How well (or not) do plama screens handle pc conections

Damnations Fury · 5 Dec 2006 at 23:08

Been thinking of upgrading my 32" LCD to something a bit bigger, and was just wodering how well plasmas cope when connected to pc's. Im asuming it's worse than LCD screens as I would asume they wont map pixels 1:1 like LCD's (and if they do the screen will be stretched). Ive been looking at the Panasonic TH42PX60B. I use my tv currently for a good mix of gaming, tv, dvd's and pc stuff. Would I better going for a plasma or an equivalent price (around 1k) LCD?

Cheers for the help

GSXRMovistar · 5 Dec 2006 at 23:50

Can't comment on whether LCDs are better etc but I currently have a HTPC hooked up to a 42" plasma and the picture is great. I've got Powerstrip installed to setup the screen resolution so it's 1:1 mapping.

chaparral · 6 Dec 2006 at 00:10

Most plasma TV's will do 1:1 pixel mapping through the VGA input at 60hz..But very few plasma's will support 1:1 Pixel mapping at 50hz (PAL).

How much PC stuff are you looking at doing on the plasma ??

As a LCD is really the only way to go for middle to heavy PC use..

As you most likely get screen burn on a plasma if your going be having the same static amages on display for a few hours everyday...(E.G desktop taskbar , etc)

Corasik · 6 Dec 2006 at 02:06

Dunno really how important the 50hz connection over vga really is to be honest, I've got mine setup at 75hz, which is 3x25fps, and Pal video seems to be smooth without any hint of jerkyness, and there is no problem with audio lipsync.

Screen burn could be an issue, with plasma, so I am carefull with exactly what I use my media PC for. Not really an issue as I also have a 19inch TFT connected anyway, so mostly the big screen is just there for watching video's anyway.

As a 42inch plasma, my screen's native resolution is 1024x768, however it supports inputs upto 1280x1024, but it also supports wide inputs such as 1360x768. It then uses its internal scalers to map it to the 1024x768 display.

Initially the image quality for text was a little problem, however enabling cleartype really made a massive difference. Sure its not quite the clarity of a TFT panel, but its quite acceptable.

For movies, or photos on the otherhand the scaling is almost unnoticable. Fantastic quality.