Plasmas aren't that good

[tbewick]

The black levels on a plasma screen I recently got are rubbish. I'd advise anyone interested in buying a plasma screen to view some playback material in a dark room before buying (e.g. 2001, Alien, Star Wars etc.). I thought that only LCD screens suffered from this problem but it appears that plasmas are just as bad. Blacks become a bright slate grey and look quite awful. I've tried playing around with the settings but nothing makes any difference. Despite the plasma's larger screen size, loads of useless features, and sharp picture, I preferred my old Panasonic 28 inch CRT (one of those Quintrix ones). It had brilliant colours and pure blacks, but has sadly packed up. Another thing in CRT's favour was none of this screen burn problem. I guess I'll just have to live with it.

 

[Sheep]

I will always have my Sony VVega tube. Though I will get an LCD for HD, my tube ALWAYS looked nicer then anything else I have seen.

SheepStar

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

CRTs do burn in. I have a Star Invaders arcade game that I can tell you the high score on, after its been shut-off for years!

 

[jonnythan]

What kind of plasma did you get?

Some are significantly better than others.

 

[Audioholics]

You really can't make an accurate blanket statement that Plasmas aren't that good. You can easily get what you pay for with those models and I have seen some excellent displays. As for plasma vs. CRT - it is rarely a comparison of black levels that steers people towards a flat panel in the first place.

It sounds like you got a model that happened to have mediocre performance in that area.

You should really post the manufacturer and model number and realize that in any retail store I am aware of, a quick check can be performed to get a feel for black levels.

Plasma are an excellent technology - especially while LCD continues to mature.

 

[tbewick]

What kind of plasma did you get?

Some are significantly better than others.

It's a Pioneer 43 inch one (Pioneer PDP-436XDE). It did receive good reviews, particularly for the black level performance:

'The set’s black levels are terrific, too. As The Bride [Kill Bill] motorcycles around Tokyo at night, for instance, there was enough genuine blackness, subtle colour toning and visible background detail in the night sky to give the picture an unprecedented sense of scale.'

- http://www.homecinemachoice.com/cgi-bin/displayreview.php?reviewid=6543

I'll try messing around with the settings some more but as I said in my earlier post, nothing seems to change. Don't get me wrong, I watched some of Spiderman 2 yesterday and for the most part it look good. For films with starfields and dark scenes (e.g. Star Wars II, attempted assassination of Padme), well, it just does not look very good. I can't imagine how a good horror film like 'The Haunting' would look. All those clever dynamic range expanders do not do enough, the blacks still look grey.

Can plasmas or LCD's produce genuine blacks, i.e. virtually no luminance produced at all? My CRT managed this quite easily. Perhaps my plasma is faulty or rubbish.

 

[tbewick]

I just quickly went through the review of Pioneer PDP-42A3HD on the Audioholics main page:

http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/PioneerPDP42A3HDplasmaTVreview.php

My ignorance here of display terminology has let me down. I should have said the lowest black is slate grey. The black levels are very good in the sense of being very smooth, (it does have PureDrive II mentioned in the Audioholics review) the but the lowest black is not black in a dark room.

'I will always have my Sony VVega tube. Though I will get an LCD for HD, my tube ALWAYS looked nicer then anything else I have seen.' - Sheep

You know around a year ago I was considering getting a really good Toshiba CRT (36 inch and less than half the price of this plasma) but decided to postpose for hi-def ready. I actually regret not having got that Toshiba set now. The UK doesn't have hi-def yet, but I would rather have standard def screen with deep blacks than one of these LCD/plasmas. High quality standard def is good enough for me.

 

[Khellandros66]

Good question, what source are we talking DVD, HD and what models /brands??

~Bob

 

[j_garcia]

IMO, if you aren't spending top $$ on a Plasma, you aren't going to achieve the black levels of a good CRT. That's why I still use a CRT in my HT; everything else are (smaller) LCD. My Dad's Samsung LCD has pretty good black levels, but it still isn't as good as a CRT either.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Can you return the plasma to the store for a credit towardsa display you like better?

 

[Johnny Canuck]

My Panny HD Plasma has excellent black levels. After a tube TV, or a CRT rear projection, it killed every other LCD or DLP rear projection I saw. In fact the black levels are so good, I can't even put the "darker" setting on.

I agree with Clint that a blanket statement like "Plasmas are no good" is false.

In fact, I will go on record as saying Plasmas are the best.

JC

 

[Hi Ho]

I have never been impressed by plasma displays. They just don't look that great to me. I don't know why exactly. I have seen some top models from Panasonic and Pioneer Elite properly calibrated in good lighting conditions at a local high end HT store. While they look OK, they didn't blow me away. That's not to mention the constant flicker I see that makes them unwatchable.

LCD flat panels don't terribly impress me either with their lackluster black levels.

The most impressive displays I have seen are rear and front projection DLP, and front projection LCD, and of course plain old CRT.

I'm waiting for SED and OLED before I invest in a flat panel display of any kind.

 

[tbewick]

Can you return the plasma to the store for a credit towardsa display you like better?

I could do this but the store only does LCD and plasma! I'm probably being overly critical. It's just a bit odd having been used to having black being truly black on my CRT and then going to this slate grey colour. The shadow detail is much better with plasma than with my old CRT, but it's the very lowest black that is the problem. I'll probably get used to it.

My Panny HD Plasma has excellent black levels. After a tube TV, or a CRT rear projection, it killed every other LCD or DLP rear projection I saw. In fact the black levels are so good, I can't even put the "darker" setting on.

I agree with Clint that a blanket statement like "Plasmas are no good" is false.

In fact, I will go on record as saying Plasmas are the best.

It's more a case of me perhaps having over-the-top expectations for the set. I didn't realise that plasma screens (at least my one) do not display very dark blacks. I thought that the darkest black would be similar to that possible with a CRT. I know that LCD's have a backlight but I thought that plasmas would be able to show true black. In all the reviews of plasmas I've looked at there hasn't been mention of this inability. The Iiyama CRT I'm using now can display a much darker black in sRGB mode. I don't know enough about the motion picture (?) colour space to know what absolute luminance/light intensity is considered lowest black/0 IRE/7.5 IRE.

Another slightly unrelated question on this point is why don't TV's come with a preset with the correct (or at least near to the correct) video settings? New computer monitors have the sRGB preset available. In this setting, all the brightness, contrast, and colour controls have fixed values. You then adjust the gamma level and have a reasonably well optimised display, perhaps with the exclusion of correct greyscale.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

I had a Panasonic 32" Tao tube TV for a few years and as far as I am concerned, was the sharpest and crispest picture I have ever seen. My Panny Plasma , when watching a movie or HD TV, is just as good but 42". I am serious.

I don't want to start a debate on which is better but I had a Sony 50" and 50" Hitachi LCD RPTV for a month demo'ing themand the screen door effect was too much to take. No screen door with a plasma and is far closer to a tube picture than a RPTV. And DLP isn't as good and is outdated technology. The HItachi I tried was excellent. Best black levels on a LCD Rear projection.

Some regular TV channels are really bad on plasma, however and it's very frustrasting. You hope the show you want to watch is in HD. I have to say, watching American Idol in HD is like looking out a window.

The problem with plasma is because of its detail, it shows all imperfections as well. crap in, crap out. But with high quality source, it can not be beat and is the closest to a tube TV IMO.

 

[mulester7]

.....this is a very relevant thread imo, and the posts just immediate have been very enlightening....I will keep my 13 year-old 35 inch studio-lines Mitsubishi even when I get a projector, and it will be behind a pull-up screen I guess mainly for cable viewing or when I have whatever running through the system as sorta' background when I am online, know what I mean?....not trying to turn the thread in a different direction but just to bend it a little, can anyone comment, with experience please, the difference in picture quality between plasma and a projector?....

 

[tbewick]

CRTs do burn in. I have a Star Invaders arcade game that I can tell you the high score on, after its been shut-off for years!

You must have liked that game a lot The only video games I ever played were on the Spectrum ZX and ZX-128's. Most of the games were too rubbish for screen burn to occur. A game called 'Uridium' was good fun though, so was 'The Great Escape'.

Some regular TV channels are really bad on plasma, however and it's very frustrasting. You hope the show you want to watch is in HD. I have to say, watching American Idol in HD is like looking out a window.

The problem with plasma is because of its detail, it shows all imperfections as well. crap in, crap out. But with high quality source, it can not be beat and is the closest to a tube TV IMO.

I've just had to move my sofa back a few feet because of this. It must be around 10 feet away from the screen now. At this distance, even early episodes of Star Trek TNG on are watchable. When HD arrives in the UK, I'll probably be still watching quite a lot of SD stuff to warrant this extra viewing distance.

I'd agree that plasma can look really superb and much better than CRT, but the way lowest black is shown as slate grey did surprise me. The LCD's I've seen have the same limitation because of the backlight used. The fact that professional graphics and video monitor companies like Eizo, Silicon Graphics, and Sony have moved to LCD shows that this limitation is viewed as being acceptable and quite normal.

In Home Cinema Choice I did read a special article on the release of the Star Wars trilogy DVD's. Lucasfilm were quite happy to show the DVD's off using a high quality plasma screen:

http://www.homecinemachoice.com/cgi-bin/showarticle.php?articleid=867

For those interested, the kit they used is listed below (from the above pdf link):

SOUND
- Front - left, centre & right speakers: 3x Miller & Kreisel S150 THX Ultra
- Tripoles for the sides and the surround back channel: 3x Miller & Kreisel SS150 THX Ultra
- Subwoofers: 2 x Miller & Kreisel MX350 THX Ultra
- Processor: Lexicon MC-12 v3.00
- Amp: Lexicon LX-7
- Distributors: 2x Isotek GII Mini Sub & Vision + 3x Isotek 2K Qube
- Cabling: Liberty Cable

VIDEO
- DVD players: 3x Lexicon RT-10
- Video processor/scaler: Focus Enhancements CS1 CenterStage Pro Video Line Quadrupler
- Display: Fujitsu 50XHA10ES plasma

 

[Johnny Canuck]

The thing is, you have to sacrifice some size to get into an affordable plasma. The 50" model of my TV was almost $2000 more. For 8 more inches.

LCD is great too and I would have been very happy with the Sony LCD's but I got an unbelievable deal on the Panny plasma. . Same thing with LCD panel though, for the price of a 50 inch RPTV you have to get a 42". But my viewing distance is 8 feet so 42" is fine. I went for a bit more quality over quantity..

JC

 

[tbewick]

My Panny HD Plasma has excellent black levels. After a tube TV, or a CRT rear projection, it killed every other LCD or DLP rear projection I saw. In fact the black levels are so good, I can't even put the "darker" setting on.

I agree with Clint that a blanket statement like "Plasmas are no good" is false.

In fact, I will go on record as saying Plasmas are the best.

JC

Based on your recommendation JC, I'm thinking of getting my Pioneer exchanged for a Panasonic. It's rather annoying because I bought the Pioneer on the strength of a very good review. The shop I used (John Lewis, a department store) doesn't have the facilities (their sets are all probably on 'torch mode') for critical viewing but does offer a free five year guarantee. This is probably not worth bothering with? I could try and get my money back and get the plasma from a specialist shop. As is suggested in the Audioholics review, this will allow me to compare properly calibrated sets in good viewing conditions.

I read through Clint deBoer's review of the Pioneer PDP-42A3HD and saw great similarities between it and my set (Pioneer PDP-436XDE), including:

'There was also a stark difference between the beautiful jet black frame which bordered the display and the black picture which appeared a darkish gray by comparison (more akin to what you would expect from an average LCD display).'

- http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/PioneerPDP42A3HDplasmaTVreview4.php

Unlike the reviewed set however, my Pioneer doesn't appear to have any banding issues.

 

[Sleestack]

Based on your recommendation JC, I'm thinking of getting my Pioneer exchanged for a Panasonic. It's rather annoying because I bought the Pioneer on the strength of a very good review. The shop I used (John Lewis, a department store) doesn't have the facilities (their sets are all probably on 'torch mode') for critical viewing but does offer a free five year guarantee. This is probably not worth bothering with? I could try and get my money back and get the plasma from a specialist shop. As is suggested in the Audioholics review, this will allow me to compare properly calibrated sets in good viewing conditions.

I read through Clint deBoer's review of the Pioneer PDP-42A3HD and saw great similarities between it and my set (Pioneer PDP-436XDE), including:

'There was also a stark difference between the beautiful jet black frame which bordered the display and the black picture which appeared a darkish gray by comparison (more akin to what you would expect from an average LCD display).'

- http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/PioneerPDP42A3HDplasmaTVreview4.php

Unlike the reviewed set however, my Pioneer doesn't appear to have any banding issues.

Don't know much about other Pioneer plasmas, but I use the 50" PRO 1130 HD and it is stunning. If I could only get in 100" and with 1080P it would be perfect.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

I research everything to death (drives the old lady nuts spent 2 weeks researching headphones!!) and Panasonic are miles ahead of any other plasma manufacturer.

No lie, at the store I bought mine, A and B sound, a good friend of mine works there and he said they purposely make the Panny 42" HD TV look "bad" (if there is such a thing) because it outsells every other plasma 3-1. Including Hitachi, Pioneer, LG etc..

yo know though, by the end of this year, Toshiba is releasing a tube TV the size of a plasma and can pass 1080p? It will kill everything else, even plasma.


JC