LCD Or Plasma

DustyMiller · 19 Oct 2008 at 15:59

Righty Ho,

I am thinking of changing my old Faithful 37" Panasonic CRT, for a 50 ish inch LCD or Plasms.

I will have a Wii, DVD, and V+ going into it, but what do i get, plasma or LCD, price is @ £900.

Help.

Cheers Dusty

Pigeon_Killer · 19 Oct 2008 at 16:06

What's your primary use, gaming or watching TV/DVDs etc.

DustyMiller · 19 Oct 2008 at 16:11

primarily for Tv, with a bit of Wii action

iraiguana · 19 Oct 2008 at 18:07

Plasma would give you the best picture for what you are using ... assuming your tv signal is mostly going to be SD not HD ?

[DOD]Asprilla · 19 Oct 2008 at 19:05

Even for HD material I'd still back plasma over LCD, particularly if you are going for something as big as 50". For your budget you can't go wrong with Panasonic.

DustyMiller · 19 Oct 2008 at 20:24

What are the LG range like ????

or the Panasonic TH-50PZ80B

Grimley · 19 Oct 2008 at 20:28

Not as good as the Panasonic.

Pigeon_Killer · 19 Oct 2008 at 20:35

DustyMiller said:
What are the LG range like ????

or the Panasonic TH-50PZ80B

The LGs generally seem to get good reviews although they are more susceptible to image retention than other manufacturers.

You won't go wrong with the Panasonic you've mentioned although it's quite a bit above the budget you gave in the OP.

DustyMiller · 19 Oct 2008 at 20:39

a very large grocers chain has the panasonic in store for less than £1000

Pigeon_Killer · 19 Oct 2008 at 20:42

Cheapest I can find it online is just under £1100 so you've found yourself a bargain. The whole of their PZ80 range get outstanding reviews.

Chong Warrior · 19 Oct 2008 at 21:03

You just simply cannot go wrong with one of Panasonic's latest plasma range, they're superb!

-Ad- · 19 Oct 2008 at 22:09

I would save your money and get the non-1080p PX80. Only problem is that it only goes up to 42.

The panasonic PZ range is quite good, but not as good as the cheaper px80 for normal tv.

Go and have a look at them.

ScarySquirrel · 19 Oct 2008 at 22:33

Plasma all the way.

Chong Warrior · 20 Oct 2008 at 00:03

-Ad- said:
I would save your money and get the non-1080p PX80. Only problem is that it only goes up to 42.

The panasonic PZ range is quite good, but not as good as the cheaper px80 for normal tv.

Go and have a look at them.

Agreed... for this reason I opted for the PX, simply the best picture for SD I've seen on any set.

Alexrose1uk · 20 Oct 2008 at 00:43

If you can get one of the smaller PZ series with the latest software versions, its apparently much closer to the PX series on SD too

Kalpsn2000 · 20 Oct 2008 at 15:46

-Ad- said:
I would save your money and get the non-1080p PX80. Only problem is that it only goes up to 42.

The panasonic PZ range is quite good, but not as good as the cheaper px80 for normal tv.

Go and have a look at them.

Exactly the reason I just picked up the PX80 at the weekend. I mostly watch SD so will suit me better then the PZ80.

entireweb · 20 Oct 2008 at 15:57

IMO SD is dead. Get a 1080p set. Give it a couple of years and you will be watching full HD in one form or another. Thus future proof yourself and get the PZ80.

I have a 42" panasonic 1080p plasma and its superb. But 50" would have been better. You can see the HD at 42" but you have sit reasonably close to the set. Beware that a 50" in the shop looks a lot smaller than a 50" in your living room. Also they give off quite a lot of heat. Well my 42" plasma does.

For watching films you cant beat a plasma for the black levels IMO. I also have a WII and 360 hooked up to the plasma and they look superb as well.

[DOD]Asprilla · 20 Oct 2008 at 16:07

entireweb said:
IMO SD is dead.

You'd be wrong then, unless you can magic huge abounts of bandwidth out of the electromagnetic spectrum, or speed up the creation of a nationwide fiber network that's fatter than the one's currently being tested.

Of course the other option is to compress current HD broadcasts and reduce the bitrate (something that's happening already) but then you'd end up with something that doesn't differ too much from current SD and is ultimately pointless.

A final option would be to reduce the number of channels since we know how much broadcasters hate the advertising revenue they get from pumping out cheap repeats on secondary and tertiary channels.

HD will increase and SD will reduce, but there is a long way to go yet.

Also, it's only worth getting 1080p if you are going to sit close enough to make use of it. Most people don't.

entireweb · 20 Oct 2008 at 16:23

[DOD]Asprilla;12733562 said:
You'd be wrong then, unless you can magic huge abounts of bandwidth out of the electromagnetic spectrum,

Every heard of LTE??? We are talking 100's of mbps in the downlink. Which is enough the provide a download of full HD movie for later playback.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP_Long_Term_Evolution

But any how I was more talking about HD from Blu ray or .mkv. There are already satellite HD channels broadcasting at 10-20mbps.

entireweb · 20 Oct 2008 at 16:28

[DOD]Asprilla;12733562 said:
Also, it's only worth getting 1080p if you are going to sit close enough to make use of it. Most people don't.

I sit about 10 foot away from a 1080p 42" and the difference between 720p and 1080p is quite noticable.