_Tone_ Posted August 23, 2008 Report Share Posted August 23, 2008 Hi Guys I wanted to get some feedback on buying a 720p Plasma. I wanna buy one for my Mum - John Lewis have a 50" Samsung 720p TV for £699! Samsung PS50A457 Plasma HD Ready Digital Television, 50 Inch - John Lewis Its such a bargain! Thing is she has no HD viewing sources as yet (we keep a hdmi enabled xbox 360) so that would be useful - but from my exp 720p and SD sources should be ok. Is there any serious compelling reason that I should get a 1080p TV? In my house all my TV's are 720p as well as my Sony PJ. I feed Sky HD/PS3 and XBox 360 as well as PC's into all of them at 1280x720 and the images are stunning - I think she would be happy with a 50" telly but just need to know if I have missed something... Thanks Tone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizze Posted August 23, 2008 Report Share Posted August 23, 2008 Is there any serious compelling reason that I should get a 1080p TV?#No. Does she really need a 50" for SD viewing either??? I have a Pioneer 508XD and a 42" Panasonic PHD8 and for SD the Panny is a far better set. The Pioneer sparkles with HD material but so does the Panny. I am now going to sell the 50" Pioneer, it is used for SD 90% of the time, and it is just too big imho. I sit about 14ft away, at 10ft it is unwatchable imho, at 20ft it starts to make sense again. That is a really important thing to take into account. I would rather get a 42 or 46" panny than a 50" Samsung. Samsung do nice LCDs but I don't think they are as good when it comes to plasmas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Tone_ Posted August 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2008 Hiya She would be sitting about 16' approx distance. The other reason for getting a good sized plasma is so that I can pop a PC into it to play movies - we all have decent HDMI outputting lappies (mine with BlueRay Drive) so we can watch those, and use xbox and who knows when the recession bites maybe I get a PS3 - these devices are just so superior for video now from format/flexibility point of view. Anyway - hear what your saying - they currently have a Tosh 36" box (6 year old CRT) in the corner and from where I sit in the lounge its too small. It doesnt help that I sit in front of a 220cm (wide) screen at 14' to play ps3/xbox360! Found this Panny- Panasonic Viera TH42PZ80B Plasma HD Ready Digital Television, 42 Inch - John Lewis for £799 Found this pioneer- Pioneer PDP427XD 42 inch Plasma TV for under £1100 So still for £699 the price is good for the screen size. I believe this is a Series 4 TV. Think I'll nip along to JLP and see how it looks but one option (to test the viewing size) is to pick up a 50" from Costco and run it for a few weeks.. they have that 3 month return policy. Thing with buying from JLP - any issue they come round and sort it - useful with old parents! Cheers Tone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizze Posted August 23, 2008 Report Share Posted August 23, 2008 I would prefer that Panny myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chav Posted August 24, 2008 Report Share Posted August 24, 2008 I would prefer that Panny myself. I'd take the samsung for 699. When hooked up to bluray they give as good a picture as the panasonic. I never buy the tech spec bull****. eg. for contrast ratio a human cant detect the difference between 50000:1 and 20000:1 - any difference in pic is due to other things. from 16" you cant see the dots on a 50" 720p tv, so why have a 1080p... most people buying 1080p tvs have no sodding idea about physical pixel size. eg 40" 1080p from 15" viewing distance is pointless. even my old sd projector with 12ft screen looked stunning from 15" away... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gizze Posted August 24, 2008 Report Share Posted August 24, 2008 No the human can't, but it can tell the difference between absolute black and the panasonic is black. When set up none of the these screens will have a contrast ratio above about 1500:1, let alone 15k or 30k. Absolute black is the important thing on a screen, the luminance when the screen is showing 0ire, the human eye can detect even slight differences in this and this is what gives a screen real 3D snap. The Samsung does look every bit as good as the panny with decent HD, but the SD deinterlacing and scaling on the Panasonic is superb and makes everything look really nice and sharp. And that is why I would go with the Panny over the Samsung in this case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biscuits Posted September 4, 2008 Report Share Posted September 4, 2008 All panls come out the factory with all the brightness and backlight levels maxed out, it's so they look brighter than their competitors. One thing you should be carfull of is there are two ways of measuring the contrast ratio, so when one panel sayd 6,000:1 and another says 20,000:1... guaranteed they are measuring them differently. It's the same old trick amplifiers use. 50w True RMS will blow away a cheapo amp claiming 200w peak-to-peak. Samsung are fine and the new gen ones are very very good, but my money would go with a Panasonic or Pioneer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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