MarkGray

Well, im looking to get a 42" TV with surround sound system. I have about £1000ish to spend.

I want HD for the xbox, and i might get blu-ray sometime in the future. The guy in currys told me that unless im going to use HD all the time i should go for a Plasma. Do you guys agree? He also said that panasonic are the way to go if i could afford it, if not then samsung.

What would you guys recommend?

Thanks in advance

Brun

Plasma all the way. Pana is the one to go for at that money but if it was my cash i would be buying an LG 50"

Scoobyols69

I SUGGEST the make Samsung they were the first company to bring out a HD tv .. plasma will burn out in couple of years and will need to be replaved so i recommend lcd ,, it all depends wether or not you watch tv alot if you do then plasma

Devious

iTrader: (4)

samsung is the best for quality... value wise is lg. ( dont knock 'em as they are made with same screens as samsung)

as for HD any modern TV that size shud have full HMDI input.. the diff between 1080i and 1080p in minimal unless yur running full bluray system. then not every1 can see the diff!!

choosing between plasma and lcd is easy.. how big is your room and where will u be sitting? will you be facing it straight on or at an angle? that will decide for u

bob r

iTrader: (46)

I bought a 42" Panasonic plasma in January. I bought it from John Lewis (price matched) and got their free 5yr warranty.

The tv looks fantastic with it's piano Black surround and awesome picture quality. I also got a Panasonic surround system with tall speakers.

I also have a 32" Samsung lcd which is nowhere near as good picture quality as the Panasonic. Night and day comparisons between the two.

Plasma tv all the way.

StudentScooby

lol at plasma will burn out in a couple of years!

Got 2 LG 42" still going strong 4 years later

scooblube

???? Plasma will burn out? what rubbish. My new panny has a screen life of over 10 years. If you have a grand to spend have a look at the pioneer kuros, and don't let anyone tell you need 1080P - another marketing con. Unless your sat 3 feet from the screen you will not tell the difference.

Plasma is the only way to go, people have been conned into buying LCDs thinking they are somehow better. The picture is bloody awful on LCD.

I would not go near a sammy LCD or plasma for that matter. Nip over to avforums and look at the number of complaints about LCD tv's - the sammy has the most. And then have a look in the plasma tv section and you will see why I said choose a plasma.

MarkGray

Ive just looked on john lewis website and found 42" panasonic plasma for £799 with 5year warranty, and also DVD home cinema system for £399.

Stupid Question: How do you post links so they are not like the website address but you can right what you want instead, if that makes any sense lol???

scooblube

Try Richersounds - they priced matched mine with sound and vision. I got it for £580 inc panny 5 year cover as they are panny dealers. £799 is way over priced.

gingerboy

Plasma - 42" Panasonic Viera............ all the way!!!

Taken me two years to take the plunge, had my Th42PX80B for about 2-3 months and love it. On upscaled images you will be hard pushed to find anything comparable at the price point.

With the Xbox 360 connected it is superb, also have the latest Humax connected which only upscales to 720P but the pic is superb. Have connected a blueray to it and a good friend who has a 1080P smasung was go-smacked at the image quality.

As someone has already said 1080P is all well and good but their is loads more techy stuff to consider. Have a hunt around and buy What HIFI etc etc and see who wins the awards for your budget.

I have yet to see a crap review of the Viera range.... well certainly the Plasma screens anyway!

Good luck whatever you decide.

GB

CharlieWhiskey

Like this, only with square brackets:

{url=https://www.scoobynet.com/non-scooby-related-4/711524-plasma-lcd-post8124178.html#post8124178}Whatever you want to call it{/url}

scooblube

Totally agree, nothing can touch it at the price. Had mine about 4 months now and it's just amazing. I watched planet earth on bluray through the ps3 and the picture was something else. From 2 feet or 10 the picture was perfect, sky HD coming next week

scooby L

Plasma all the way, lcd's are glorified pc screens...

ie: useless at moving images...

Get a Kuro Pioneer

Klaatu

I've got a Samsung 32" LCD, not had any issues with it and the picture is fine. I've just had a medical and my eyesight is going, so I am not sure I could tell the difference between LCD and Plasma anyway.

Each technology has it's pro's and con's, so it's a matter of choise based on personal requirements.

LG John

Is this a level? If not POTY

ROTFLMAO

scooby L

I'm not understanding this quote.

Don't buy a Plasma because it'll prob burn out in 2 years, but if you watch alot of TV get a plasma...

Plasma's don't "burn out" in 2 years, they have at least a 10 year life (which is how long most people keep a TV anyway)

LCD's are great at quoting suberb resolution's etc... but the plain fact is the gas in plasma's reacts quicker than the liquid crystal, so you get bluring during fast action sceens... put a high end HD plasma next to a high end lcd, and the plasma will always look sharper (once the image is moving!)

andrewdelvard

So which has the advantage (if there is any) when it comes to playing console games? Plasma or LCD?

scooby L

all things being equal...the plasma, but lcd's do re-produce graphic images very well (that's what they were originally designed to do)

On 2nd thoughts..

I think once you take into account the un-natural colours/shading/image lighting used in games, the LCD's do display these hues better, (even with the bluring during game-play which you're brain filters out because you concentrating on the game not the quality)

I'd say LCD

Beef

One thing to consider if you do a lot of gaming is image retention.

Not an issue with LCD's, but on a plasma you have to be careful with it to make sure you don't end up with (for example) speed guages and health bars leaving 'ghost' images on the screen that you can then see when watching other content.

Provided you're careful, it's not a problem. Being careful though involves running the screen in gently, keeping the brightness/contrast down as far as you can, giving the screen a break every now and then and letting it show something else, and after a prolonged (say, all day) session of a single game leaving it on some other content to 'scrub' the screen clear. Run-in time on a plasma is usually about 1-200 hours.

Provided you are careful with your screen then IMO plasma is superior. My wife and I decided that we just could not be bothered with anything to with image retention and any other bull5h1t factor (you must never lay a plasma down flat for example) and went into John Lewis intending to buy an LCD.

We walked out with an order for a Panasonic Viera plasma screen (TH42PZ70B). Side-by-side with the Samsung LCD we were considering it was simply superior to us in every way.

We've had it for 9 months now and nearly a thousand hours of viewing, a great number of those gaming on the 360, and even with all-weekend sessions of the same game we've not suffered any kind of retention that hasn't dissipated over at most a day or two (and is usually unnoticable after a couple of hours on anything other than a solid black background in a dark room at night with the lights off). By all accounts the latest generation of Panny screens are even better for dissipating retention, as a friend with a TH46PZ80B says he's never noticed anything.

As for the 1080p vs 720p - if (like me) you want to attach a PC to it then there's no contest - 1080p is the only option. For console gaming I would also still lean very strongly towards 1080p - there simply ain't no substitute for resolution!

scooby L

PeteBrant

Go into richer sounds or somewhere similar (ie.,e somewhere that connects thier display up with something other than a composite signal) Have a look and decide what "kind" of picture you like best.

Whatever you do, don't let someone here *tell* you what you like best.

mrtheedge2u2

I went for LCD purely because of price..... I had a limit and wanted the best TV for that price.... a combination of quality and size.......

scooby L

We're just advising him as he requested Pete,

I'm not Telling him

He can go out and buy a 14" CRT for all I care...

Leslie

Plasma has a better refresh rate altuogh LCD's are getting faster. but the colours on a plasma are more natural. I would always get a plasma.

Les

Iain Young

Amen to that. I've tried my xbox and PS3 through both (LCD and Plasma), and plasma is definitely a lot better (especially when moving and not looking at still shots). Running both through a 42" plasma Panny Viera at the moment, and it looks superb

Rapid17

Go for plasma matey, either Panasonic or Pioneer. I bought a 42" Panasonic Viera HD ready plasma in July 2005 and it's still as good today as when i first bought it.

Geoff.

PS. Anyone who tells you plasma's need regassing after a couple of years are talking out of the ****.

wrxsti280

iTrader: (6)

just bought a smasung 37 inch lcd hd telly and samsung dvd surround sound, and cannot falut it, picture quality is amazing and the sound from it is like nothing ive heard before, well worth the 950 quid outlay.

corradoboy

We have a 50" plasma in the lounge and a 32" LCD in the bedroom. The plasma looks natural and real with a film-like quality, whereas the LCD makes everything look like it's shot on video camera, like comparing a Hollywierd movie to an episode of the A-Team. It's not a crap LCD either, it's a 5* rated Philips Pixel-Plus II with an RRP over £800 (I got it much cheaper due to Amazon pricing it wrong ), so for me it's plasma every time. Having said that, if you mostly play games then LCD may be better as you don't need a realistic image. Screen-burn or retention is old news on plasma as the newer panels don't suffer with it unless you leave an image on screen for many hours, and even then and hour of 'snow' (de-tuned analogue signal) eases it out. The old myths about them burning out or needing re-gassing are ridiculous too with lifetimes quotes as 30,000 hours+ (10 years at 8 hours a day). You may as well get a 1080p as they are not much more than 720p screens which I'm sure will be phased out soon anyway. As for refresh rates, LCD have improved, but it still requires a physical change of state which takes much more time than the speed of light change of a PDP. Any blurring in plasmas of old came from the image processing chips being inadequate which no longer an issue.

As for surround, the all-in-one packages are OK, but if you want it to blow your socks off then look at a reasonable AV receiver with a decent speaker set-up. Mine can make it feel like my house is falling down at times

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Not strictly relevant....

But that's never stopped me before

My room is smaller, so went for a 100Hz 1080P 32" Panasonic LCD. Under £700

Watched 2001 on DVD and the picture is awesome !

Monsters INC, with THX set-up is gob-smacking.

Sony Blu-Ray on Tuesday for me !

LOL

DunxC

Turbohot

I was in the same boat as yours. Tossing a coin between Plasma and LCD. I preferred going for Plasma, as the picture quality is far better, and I was told that Plasmas don't burn out so easily these days. Manufacturing quality has improved with time. Static images left on plasma for long time may/will cause damage to it, or, if you watch TV 24 hours I was told that 42" LCD doesn't hack the image magnifying well enough, not as well as the Plasma does. TBH, I saw so with my own eyes in display pieces and in some people's houses prior to that. So, I bought Samsung Plasma. I payed extra Insurance cover for it, just in case if it does go on fire one day

I am really enjoying having it.