Plasma Vs LCD TV, whats it like right now?

[Marcos]

I know shops are normally terrible at setting up displays, but all of Tesco's LCD TVs looked pretty rubbish compared to the single Plasma they had.

Is LCD TV still trying to catch up?

[alsenior]

lcd's have progressed leaps and bounds in the last few years and the technology is slot better. also lcd's are thinner and more power efficent than plasma's and give off less heat. it was probably just piss poor setup.

[Parm]

TV's are so complex these days it's really hard to say, you can get LCD's that are awful and LCD's that are great, the same applies to Plasmas.

As a result, it's hard to choose between which to go for but this would be my very simplified recommendation:

LCD key points:
Good for smaller than 32"
No screen burn
Cheaper than Plasma
Very good image

Plasma key points:
Good for larger than 32"
Can get screen burn (albeit unlikely)
Expensive
Fantastic image

[Funkstar]

Plasma is still king of picture quality.

Having stood in the Panasonic shop watching their HD demo on a 42" LCD, 42" Plasma and a 64" plasma at the same time you would see the difference.

Scrolling text on the plasmas was completely smooth, not on the LCD. colours weren't as vibrant and the blacks were still not quite black enough.

Yes there are definite advantages to LCD, regardless of picture quality, and yes they have caught up a massive amount (the fact you can now get 42"+ LCDs is an improvement in itself). But i just don't think they are there yet.

And of course there are all these other technologies we are supposed to be seeing in the next couple of years that will take the advantages of both LCD and plasma and add their own good points on top (like being cheaper to produce).

All in all thoug, it all depends on your priorities, these might not just be about picture quality.... especially if you are looking at sets in Tesco

[Marcos]

Keeping in mind that i'm looking at affordable sets, £800 is a stretch

i was a bit surprised at how well the plasma stodd out as its been a while since i've seen a plasma tv, and i've always thought LCD tvs just dont have the quality of CRT but that one plasma i saw managed to do it right, and it was only £800! The colour and contrast was just awesome compared to the LCDs

I have nothing outputting HD yet, so while i'd like to get a future-proof set, its more important to me right now that the tv does a good job of standard definition, which is another thing i hear LCDs are pretty bad at in general.

[Syd]

I would strongly suggest you go and have a look at a couple of screens in say a Sevenoaks sound and Vision, or silmilar.
Where they will be running good quality feeds into the screens.
I have been debating this topic for about 3 years now and stuck with my 36" CRT all this time because I cannot be 100% happy with the pq. I must say that I like the image I saw on a sony 40x2000 LCD but its £2000 at street price.
However a £1200 pioneer in the sale at my local Sevenoaks S&V looked as smooth, blacks were perhaps slightly better, and it was the same screen size. As mentioned before just be careful no to leave static images on plasma for more than 30mins or so as it can cause permanent screen burn.

LCDS are quite alot brighter, but don't be fooled by the initial WOW of a cheaper LCD screen, watch for a few minutes and they can get quite fatiguing.

But overall I don't think you can go wrong with a 42" Plasma - bang for buck they are leaps and bounds ahead of LCD. Try Panasonic/pioneer they tend to have been the best I have looked at.

Oh and good luck

[Syd]

You may want to have a look at this:

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=99829

although also worth a look here :

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showt...tachi+42pd6600

[DanceswithUnix]

I was in an electrical store recently where they had the old generation (affordable) Samsung LCD next to the latest (vastly expensive) Samsung LCD and was amazed at the difference in quality.

With young kids around our telly spends a huge amount of time on pause, so I don't think plasma would last long in our house.

Mind you our current CRT telly is constantly plastered in small yoghurt handprints, so relative to that any image quality is an improvement

[shaithis]

Newer, good quality plasmas are very hard to burn in.

As long as you run them for the first 50 hours or so on a lower-then-normal brightness level and don't leave a static image on the screen for stupidly long periods of time, they tend to become very robust.

[Wildcard[UK]]

Seems like LCD technology is catching up but isn't there yet. Now if only Sony could perfect it's OLED prototypes we'd have some real screens of the future!

[Marcos]

I would strongly suggest you go and have a look at a couple of screens in say a Sevenoaks sound and Vision, or silmilar.
Where they will be running good quality feeds into the screens.
I have been debating this topic for about 3 years now and stuck with my 36" CRT all this time because I cannot be 100% happy with the pq. I must say that I like the image I saw on a sony 40x2000 LCD but its £2000 at street price.
However a £1200 pioneer in the sale at my local Sevenoaks S&V looked as smooth, blacks were perhaps slightly better, and it was the same screen size. As mentioned before just be careful no to leave static images on plasma for more than 30mins or so as it can cause permanent screen burn.

LCDS are quite alot brighter, but don't be fooled by the initial WOW of a cheaper LCD screen, watch for a few minutes and they can get quite fatiguing.

But overall I don't think you can go wrong with a 42" Plasma - bang for buck they are leaps and bounds ahead of LCD. Try Panasonic/pioneer they tend to have been the best I have looked at.

Oh and good luck

Yeah i've been to a couple of proper audio-visual shops but they always have expensive sets on show. Which is great, and they look great, but they're no use to me since i can't afford it. So their displays look amazing and most ppl walk by thinking thats just because they cost twice as much, not because they've been set up properly

[dannyboy83]

Got a 26" Samsung LCD myself and the picture is excellent with hi-def content, such as the footy (and world cup last summer) on BBC HD and with the Xbox360.

I would go with LCD fior 40" and under and go plasma for anything bigger than that.

You can get a nice Samsung 32" LCD for a little over £600 these days.

[Marcos]

Got a 26" Samsung LCD myself and the picture is excellent with hi-def content, such as the footy (and world cup last summer) on BBC HD and with the Xbox360.

I would go with LCD fior 40" and under and go plasma for anything bigger than that.

You can get a nice Samsung 32" LCD for a little over £600 these days.

Whats your LCD like on standard definition content?