Plasma or LCD?

LCD…I have two of em…they are awesome.

You will need a digital antenna and tuner box to trully appreciate HD. Unless you get HD cable or HD satelite feeds.

I mounted a digital antenna in my attic and have tuner boxes for both televisions. No need for cable in my house…We get 20 over-the-air channels for free.

So long cable/dish

I purchased a pioneer 43 inch plasma last February after a year of researching what to buy. Absolutely love it for any digital picture. Non-digital pictures are not that good, but tollerable. At the time, Pioneer was consistantly rated as the top plasma and after comparing numerous brands in person, I felt their picture was the best.

My wife bought an LCD for the bedroom and it’s a giant piece of crap. Of course, she went cheap and it is evident in the picture. The cheaper LCD screens tend to leave ghost images. For instance, when the scene changes from two people talking to each other to a lighter background like a picture of the sky, you still see the two people for about 30 seconds. If you go LCD, don’t skimp.

DLPs are really nice and have great pictures, but I didn’t want to deal with replacing the bulb at the cost of a couple hundred plus every two years. I know of three people that have DLPs and bulb life varies. My sister has gone through three bulbs in three years, and my two buddies are each on their second bulb and neither TV is over 2 years old. If you conservitively plan for a new bulb every two years at $200 per bulb and have the TV for 10 years, that’s another $1000 bucks on top of the price you paid for the TV. Just something to keep in mind when dealing with projection type TVs.

If I had it to do all over again, I would again go with a plasma. Bottom line is personal preference. Spend some time in multiple different retail stores looking at screens side by side. Find the one that you think has the best picture in your budget range and buy it.

got my new system set up this weekend …

The picture on the Samsung is incredible and the 7.1 surround sound really ices the cake! I bought a HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 and it came with the HD-DVD version of King Kong. Really takes the home theater experience to a new level!!!

Threads like this make my life a little easier. My Sony Trinitron died this morning. So I’m off to the electronics store(s) to see what’s available and at what price range.

Thanks for all the info!

One thing to keep in mind about DLP is that yes the bulbs are expensive right now and so are the DLP TVs, they are probably the most expensive TV out there right now but like with all electronics they will come down in price probably within a year or so. I would go with a flat screen and DLP if you can afford it, best picture by far bar none. As far as the life of the bulb I was told most will last 7 to 15 years.
John can I ask you what brand of TV you sister and buddies have. From what I was told by more than one person most bulbs should last longer than what they experienced.

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DLPs are really nice and have great pictures, but I didn’t want to deal with replacing the bulb at the cost of a couple hundred plus every two years. I know of three people that have DLPs and bulb life varies. My sister has gone through three bulbs in three years, and my two buddies are each on their second bulb and neither TV is over 2 years old. If you conservitively plan for a new bulb every two years at $200 per bulb and have the TV for 10 years, that’s another $1000 bucks on top of the price you paid for the TV. Just something to keep in mind when dealing with projection type TVs.

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I wouldn’t buy a plasma or an LCD. WHy? Because Plasmas don’t last that long. I think the life is only like 4 years. LCDs picture isn’t that great on Non-HD channels. In my mind DLP is the way to go. I have a 50″ DLP 1080P Picture is great. It is only like 12″ deep and it is light. I can carry it by myself no problem.

I work at Best Buy in the Magnolia Home Theater dept. I work in inventory control and sometimes install if they need me.

Rule of thumb…lots ambient light…go with an LCD. Not much ambient light??? Plasma.

LCDs will not burn in. Plasmas will after about 20 minutes on same picture. Some tvs have a moving screen (if the picture is idle for awhile it will move up one line text then back down again. You can see this on music channels if you have a subscription on cable or a dish.) Will take a long time…days even…for the problem to go away if at all.

The larger the screen…the worse your non high definition channel will look. Spreads it out. Why your little 20″ tube looks better than most 50″ flat panels. It’s compressed. But take that same program and film it in high def and it looks great on the 50″ and not so good on the 20″

There are only about 20 channels now that are done in high def and most of those are sports or news channels. This summer there will be 20 more channels added and this fall 20 more. Not sure which ones. Just heard that from the Direct TV guy on Friday.

As far as 1080i vs 1080p…go with 1080p if you can. Will be easier to have it already rather than reinvesting to get it in the future. But having said that…I have a 3 year old Sony 50″ lcd projection screen TV and it looks great with a blu ray signal hooked up to it. Only works on 1080i but looks great none the less. I’be be hard pressed to tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p. Side note on the blu ray or high def DVDs….you need a good quality first run picture to get a good high definition blu ray or high def DVD picture. I’ve seen blu rays that don’t look any better on DVD than on a blu ray disc. Look at the reviews on line for those. I will say that Superman Returns is phenomenal looking on Blu Ray. So much more detail.

Just my 2 cents worth