Are LEDs a joke??

[timoteo]

I originally posted because i was gonna move and new place needed a new tv. That fell through. However a new house has come up & as of today my wife & i have decided to move. So the search for a tv was put on hold but is now back on my list of things to get. I need to decide within the next month maybe two.

From all my research i am leaning towards a Kuro or Panasonic Plasma probably a 50". Not sure which model yet. My only issue is that ive been looking online & being told to get plasma but everyone i know in person either has had one & didnt like it or has a friend who had one & didnt like it. They say the dont last long and the image retention bugged them. This is from 5 different people i know. Yet all the videophiles online tell me plasma is the only way to go so....

Ive got to get down to a store to compare sidebyside. Compare prices & keep in mind that the room its going in is gonna be pretty dark most of the time.

 

[timoteo]

amherst...how do you like your Panny Plasma??

any recommendations??

 

[Amherst]

Timoteo good luck on all of the endeavors you are undertaking.

On the plasma front, I have a decent consumer background with several units.
I currently own three different displays with a fourth (KRP-500M) in shipping.
The first is a very expensive, at the time, Pioneer PDP-4330. This display is over five years old and has countless hours on it. The picture has been stellar from day one and continues to be right now. I cannot recommend the Pioneer unit enough, it has been my best electronic investment to date.
The next was a Philips 42", for the bedroom, a purchase mistake on my part, should have saved more money for the Pioneer. This display cannot be compared.
Just recently I purchased a Pioneer PDP-4270. Although this display has a very good picture it does not compare to my much older unit. Hence the purchase of the KRP. The 4270 is an xga/vga resolution and although very clear with great color it will not hold a candle to my 1920X1080 pixel display.

As far as people who are not pleased with their plasmas, I have had many people purchase them after viewing mine because I was an early adopter of the technology. There were a few who weren't happy after they got their displays. The problem came down to the quality of what they were input to the unit. At the time I was using dish netwk. They had a very good HD signal with little compression and it made a huge difference. The other people were feeding their units off the local cable company and the picture looked like the trash that was being feed to the display. These display's are accurate.
By the way, dis netwk's signal has since been compressed to also look like trash.
Another consideration is set-up of the display. The look can easily be ruined by improper settings. If you can later afford to have a display calibrated it is worth the money.
The pixel for pixel reproduction I have with my old unit is something to behold.
I have only seen a few displays that IMHO will compare. The new KRP's can accomplish the same and have better glass and other upgrades. It's a STEAL.

There are many pros and cons with various display's, but over all, for my money it's plasma and specifically a Pioneer KRP.

 

[Amherst]

I forgot to address the burn-in,Timoteo.
I do have a slight burn-in issue with my older unit. It appears on either side of what would be a 4:3 (standard) picture. It is hardly noticeable and I mention it because I'm overly finicky.
This burn-in was caused by my wife watching a lot of 4:3 shows at night.
My mistake was using black side bars versus the gray. This probably would have prevented anything noticeable.

I think any plasma owner needs to keep aware of burn-in. It can be an issue.

I also think that if you want the best you need to have a little prevention.
Playing games on a unit of such high quality is IMHO not smart. Buy a cheaper display and ruin that instead.

Currently with the plethora of high def material,newer and better display's, I don't think it is nearly the issue of old.

Side by side comparisons, in a big box store, of various displays is fruitless. They are set up to sell what they need to push at the time. Remember, any display can be made to look like crap.

 

[FirstReflection]

Indeed!

Like we discussed, it is too broad to say, "plasma (in general) is good or bad".

Hopefully, what you are reading from the enthusiasts on forums is that you should buy a Pioneer Kuro plasma or a Panasonic V10 or G10 plasma. The Samsung B650 plasmas are also quite good - they just don't get quite as black as the Panny or, especially, the Kuros and they have that darn glossy Samsung screen

So we're not saying to just buy any old plasma. These are specific models. These are excellent displays and they just happen to be plasma. Personally, I really don't care what the underlying technology is. I only care about the image quality that it produces. If the best displays right now were LCD or LED or DLP or whatever...fine! It just happens to be the case right now that the best displays at the moment are plasma displays from Pioneer, Panasonic and, to a slightly lesser extent, Samsung.

A lot of people - perhaps most people - never calibrate their display. They just take it out of the box, don't touch a thing in the user menu, and just judget the image quality off of the default settings. If your friends are referring to plasmas from several years ago, I can understand why they didn't like them!

So, like I say, this isn't a technology thing - it's a specific model thing. I'm pretty sure that you're probably getting similar information at all the various forums and review sites online, which is that the Pioneer Kuro plasmas and the Panasonic V10 and G10 plasmas are the best displays out there right now. Does that mean that "plasma" is the way to go? No. If you go and grab some 3 year old LG plasma, you're probably not going to be impressed. But if you get a Pioneer KRP-500M or a Panasonic TC-P50V10, then that's going to be a heck of a good display!

Think of it this way: imagine that you asked what 50" display to buy and you simply were told "either the Pioneer KRP-500M or the Panasonic TC-P50V10". Imagine that you had no idea what underlying technology those displays were. All you got were the model numbers. They could be LCD, they could be DLP, they could be a rear projection CRT...who knows! All you would know is that those two models kept popping up and being recommended as the best 50" displays right now.

So don't sweat the details about the underlying technology. I had a guy at work who kept going on and on about how he didn't like plasma displays and how all plasmas had "burn-in" and "ghosting" and glossy screen surfaces and a "soft" picture.

I told him - "hey, I just got this new TV. You seem to know a lot about TVs. Would you like to take a look at it for me?" Never telling him I'm a home theatre nut, of course

So he came over one evening. I had my Pioneer KRP-600M going with the hockey game on in HD. He took one look at it and said, "oh, I'm glad you got an LCD. See...the image is so much crisper and sharper than on a plasma!"

Naturally, I revealed to him that the KRP is, of course, a plasma display. To which he responded that it must have been really expensive because plasma displays just don't look good. I replied that, yes, the Pioneer Kuro plasmas are expensive, but really not at all out of line. This 60" KRP-600M goes for about $3200 US - certainly not crazy expensive for a 60" screen size!

I said, "well look. It's not a matter of plasma being bad or LCD being good. It's a matter of what the manufacturer does with the technology. Pioneer and Panasonic have done a terrific job with plasma. Samsung and Sony and LG have done pretty darn good jobs with LCD. In the end, they're all aiming for a very similar target in terms of image quality, so as both technologies mature, they start to look far more similar than different."

Anywho, we enjoyed the game - stopped worrying about whether the display was plasma or LCD - and just took to mutually bashing my local cable company (Shaw) for recompressing their HD signal and creating macro-blocking artifacts

 

[NakaMitch]

LED TVs are not all created equal.
1) White vs RGB LED: While more expensive, RGB LED have better color reproduction than White LED.
2) Local dimming: vs edge-lit
A LCD using local dimming employs groups of LEDs that can be individually dimmed or even switched off in different areas of the screen. The system is different from edge-lit LED-based LCD for which LEDs are arranged along the edges. Local dimming allows very dark black which is very important for movies.

On the negative side, LED TVs are generally plagued with poorer viewing angles than CCFL based TVs.

 

[timoteo]

FR that was a really good way to put, thinking about displays! And yeah, since everyone keeps going back to the Pio & Panny...maybe the Sammy...its painted a pretty clear picture to me as far as which display i will end up with. Now it comes down to what i can afford. I just 30min ago got back from meeting my tax guy and found out what i owe this year.....BUMMED! The one main downfall of being self employed...uncle sam.

Anyways, my wife & i are moving one month from now but will have to wait prob another month now b4 the new tv. Plus we need to figure out exactly how we will have the furniture so i can make sure i get the right screen size.

When the time comes for the new "digital window," ill will make sure to report back!

Thank you too nakamitch for the info.
FR. enjoyed the story about your friend, made me chuckle!

 

[Big AV]

Yes my step dad has a pioneer plasma and that really is the bomb, even with sport and fast action movies it holds firm.

 

[LucB]

What's wrong with simply comparing them in the shops and take what looks best? Why all the fuzz?

Take a DVD with you with some exceptional images that you want to test (sports, high contrasts, etc.). Would take me about 30 min to make a choice.

 

[highfigh]

I forgot to address the burn-in,Timoteo.
I do have a slight burn-in issue with my older unit. It appears on either side of what would be a 4:3 (standard) picture. It is hardly noticeable and I mention it because I'm overly finicky.
This burn-in was caused by my wife watching a lot of 4:3 shows at night.
My mistake was using black side bars versus the gray. This probably would have prevented anything noticeable.

I think any plasma owner needs to keep aware of burn-in. It can be an issue.

I also think that if you want the best you need to have a little prevention.
Playing games on a unit of such high quality is IMHO not smart. Buy a cheaper display and ruin that instead.

Currently with the plethora of high def material,newer and better display's, I don't think it is nearly the issue of old.

Side by side comparisons, in a big box store, of various displays is fruitless. They are set up to sell what they need to push at the time. Remember, any display can be made to look like crap.

You want to get rid of burn-in? tune the RF input off-channel and let the snow run for an hour, or so. The random white/black will get rid of it. Pioneer's commercial plasma displays have a white balance in the menu specifically for this purpose.

 

[highfigh]

Indeed!

Like we discussed, it is too broad to say, "plasma (in general) is good or bad".

Hopefully, what you are reading from the enthusiasts on forums is that you should buy a Pioneer Kuro plasma or a Panasonic V10 or G10 plasma. The Samsung B650 plasmas are also quite good - they just don't get quite as black as the Panny or, especially, the Kuros and they have that darn glossy Samsung screen

So we're not saying to just buy any old plasma. These are specific models. These are excellent displays and they just happen to be plasma. Personally, I really don't care what the underlying technology is. I only care about the image quality that it produces. If the best displays right now were LCD or LED or DLP or whatever...fine! It just happens to be the case right now that the best displays at the moment are plasma displays from Pioneer, Panasonic and, to a slightly lesser extent, Samsung.

A lot of people - perhaps most people - never calibrate their display. They just take it out of the box, don't touch a thing in the user menu, and just judget the image quality off of the default settings. If your friends are referring to plasmas from several years ago, I can understand why they didn't like them!

So, like I say, this isn't a technology thing - it's a specific model thing. I'm pretty sure that you're probably getting similar information at all the various forums and review sites online, which is that the Pioneer Kuro plasmas and the Panasonic V10 and G10 plasmas are the best displays out there right now. Does that mean that "plasma" is the way to go? No. If you go and grab some 3 year old LG plasma, you're probably not going to be impressed. But if you get a Pioneer KRP-500M or a Panasonic TC-P50V10, then that's going to be a heck of a good display!

Think of it this way: imagine that you asked what 50" display to buy and you simply were told "either the Pioneer KRP-500M or the Panasonic TC-P50V10". Imagine that you had no idea what underlying technology those displays were. All you got were the model numbers. They could be LCD, they could be DLP, they could be a rear projection CRT...who knows! All you would know is that those two models kept popping up and being recommended as the best 50" displays right now.

So don't sweat the details about the underlying technology. I had a guy at work who kept going on and on about how he didn't like plasma displays and how all plasmas had "burn-in" and "ghosting" and glossy screen surfaces and a "soft" picture.

I told him - "hey, I just got this new TV. You seem to know a lot about TVs. Would you like to take a look at it for me?" Never telling him I'm a home theatre nut, of course

So he came over one evening. I had my Pioneer KRP-600M going with the hockey game on in HD. He took one look at it and said, "oh, I'm glad you got an LCD. See...the image is so much crisper and sharper than on a plasma!"

Naturally, I revealed to him that the KRP is, of course, a plasma display. To which he responded that it must have been really expensive because plasma displays just don't look good. I replied that, yes, the Pioneer Kuro plasmas are expensive, but really not at all out of line. This 60" KRP-600M goes for about $3200 US - certainly not crazy expensive for a 60" screen size!

I said, "well look. It's not a matter of plasma being bad or LCD being good. It's a matter of what the manufacturer does with the technology. Pioneer and Panasonic have done a terrific job with plasma. Samsung and Sony and LG have done pretty darn good jobs with LCD. In the end, they're all aiming for a very similar target in terms of image quality, so as both technologies mature, they start to look far more similar than different."

Anywho, we enjoyed the game - stopped worrying about whether the display was plasma or LCD - and just took to mutually bashing my local cable company (Shaw) for recompressing their HD signal and creating macro-blocking artifacts

I don't know if it has been covered but Samsung makes Sony's screens. They also don't sell the best ones to Sony or any other competitor.

 

[pzaur]

I don't know if it has been covered but Samsung makes Sony's screens. They also don't sell the best ones to Sony or any other competitor.

Can you tell/show us where you got this information? This is good knowledge to have on hand.

-pat

 

[jostenmeat]

Can you tell/show us where you got this information? This is good knowledge to have on hand.

-pat

Pat, I'm not sure how much help it will be. I think that some manufacturers actually make panels of differing quality first of all, then there's the implementation (didn't Pana make Pioneer's panels, or were supposed to?), and finally the business landscape seems to change very rapidly. I think last year there was a partnership of sorts between Sony/Samsung, but now I think Samsung is looking for someone to partner up with, because I think it's now Sony/Sharp. There is a company called AUO that makes a lot of panels for different companies too. Maybe they're going to be Samsung's main partner, I don't know.

Then when you get to very large sizes, outsourcing might become more possible because any existing plant that the company owns for that specific generation might not have the capability to produce them.

I think Sharp has, or had, some partnership with Sakai.

OK, someone says says Sony/Sharp started building a new plant in '07, with '11 as the completion goal. Another says production of panels has already started there. New Sony 3d capable will be using Sharp, with something called UV2A.

ANYWAYS, there is a lot of hype too, and they're all trying to make the consumer wait for their own model with the new whizbang.

(hey, it's LCD we're talking about: Edge-lit + Local Dimming + 240hz + Smooth Motion + No Refeuling Required + LED! . . . ).


I think it's just a lot easier to see what the overall implementation is.