Samsung 42" plasma - yeah I bought one!

Nah, the 42 is about right. I figure the 46 wouldve been perfect but after all these years watching a 27", Ill feel like Im on top of the world now!! Plus the price jumps up about $400-500 for a 50" and that was just a little more than I could go for.

I have gone in to stores and stood 9' in front of TV's for several minutes and 50"+ sets do tend to mess with me after a few minutes of fast moving footage. Maybe its because my left eye is really bad and it screws with my depth perception I dunno but being too close to a big screen gives me fits. If I sit any closer than the middle row in a theater I come out with a whopper headache.

Alright - got everything hooked up and running and all I can say is WOW!!

First the Toshiba. This is a very solid piece. It loads quick, fires up quick and the image looks amazing. Its not Blu-Ray quality of course but it is damn excellent! Much better than standard. I originally put it to upconvert at 720p since thats what my tv's resolution is but found the PQ is a little better with 1080i. The only negatives is the remote for one. You have to stand on the buttons to get them to work. The remote is a little awkward too but thats what they make universal remotes for. My other little **** is it has no optical output - coax only. Thats not a problem for me since Im using HDMI and the Sammy has an optical output so I just use it. That also frees up a space on my receiver for my VCR. There is one thing I noticed - on the beginning of chapter 28 on Attack of the Clones, when Jango Fett's ship first pops out of hyperspace, on my Sony DVD player it had a pretty solid BOOM at 60-100 Hz. Its not quite as powerful with this Toshiba. Its the same regardless if I use the DVD players coax or the Sammy's optical. Its not a drastic reduction but that chapter is my "demo" for my audio so I know it well. I havent tried a bunch of different formats yet but this is supposed to play them all so Ill post back if I run into any it wont. All in all, this Toshiba is a very impressive little DVD player and when you consider the $70 price, its a good value IMO.

Now for the Sammy. Man this thing rules!! Im sure if I brought a Pioneer in here to sit next to it I could find issues, but for my eye it looks virtually flawless. Dish Network SD look surprisingly good. At least as good as SD can get. There is no noise or artifacts either. I cant wait to get HD. Ill be calling tomorrow and I figure itll take a couple days for them to get out here and get it hooked up so Ill report back what I think. (should get my new Polk sub about then as well so this just keeps getting better!)

This thing also has a ton of picture settings. More than I know what to do with. I can see Im gonna have to educate myself on TV tuning.

She also has a nifty burn in protection gizmo that moves the pixels around.

The size is almost perfect. I watched several fast action scenes off of Attack of the Clones and think a 46 wouldve been perfect. From my seating distance and my crappy eyes, anything bigger and I wouldve been having migraines and considering $500 more for a 46, Im perfectly content with my choice. Not saying Ill never upgrade tho.

So for my mere 4 hours with this TV, I absolutely love it and am now a diehard Samsung fan. This thing appears to be excellent quality, has tons of tuning features, a handy optical output, plenty of inputs and a picture that could hold its own against a Pioneer all for $900! I highly recommend Samsung plasmas!!

Future upgrades:

100-125 watt per channel 2 channel amp
Blu-Ray player
Monitor 60's
Lots and lots and lots of new DVDs!!!

Just got thru watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. I havent seen this movie in at least 10 years and it was on VHS when I did. All I can say, again, is WOW! It looked amazing. I havent really tweaked the picture settings any. I just dropped the cell brightness and contrast from full to about half and thats it and the picture is still amazing. When they first pull the ark out of that tomb it looks stunning. The colors are dead on accurate with the exception of a slight extra bit of pink to the flesh tones, otherwise they were perfect.

This Toshiba did an awesome job as well. There was no noise or artifacts at all in the picture and everything was very smooth.

I did have the letterbox black bars but every 30 minutes I switched over the full screen DVD player menu for about 30 seconds and then back to the movie. After the 2+ hour movie I had no image retention at all. Looks like my burn in fears may have been a little unfounded as were my reservation of SD digital cable. It isnt great but it doesnt suck by any means. There is no distortion, blur, noise or artifacts. Ive seen other sets playing SD cable thru some sets at Circuit City and namely the Sharp and Panasonic were very poor and grainy. The SD on this Sammy isnt sharp or defined by any means but there really isnt that much crud in the picture. Another thing Ive noticed on SD is the blacks are a little too strong to the point where they drown out other parts of the picture in dark shadowy scenes like the brightness is turned all the way down. However it looks spot on when the scene brightens up or Im watching DVD's so Im sure its an issue with the SD content and not the fault of the Sammy.

Anyhoo, Ive got a full day of watching this TV and Im continuing to be blown away by it. Ive watched the NASCAR race on SD cable, Star Wars Attack of the Clones and finally Indy. I can tell right now that Im going to have to re-watch all my movies again! .....then when Blu-Ray players drop down to about $200 Ill have to buy my entire library over again - then watch them all again! I can tell right now Im going to be spending a lot more time indoors!

I know this is old hat to most of you guys but this is my first day with high definition so youll have to excuse my schoolgirl giddiness.

I got HD hooked up yesterday and all I can say....again....is WOW! I found myself watching the Food Network! I watched several shows on The Science Channel (one of my favorites) and topped it off by watching the Nationwide series and Indy races yesterday. I was totally mesmerized!

Had some friends over last night and we watched Cloverfield too and it looked amazing. Im continually impressed not only with this Sammy but by this little Toshiba DVD player.

One snag I did find was that when watching DVD's - if you use the TV's audio output the audio doesnt sync up with the movie, its just slightly off. No problem for me as I have a receiver and so I use the audio out from the DVD player and its perfect but if youre wanting to run all your audio thru the TV it could be a problem. I dont know if its a screw up of the Toshiba or the Sammy but since its not a problem, Im not going to worry about it. It only does it on DVD - cable syncs up perfectly and Im using the HDMI out from the Dish receiver so I kinda think it might be an issue with the Toshiba.

Another thing, Ive had zero image retention on this set at all! Played Half Life 2 the other night for about an hour and noticed nothing. Have had no station bugs or even black bars retained! Granted I am being careful but not super careful. Im pretty convinced that my fears of burn in and IR were totally unfounded....so long as you buy a QUALITY set and not some Sansui or whatever. I havent left any icons on the screen like from a video game for longer than 15 minutes without the screen changing but I have left the black bars from a movie on for over 30 minutes without changing. Im kinda skeered to go any longer than that.

obieone wrote: »

Congrats on your upgrades. If you play with the menu's on the t.v., can't you get rid of the black bars? Just a thought.

When I watch SD I watch it in 16:9 mode so it fills the screen. However when Im watching DVD's in 16:9, you have the black bars. The only way to get rid of them is to zoom in on the picture. While Im ok with having a slightly distorted picture when I watching already crappy SD material - Im not willing to mess up my near pristine DVD picture.

Im inching up tho. Ill pull up the DVD menu for about a minute to wash out the black bars. I started at every 15 minutes and am now at 30 minutes. Ill edge up to 45 minutes and keep on going til I see some IR.