I am looking to replace my aging sony trinitron 28" CRT TV with a new 40"+ flat screen (digital signal via virgin+ box). I mainly watch movies and sports.

Looking at the literature the scales seem balanced between plasma and LCD/LED?

With so many TVs and choices out there at the moment, and lets face it I will not be able to buy an OLED screen for many years, the question is what is the best format and refresh rates should I be looking at?

I would go for Plasma, I find LCD colours a tad too vivid and unrealistic. At first you go wow! but its like everything is filmed at Willy Wonka's. Its very much a personal choice and there will be plenty of LCD supporters here. I have both but prefer the Plasma for movies and sport. Philips amibilight is very effective.

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skype: kevin.b.yates
Twitter: DrunkenMax mention stuff.tv otherwise i tend to block

Agree with Max.I have a LCD and a Plasma the LCD cannot display even films without motionblur whereas the Plasma is always picture perfect.

I recently had the same dilemma. Get yourself down to a curries, most of the big ones have an LCD, Plasma and LED on the wall next to each other so that you can compare them. they are all being fed from the same source so its as even a comparison as you'll get.

 

I opted for LED but really, noone can make the call for you. at the end of the day its about what is more pleasing to your own eye.

 

Also, if you go to a big tv retailer like currys or comet, beware: They have the tv's that they want to sell set on better display modes so that they stand out from the tvs around them. I spotted this and asked for the remotes and one tv was set on 'VIVID' with perfect picture calibration and the others were set so that there pictures look dull and lifeless. I asked a sales rep about it and he admitted that it was a sales trick.

 

I say again.... there is no 'best' its about your own personal preference. 

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Mick's Blog

I think it comes down to personal preference between LCD/PLASMA. I own a LCD and love the picture settings but it's not for everyone the plasma has richer darker colours or so ive heard but I like the brighter colours in my LCD I would like to learn more about the LED as not really studied in to it that much.

 

 

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/45997836@N07/4228416609/

Well there are two different forms of LED. LCD TV back lit by LEDs or LED Panels.

LED TV's will give better blacks, as the screen is split into segments and then each segment is lit by led's, so the TV can just switch off the required Led.

Now for commercial applications of LED Panels it will not give the definition that you want, think more large commercial stands and the covered walk way in Las Vegas.

But, this brings us to the Sony XEL-1. This is an Organic LED. This is when the Luminescence layer is "grown".

OLED's offer the best blacks (no back lighting required as each individual led is self back lighting) and as no back lighting can be ultra thin. problem is manufacturing is difficult and expensive for large scale applications, so your only going to be finding it on PDA's MP3 players and phones for a while until the technology develops.

 

I was wondering how much of an issue screen burn is with plasmas these days.  I was thinking of getting one, specifically the Panasonic TX-P42X10B currently sitting at number four on stuff's top ten.

 Having seen two sets running side by side I definitely prefer the faster refresh rate over the extra resolution of 1080P.

My only concern is screen burn, I don't know how much is fact and how much is lcd propaganda.  For example, is the minimap on MW2 likely to cos an issue after a 2 or 3 hour session, also the kids watch a lot of childrens tv with those god awful channel logos.

Appreciate any responses or advice on other models too, budget is around £550 -£600 max, wife won't let me spend any more than that!

Cheers 

 

I'd pop over and take a look at what WhatHiFi or Techradar are saying on the TV front. not looked at the plasma top 10. but the LCD 10 has set's that are no longer being manufactured.

i personally think led is best, i saw a samsung one in a shop and it blew both my lcd and plasma out of the water. it was die hard 4 and looked simply stunning

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@jamesb94

carsgolfandgadgets

Was it realistic or a bit Willy Wonka though? I find them stunning but over vivid, especially in shops. Totally unrealistic unless you are watching Ice Age 3 in which case you have no taste anyway ( lasted ten minutes last night before even the teenagerette fell asleep)

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skype: kevin.b.yates
Twitter: DrunkenMax mention stuff.tv otherwise i tend to block

The_Corporal:

I was wondering how much of an issue screen burn is with plasmas these days.  I was thinking of getting one, specifically the Panasonic TX-P42X10B currently sitting at number four on stuff's top ten.

 Having seen two sets running side by side I definitely prefer the faster refresh rate over the extra resolution of 1080P.

My only concern is screen burn, I don't know how much is fact and how much is lcd propaganda.  For example, is the minimap on MW2 likely to cos an issue after a 2 or 3 hour session, also the kids watch a lot of childrens tv with those god awful channel logos.

Appreciate any responses or advice on other models too, budget is around £550 -£600 max, wife won't let me spend any more than that!

Cheers 

Screen burn only occurs when you have the same picture, unmoving on for hours and hours. I'm not sure how much of a problem this is anymore. Some systems use pixel shifting to avoid it whereby they shift the picture a pixel left or right or whatever every so often to prevent / reduce it. I'm on my second Plasma and neither have ever shown any sign of it and considering how much airing Sky news gets they are prime candidates.

Go to Currys and get it on interest free, should stretch the budget to that 50 inch monster 

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skype: kevin.b.yates
Twitter: DrunkenMax mention stuff.tv otherwise i tend to block

 Cheers, I noticed possibly the same Samsung LED tv, the unit itself looked gorgeous, so thin you could probably hang it on a picture hook.  The colours were a little too Wonkaesque for my liking.

I found a Panasonic TX-P42G10B on amazon for £711, think I'll go for that, 1080p, 0.001 millisecond response time and should I ever need it, built in freesat tuner, everything you could want in a plasma.

The missus has told me on pain of death not to go over 42 inches,  there was me thinking she would have enjoyed an extra 8 inches!

I had to sell my Satan phone to finance it, though oddly my soul now feels cleansed, strange that!  Gone for a Nokia 6700 classic in black, the smartphone rebellion starts here!

Plasma will suffer from screen burn, as said similar imagies not moving. We've just had to remove a year old panasonic from work as it as the screen burn had just got too bad.

Did you have the same graphics on it all the time in certain places? for hours at a time? we've experienced that, especially using VGA input for some reason. We changed some settings and also the displayed grpahics to alter regularly. Not been a problem since.

I think you'll find screen burn highly unlikely in domestic use. Certainly less likely than pixel death.

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skype: kevin.b.yates
Twitter: DrunkenMax mention stuff.tv otherwise i tend to block

It's very hard to get screenburn on plasma TV nowadays. 

HD Guru website did a test with a bright white static image for 10 hours straight with no burn in whatsoever. You may get image retention which is totally different and not a major problem. Besides which I got IR on my old LCD.

 If you go for LED lit LCD then dont bother with EDGE lit ones from Samsung. They suck. But full backlit LED are expensive though. Just go for plasma. You wont regret it, I will NEVER have another LCD again.  

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