LCD, Plasma, DLP, HDTV...Man, which TV format is the one to buy?
 

Man, what a headache it is buy a frickin' tv!

Here's my perception. True or false?:

Plasma is a dying format.

LCD is the best, but most expensive.

DLP had promise but is just amped up rear-projection.

Personally, I think the picture quality of tv's now is so beyond what anyone but a geek could want. Am I wrong?

Help a brother out. What should I buy? :helpme

I hear ya...
I went through this B.S. research for a month before buying my HDTV.
I decided to buck up for the LCD, and I'm VERY happy with it.

I ended up with the Sony 60" XBR® Grand WEGA? LCD Rear Projection HDTVKDF-60XBR950 :thumbsup

Good luck!

I bought a small LCD (27")

and i'm glad I did! no problems with it, image quality is awesome...

Good choice! I'm getting the same one. I saw it and fell in love.

Ben, thanks for the tip. Is rear-projection LCD inferior in any way?

From what I remember. The DLP's can have more color variations on the spool, but after looking at both side by side (with regular TV, HDTV, DVD's, and video games... all of which I made the sales guy put on for me) I honestly couldn't see any difference. Supposedly the place you notice is in the blacks, some might look boxy between different shades of black. I think with the high end LCD I was looking at this wasn't a visible difference though.

I had a few reasons to go with LCD over DLP. First, the DLP's have over a million moving/working parts inside. The LCD's had 3 pieces (a hard drive, the projector, and the screen.) This concerned me in regards to repair should it need it. Also since the LCD's have so few internal parts, they are actually quite lite. Where the DLP's are pretty heavy. Another thing is the life span. From what I remember, I think DLP's are estimated to live up to 15 years and LCD's can live up to 25. Lastly, you can easily hook up your PC to the LCD for a nice 60' monitor! :pimp

Honestly I belive the DLP's are supposed to have the "best" picture, but it didn't seem as practical of a buy compared to the LCD for me. Also, once your looking at the high end stuff, the differences can only be seen on paper imo... they all look great! It's a matter of preference IMO.

Hope that helps!

Definitely helps. Thanks a lot :thumbsup

I just bought a TV for the bedroom here and demoed pretty well everything and I agree with this.

Plasma flickers and the colours seem to be too saturated. As well plasma has as huge problem with burn in, so if you want to watch a 4:3 show on a 16:9 Plasma you must stretch it out and watch a distorted picture.

With the LCD's you can watch 4:3 without distortion if you like with no issues. It also seems the colour can be adjusted to be a bit more realistic.

I bought a Sony 32" LCD Panel and I'm very happy with it. It's amazing with HDTV or DVD sources and also has a good analog picture. Sony recently dropped the price on this model to match the Sharp 32" (which has an inferior picture) so they are a good buy right now.

Here's your answer.

Don't buy a rear projection unit, or an LCD, or a plasma. Buy a front projection unit. You can easily project a 110" picture, and it's as bright as you'll ever want. The picture quality will simply blow away anything you've ever seen. You'll never be able to look at anything else ever again. It supports all HD formats, including 1080i. :)

Here's a resource site: Projector Central

Here's the unit I love: Sanyo Z3

50" Sony Grand WEGA? LCD Rear Projection HDTVspacerKDF-50WE655

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...v_projectiontv

http://www.sonystyle.com/intershopro...KDF50WE655.jpg

LCDs lose pixels though. DLPs have the same image the first day its turned on and ten years later.

Yea, kinda heard about this. Very intriguing. Any downside to this though?

I prefer LCD

Buy a front projected unit if you're going to have a separate dark room for it and you can't live without watching a new DVD every day. Otherwise if you just wanna have a good TV in your living room - buy an LCD (good picture, bad price :), or a plasma (you'll never get 100% BLACK color. if it's ok for you - go for it)

How does this look in the day with sun coming in?

I looked at all side by side, in the end I went with a 50" LG plasma.

The LCD projection are really bad at skin tones and true black colors, it's not bad untill you see them side by side.

This is the set I have, 4,200.00 US.

[IMG]http://**********************/lonnie/lg.jpg[/IMG]

Nice looking room

Yea, I've seen that at BestBuy and thought it was pretty smokin'

Thanks for the tip :2 cents:

Downside is you'll want to have a slightly darkened room (you can get away with having the blinds open, but colors won't look as punchy). I'm going to invest in heavy drapes and black-out blinds for my living room as soon as I get my setup. A pretty good friend of mine has the Z3 unit and I find it hard to leave. You literally find yourself completely immersed in the content, it's just so huge... so vivid, it's like you're actually IN the movie.

Nice thread, keep it up guys, thats why I love gfy, for the diverse range of topics, and knowing the rich guys will have the best equipment and comment on it. :thumbsup

Hey, I checked out that sanyo you mentioned and it truly looks like it kicks ass. What kind of screen dp you project it onto? How much are they worth, whats a good one or good brand? What other stuff would you need to complete the package. DO you mount these babies on the ceiling do you? I was gonna shop for a plasma for xmas, but I think I will look at getting one of these, I want the largest screen and good clarity etc.
cheers

I have a Grand Wega III 42" I use for computer gaming


What I need to do is get the new Benq 37" flat LCD panel that has a native resolution of 1920x1080!!! :)


Plasma sucks for anything but TV and movies! Oh wait....

I've got a Sony 50" LCD in my loft and a 42" Plasma in the media room..the 50" LCD is definitely better overall quality.

http://www.mintesbabes.com/gfy/sony50.jpg
http://www.mintesbabes.com/gfy/plasma42.jpg