Best display technology for movies/Wii/gaming?

[jsulse]

Setting up a HT and need a display of at least 60". I have a Pioneer plasma in another room which has a great picture, been really happy with it. My concern with going with a another plasma is burn in from still images. Have any manufactures delt with this problem? Do I have to look for a LED/LCD or other display technology if Wii and gaming will be used? I must admit, the deep blacks and off angle viewing of the plasmas keep drawing me in.

Thanks,
Joseph

 

[clouso]

Setting up a HT and need a display of at least 60". I have a Pioneer plasma in another room which has a great picture, been really happy with it. My concern with going with a another plasma is burn in from still images. Have any manufactures delt with this problem? Do I have to look for a LED/LCD or other display technology if Wii and gaming will be used? I must admit, the deep blacks and off angle viewing of the plasmas keep drawing me in.

Thanks,
Joseph

Newer plasma's have more efficient phosphore and i think burn in's are getting out of the way...but keep doing a break in anyway what ever plasma you get!..''if you do get a plasma''...once the break in is done properly you can play what ever game you want and for as long as you want...im a BIG gamer online (xbox 360) and i never had any issues with my plasma about burn in's....one of the new things manufactures are doing is that they make the images move slighty so the human eyes wont notice it and that way it praticly eliminates burns in....it is called..''adaptive anti burn technology''....good luck!

 

[jostenmeat]

Setting up a HT and need a display of at least 60". I have a Pioneer plasma in another room which has a great picture, been really happy with it. My concern with going with a another plasma is burn in from still images. Have any manufactures delt with this problem? Do I have to look for a LED/LCD or other display technology if Wii and gaming will be used? I must admit, the deep blacks and off angle viewing of the plasmas keep drawing me in.

Thanks,
Joseph

Burn in is now a mythological thing as far as I am concerned, and I've never owned a flat panel of any kind.

The best display really for what you are asking is indeed the Pio/Kuro you own.

You see, plasmas have naturally had an advantage with what is called "motion resolution". It's just that Pioneers were way on top of the field even among plasmas as a category.

Counting blurry lines: Should CNET test for motion resolution on HDTVs?

 

[zildjian]

I have a Pioneer Elite Pro-151FD 60" Kuro and have been super happy with it. When the last of the Pioneers were being sold, the local Best Buy was selling their floor model of the regular Pio 60" Kuro, so I bought it. After I brought it home, I was adjusting image settings and looking at test images, and there it was... an outline of a blurry blu-ray logo in the bottom right corner of the screen about 5 inches in size. Image shifting was employed but still the Kuro had burn in. The image shifting just made the burned in image have less sharp edges. Best Buy had played the same blu-ray demo disk for far too long, day after day... probably month after month! I returned that set to BB, disappointed to not have the TV but more disappointed that such a nice TV was abused and now burned in. So burn in is possible even on our Kuro's, but it takes a lot to do it.

 

[emorphien]

That's my impression of the burn in situation these days too zildjian. Todays plasmas are probably even better than that Pioneer was at resisting it. Ultimately you'd have to be abusing it and using it in an unusual fashion (playing the same thing on it for a long time with no rest or changes in the picture) to wind up causing the burn in.

 

[jsulse]

Thanks everyone. Looks like the plasma panel will my best choice. From what I gathered so far the Panasonic P65V10 and P65S1 as well as Samsung PN63B590 and PN60B550 are good choices from current model offerings. Haven't heard much about other brands/models yet.

Had no idea my current Pioneer 6071PU could hold up well with gaming. When I purchased it 4 years ago the main criteria needing to be meet was a really good HD plasma panel for movie and HD broadcasts. What is Pio/Kuro? Is that type of panel no longer available?

 

[AVRat]

The new Panny models are VT25 (if you can find one) & S2 for a few more months anyway: http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/shop/Televisions/VIERA-2010-HDTV-Series.147542_11002_7000000000000005702

 

[zildjian]

TWhat is Pio/Kuro? Is that type of panel no longer available?

I just didn't fill in all the letters for Pioneer Kuro. I was referring to the 6020 model they had, non-elite version of their 60" from the last year of Pioneer plasma production, and no Pioneer plasmas are sadly no longer available.

 

[jostenmeat]

It was actually me that abbreviated Pio/Kuro (thanks zildjian), but I'm surprised it wasn't clear.

That said, you CAN still find Pio plasmas. However, not the 6020s, but the much more expensive 141/151/111. Think $6000 and up. They're still quite available, at least through CI avenues.

AVRat is correct, the VT25 is the most desirable of plasmas currently made. The V10 and S1 were superceded quite a while ago.

I still stand by my thought that burn in is a myth (outside of the extremely off chance that one is actually considering a demo model from BB of all places), but what you MAY suffer sometimes is IR (image retention), depending on how cranked up your settings are and/or how long your image is up for. It "washes" itself out, however.

My brother has done plenty of gaming on a Pana plasma, never had any issue, even with say a "map" in the corner for a FPS, however, there was some game that did incur IR, and he got worried. I explained what it was, specifically that it's not burn in, and he hasn't made any mention of it since, and has been gaming with happy abandon since.

 

[highfigh]

Setting up a HT and need a display of at least 60". I have a Pioneer plasma in another room which has a great picture, been really happy with it. My concern with going with a another plasma is burn in from still images. Have any manufactures delt with this problem? Do I have to look for a LED/LCD or other display technology if Wii and gaming will be used? I must admit, the deep blacks and off angle viewing of the plasmas keep drawing me in.

Thanks,
Joseph

If you have burn-in issues, you need to read your manual and find out how Pioneer deals with it. If it's a commercial display (and I think some consumer models), it has a white balance function that can be scheduled. Panasonic plasma TVs, like the TC-P50G25, have an image retention setting that uses a screen saver. The TC-P50G20 is very similar but I haven't installed any of those, just the G25, which is excellent.

 

[psbfan9]

From what I have been reading, the Panasonic plasma's seem to have an issue with losing black levels over time. No one seems to be giving a time frame for this loss though. Weeks, months, a year,..? The Samsung plasma's seem to have a problem with buzzing/humming. So far the LG plasma's seem to have the best reviews. Also, Panasonic purchased Pioneer's technology and is using that in their plasma models.

It shouldn't be this hard to pick a damn tv, I'm over my 27 inch Sharp CRT's humming.

Another thing to consider is that new models are coming out in March. I may wait and see what happens then.

 

[highfigh]

From what I have been reading, the Panasonic plasma's seem to have an issue with losing black levels over time. No one seems to be giving a time frame for this loss though. Weeks, months, a year,..? The Samsung plasma's seem to have a problem with buzzing/humming. So far the LG plasma's seem to have the best reviews. Also, Panasonic purchased Pioneer's technology and is using that in their plasma models.

It shouldn't be this hard to pick a damn tv, I'm over my 27 inch Sharp CRT's humming.

Another thing to consider is that new models are coming out in March. I may wait and see what happens then.

If a Panasonic loses the black level, it just means they look like most other brands but it's not an issue of losing black level, it's that the brightness is increased, sometimes automatically. They made some changes to the settings and it slows the increase. There's always the option of turning the brightness or contrast down. Using a test disc is a good way to make sure the settings are best for you, too.

Panasonic built the last Pioneer plasma displays. Whether they bought the technology may be a matter of debate.

Look at the Panasonic G20 and G25. Standing 4' away with the 2010 Crossroads Festival, it still looks really good.

 

[jsulse]

Priced checked the Panasonic VT25 and it's going for around $4300. My price range for a plasma is around $2000. Is there an older (2010 or older) Panasonic or other make/model to look at in my price range that would get the job done?

 

[AVRat]

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-TC-P65S2-65-Inch-1080p-Plasma/dp/B00391Z89K

 

[ssgthollywood]

I have a Samsung 50" PNC550 and absolutely love it. The colors are spot-on once properly calibrated, and the black levels are magnificent. It's got a great film-like appeal and has exceeded every one of my expectations.

I do think burn-in is still necessary, but not for the reason many think. Burn-in is really just an uneven aging of the phosphors. The phosphors in a plasma set are hottest when they're new and do the most rapid aging during this time (100-200 initial hours of display time).

By running a break-in disk of gradually phasing bright colors through gray to white, ensures the phosphors age very evenly, creating a great reduction in the risk that a HUD in a game, a ticker from a news or sports channel, or a station identification logo will unevenly age the phosphors in that area of the screen, thereby forming a recognizable pattern (or, as many refer to it, being burned in). This should be done for at least the first 120 hours.

It's speculated that many of the major plasma manufacturers no longer recommend this due to losing market share to LCDs that are bought by people who buy the misperceptions in the marketplace about burn-in. As most videophiles will attest, plasma offers a much greater film-like quality, as well as superior blacks (by and large, though I've read this distinction is decreasing as LCD technology advances--still, LCD will never be accused of looking like "film," IMO).

I'm definitely a Samsung guy, but understand that Panasonic is a viable choice. I too was put off by the decreasing black levels controversy in 2009.