Why does x look better than x

Soldato
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Was walking around Costco earlier and had a look at the TVs.
2 42" plasmas, same price, different make. One looked so much better than the other as the other looked blurry, while my dad thought the opposite :s.

Why is this? Makes life sort of hard if your trying to buy a TV. They were both playing football on sky sports by the way.

Hard to tell the difference I feel sometimes between a £800 and a £600 monitor in store imo
 
Places like Costco aren't going to be concerned with quality, they'll just unpack 1 of each model, power it up and slam a distributed scart lead in there.
Add to that the fact that the manufacturers know this, so set the TV up to be the brighest, most eye catching display as they can as default.

If such a thing as a specialist TV centre still exists, you'd find each TV set up properly by turning off the eye catching crap and using decent connections such as component or HDMI.
 
use this as your bible

www.hdtvtest.co.uk

Very detailed in depth reviews if thats your sort of thing. Alternatively just skip straight to the end where they say how good it is or not :D

As for why one TV looks better to another or vice versa - depends upon your eyesight i guess.

as for telling the difference in store - half the problem is down to:

A) the sets not being calibrated properly - they will usually have all the settings ramped up to the 9s to make the colours stand out more and attract buyers. Unfortunately its a completely un-nautral look and nobody has their TV like that. If one looks vastly better than the other it could be just due to quality - panasonic plasmas are currently the best of the bunch, so are bound to look better than their competition. Alternatively it might be because one set is using the "store demo" preset colours and settings - and another has been set to something more natural. They usually have a couple of pre-defined settings, usually demo, theatre, TV, warm, cool etc.. and the best one will always be the one thats not "demo"

B) the fluorescent lighting in shops, never does the picture any good.

C) the picture source, the set with the direct feed via HDMI to a standalone blu-ray player always looks the best. THe ones fed with a composite distribution system always look worse, deliberately so. They want the one on special at the front with its own blu-ray player to sell !
 
A) the sets not being calibrated properly - they will usually have all the settings ramped up to the 9s to make the colours stand out more and attract buyers. Unfortunately its a completely un-nautral look and nobody has their TV like that.

I beg to differ, the amount of flat screens I've come across still with default settings is staggering.
I especially love walking home after work in the dark, it makes it ooh so easy to see who still has their TV on the retina burning defaults.
 
The vast majority of TV owners have never seen a good TV picture, and haven't a clue how to adjust a TV properly, so it's no surprise there's such a wide range of views on picture quality.
 
Thanks :)
Will take a look at the link, Some of the tvs were actually dark, like the brightness was down lol :s

The Panasonic TX-P42V20B is a fairly easy recommendation. Despite featuring slightly inaccurate Gamma tracking (in our review sample), the images it put out were absolutely excellent. It stands alongside the Panasonic VT20 3D TV in producing the deepest blacks out of any flat-screen television on sale today, and also features excellent Greyscale tracking, highly accurate colour, crisp motion, and just about no input lag. That series of accomplishments mean that the Panasonic TX-P42V20B will almost never fail to produce an incredibly satisfying experience, whether you’re watching HD movies, SD TV, or playing video games on it.

The only question left is whether or not the TX-P42V20 is worth the extra money over Panasonic’s already-excellent TX-P42G20, which arguably represents the sweet spot in terms of price and performance in the company’s 2010 Plasma lineup. If you watch TV primarily in a light-filled environment, then the answer is yes, because the TX-P42V20’s ambient light filter helps prevent the picture becoming washed out when faced with stray light. Dark-room performance is improved over the G20 too, measuring at just under 0.01 cd/m2 compared to the G20’s 0.02 cd/m2, although this improvement, whilst remarkable, is less noticeable.
Although many people will wince at the idea of paying a four-figure sum for a “small” 42-inch display, we think it’s refreshing to see that Panasonic is still producing premium displays at this screen size. Regardless of cost, the Panasonic TX-P42V20B is one of the best HDTVs on sale today, and indeed, one of the best Panasonic has ever produced.
Thumbs up from them as well, just don't understand what settings you should be putting it on, or if you should be calibrating it - somehow :p
 
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I beg to differ, the amount of flat screens I've come across still with default settings is staggering.
I especially love walking home after work in the dark, it makes it ooh so easy to see who still has their TV on the retina burning defaults.

Most LCD Panels have "demo" mode, most of them in that mode consume more power, up their back lights to a mad level.

I just got an LED / LCD this weekend, spent around 10hrs researching what suited me best then doing some price checks, managed to get my Infinia 47LE8900 for £1075.00 instead of £1499.99.
 
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