looked better).

After doing a little research and looking at the price I went back and purchased this one. I've had it for a couple of weeks now and am totally amazed with the picture quality (I have FIOS if this is relevant). Plus I got it for under $1500, couldn't pass it up.

Take a drive to Bestbuy again and see if they have this to show. I would recommend it, at least some serious consideration.

Good luck!

I've never felt that doing side-by-side viewing at Best Buy helps. They have the contrast and brightness cranked up, and they all look unnatural as hell. You're never going to have the pictures calibrated like that at home (and if you do, you clearly don't know what "good picture" looks like anyway)
I do use CNET for TV reviews, as they're pretty picky about black levels and accurate color--two things I think are paramount in a good TV. www.cnet.com

I went through this back in February trying to decide between LCD and Plasma and ended up coming home with a 52" LED from Samsung. I had my heart set on a 54" Panny Plasma but then my wife seen the Samsung and it was a done deal, it's her TV. After getting it home and getting it calibrated I'm glad I went with the LED. Black levels are still better on the Plasma but with all the ambient light I have coming through the upstairs windows just didn't think the Plasma was going to do as good of a job as the LED.

I prefer the LED

rmknotts123 wrote: »

I think I'm going with Plasma. The price is right, picture is good, wife likes it. So I guess its a done deal. Panasonic here I come (maybe). What plasmas would you guys recommend? What brands and/or models.

Depending on your budget look for the Pioneer Krp-500m. That's pioneers last kuro and the picture is stunning. I paid $1700 for mine and it can hold its own against my Elite Plasma. Definitely a step above the Panasonics.

Ric5811 wrote: »

Can't go wrong with Plasma, I love mine, and I did a lot of research and tv watching. The only thing that beats it barely is LED, and that is FULL LED. But I also saw an LED with Blu Ray playing Pirates of the Carribean and it sucked. Looked like a freaking soap opera instead of a movie...

It is not the LED backlight that is causing the soap opera effect. It is Samsung's AutoMotionPlus 120/240 Hz modes (and other manufacturers' equivalants).

The benefits of AMP and its brethren is smoothed video, and less "flicker" (yes, LCDs DO have flicker at 24 FPS).

The downside of AMP and the like is that if set to a stronger setting than Clear (Samsung's settings used as example), you get the soap opera effect. I like it, but some don't.

Another MAJOR downside is that on non-24 FPS material (regular NTSC broadcast TV, DVDs), these 120 Hz modes will stutter like crazy, dropping frames all the time if set to higher than Clear. This will drive you nuts fast. Clear setting works great, but still has minor flickering (the transition of pixels from frame to frame). Higher settings have extreme difficulties with anything that has MPEG artifacting in it, for which DVDs are notorious, as they use MPEG-2 at fairly high compression. There are Blu-Ray discs that use MPEG-4 compression that have this problem as well, though to a slightly lesser extent than DVDs. Most AVC/VC-1 BDs suffer far less from this effect.

AMP (120 Hz modes) also suffer from the fact that unlike the main display's refresh rate being vertical, the 120 Hz modes act on the display horizontally. Ever wonder why none of the 120 Hz demos in stores are vertical and they are all side to side? This is why. Picture smoothing is far less dramatic (and sometimes nonexistent) when you have a vertically scrolling scene. And Samsung's AMP at Standard or Smooth also have an added "bonus": Fast moving vertical scenery will create what I can only describe as equivalant to what you'd see if you used a VCR to fast forward a tape while playing. You know, the "tracking" bars that appear when you do so. A rather large single "tracking bar" appears at the bottom with displaced scenery, as for some reason a fast moving vertical scene causes problems with AMP's horizontal scanning method.

And the last problem for the 120 Hz mode is a deal breaker for gamers: Input lag. Yes, you heard right, input lag. And lots of it. How much is "lots"? 100 ms. 120 ms if you have both AMP and PC Mode engaged (PC Mode eliminates the chroma sub-sampling Samsung TVs use, but induces about an extra 20ms of input lag on top of any other input lag already caused by the TV's processor).

For simple viewing of TV/Video with an AVR, you'll need to set your AVR or prepro to delay the audio by 100ms manually, as this TV lineup does NOT support Lip Sync. The only issue is that if you're a gamer and frequently watch movies also, you'll be switching back and forth from 100ms <-> 0ms audio delay, as AVRs do not support system-wide audio delay per source.

These TVs can look great, especially once calibrated (DO NOT judge the in-store image as "useable" because they ARE NOT CALIBRATED.

OK, now that I'm done extolling the virtues and demons of AMP and the 120 Hz modes, on to another killer for Samsung's LED lineup: LED Shutdown.

What is LED Shutdown? It's one of Samsung's ludicrous ways of getting that vaunted 5,000,000:1 "dynamic contrast" ratio. What happens is as the picture approaches 16 on the 0-255 color spectrum for black, the LEDs shut off completely.

Anybody here a Babylon 5 fan? Pop in a B5 DVD showing Delenn walking to and from the lighted areas in the ship with the Grey Council. As you leave the lighted area and the screen approaches (but does not reach complete darkness, the TV's LEDs simply shut off. No fade, no transition, just BAM! They're off. And it takes a good 25ms to turn them back on again. So as you go from one lighted area to the next and so on, the picture cuts out repeatedly, making you think the TV is borked.

Here is my review on Amazon.com for people to see.

The review shows the settings you MUST USE (other settings can be whatever you want outside this group) in order to kill the LED Shutdown.

You'll lose some very good PQ enhancements due to this, but it's the ONLY way to stop the LEDs from turning off during dark scenes.

So once again, if you must get a Sammy, take these issues to heart - they are very real, and very prevalant.

dane_peterson wrote: »

Squishy, just curious... why are you bringing back dead threads to rant on?

It isn't a rant, it's fact. And it's mostly intended as a notice to advise people so they have more information when making their decisions.

Just because you think it's dead doesn't mean it isn't still being read, and as such, and considering the fact that this year's TVs (mostly the Samsung models) need serious scrutiny before one buys, this is relavant.

You got a problem with people being informed?