LCD vs Plasma

[catesta]

It took me forever to make a decision when I was in the market last year.

I ended up going LCD and got a Phillips. The Sharp Aquos line is very nice as well.

[LennyH]

Let me tell you one thing, and I am speaking as professional film and video editor. None of the today's LCD or Plasma monitors can reach the definition, the realism and the quality of good catode tube monitor.

Realism and quality are subjective, but I can't agree that the CRTs provide more definition.

Almost exactly 3 years ago, I was in the market and I was pretty serious about the Mitsubishi 42"CRT until I found that it wouldn't fit where it needed to. Around the same time, my store (a real nice store with very knowledgeable sales people) just got in the 3rd generation Sony LCD Rear Projection and I was intrigued. My salesman told me it would not match the level of detail of the CRTs. There were in separate rooms so it was hard to tell.

The next week, they happened to move the Sony into the room with all the CRTs. It was right next to the Sony 36" HD CRT, which is a very highly rated TV. I can tell you for a fact that LCD showed significant detail (from a HD feed) that was non-existent on all of the other CRTs in the room. My sales guy was in shock when he saw this.

[LennyH]

Advice for a few above:

Be sure to pick up the Digital Video Essentials or AVIA DVD's to help you set up your TV correctly. It's worth the price just to get the color right. You will never set your TV up properly by eye.

Brightness is another issue. I had to do that by eye (the DVDs didn't help much) but even with LCD you can find an acceptable balance of black level and black detail. LCD gets knocked for this and it's true that this is still one of the cons of LCDs, but these things (like virtually all TVs) are WAY too bright out of the box. You can easily change this and bring your blacks more into line.

I have to say that the motion blur is not that big of a deal for me. I certainly can see it but it's doesn't effect the actual action of the game for me (the motion of players, footballs, etc). Kevin said to watch the sidelines of a football game to see it but I haven't noticed that it's particularly bad there. I'll pay more attention to that this week. I've noticed it most during hockey and I see it most when the camera moves very quickly or pans in or out rapidly (Although I don't know how much of this is caused by the feed). This honestly doesn't effect my enjoyment of the game.

[porcy62]

What I tried to point out is that, in the professional market, we can't use the today's new flat screen.

When I have to work on the color correction on my editing deck I have to know exactly what color looks like. I have to check on separate instruments in order to balance black and white.

The last prove I usually do is to make a copy on VHS, or DVD now, of my edited and mixed work and check it on a my JVC CRT TV, at home.

Most of the time, I spent hours to do a better job on audio mixing and balancing colors only to discover that I lost my working time. You can't appreciate my work on an average CRT TV (to LennyH, I was speaking of the 'State of Art' studio CRT monitors), and broadcasting quality is usually very low, at least in Italy.

If you wish you can compare it to audio.

A thruthful studio monitor (loudspeakers) could be less pleasent to listen to at your home, (fatiguing, ecc), but at work I have to know exactly how to balance the soundtrack: music, ambient sound, dialogues, ecc. I couldn't work with Tube amps or Electrostatic loudspeakers.

Everyday Sony, Panasonic and all the big industries put out some different format of digital video. Their goal is to lower costs, raise the quality and get the most part of the market. Every format has its qualities and defects. Sadly, it's a cost for editing studios because we have to buy a new costly editing VTR for every new format.

Thing are changing quickly, HD, 16:9, who knows what will happen in the next future?

So if you like a big flat screen TV, let's buy it, if you like its colours and its design. No problem for me. I was trying to explain that you will not find 'THE' TV. Tomorrow Sony or Panasonic will put out something better, or different. It's a matter of tastes, exactly like audio gears.

A last suggestions, if you are going to spend more then 1K on a TV, be sure that they have all the plugs: S-Video, Scart, composite video, RGB component, Serial Digital BNC (Is there any 'serial digital' BNC connection in consumer's DVD and TV gears?, I don't know, but it's the only way you don't loose quality, purely data transfert, no noise, RF interference, ecc., otherwise go with RGB, less video noise then other analog connections)

And now, after my humble and unrequested lecture I'll go back to my beloved tube pre amp and my TT. As I said it's a matter of taste, we are not arguing about thruth.

Edited December 2, 2006 by porcy62

[Dmitry]

Advice for a few above:

Be sure to pick up the Digital Video Essentials or AVIA DVD's to help you set up your TV correctly. It's worth the price just to get the color right. You will never set your TV up properly by eye.

Which one do you recommend?

[porcy62]

Realism and quality are subjective, but I can't agree that the CRTs provide more definition.

Realism is not subjective, that's the reason because every tape for broadcasting has, or should have, standard color bars at its start, because you can measure the color, and tune up the broadcasting. To put it simple let's we say we have a scale from 0 to 1, black should be 0, white 1, if black is 0.2 it appears like dark grey, if is less then 0 we have a kind of unatural grey that seems a damaged LCD monitor.

Definition depends of the number of pixels, or lines, if you prefer.

In order to appreciate an HD monitor you need, like you said, an HD source. AFIK there are no channels that broadcast in HD, a part some experimental one. We would need a new HD software and HD players.

As usual we are seeing the common 'war of formats', Sony HD is different from Panasonic HD, they are based on different algoritms of compression, (you have to compress every frame of a movie shooted on film), they are, at moment, incompatible.

HD is probably going to cancel movie shooting on film. But, in order to show a movie in a theater you have to transfer your HD movie on film, because theaters haven't got HD projector.

As you can see the thing are a bit mess at the moment.

Frankly would you bet 4K on this?

Edited December 2, 2006 by porcy62

[sidewinder]

Looking forward to pumping a high def feed into my plasma TV. Thinking of getting a Sat HD Freeview box so that I can access the BBC high def service on Astra without paying Rupert Murdoch his wad for his extortionate Sky HD service. Will wait until prices come down a bit.

Edited December 2, 2006 by sidewinder

[LennyH]

And now, after my humble and unrequested lecture I'll go back to my beloved tube pre amp and my TT. As I said it's a matter of taste, we are not arguing about thruth.

Thanks, porcy62. That all makes sense to me.

[LennyH]

Which one do you recommend?

I have Digital Video Essentials and it worked very well for me. I believe they will both do the job. I've heard that Avia might have a more user friendly interface.

[porcy62]

Looking forward to pumping a high def feed into my plasma TV. Thinking of getting a Sat HD Freeview box so that I can access the BBC high def service on Astra without paying Rupert Murdoch his wad for his extortionate Sky HD service. Will wait until prices come down a bit.

Wise decision, prices should come down, and new technology will help, but if you are in hurry...

BTW, I didn't know about HD Sky, are all the channel broadcasted in HD, or only football?

Edited December 2, 2006 by porcy62

[etherbored]

May you please remember me if it was the Corto Maltese's picture?

it was indeed...

on the topic, i have been studying lcd vs. plasma for at least a year. i'm impressed with the sharp aquos line. thanks also to lenny for the avia dvd recommendation for color calibration.

as you were,

-e-

Edited December 2, 2006 by etherbored

[RDK]

Don'y know how it is outside the U.S., but here virtually all prime-time network programing is now broadcast over-the-air in HD. It's free and it looks wonderful!

[sidewinder]

Looking forward to pumping a high def feed into my plasma TV. Thinking of getting a Sat HD Freeview box so that I can access the BBC high def service on Astra without paying Rupert Murdoch his wad for his extortionate Sky HD service. Will wait until prices come down a bit.

Wise decision, prices should come down, and new technology will help, but if you are in hurry...

BTW, I didn't know about HD Sky, are all the channel broadcasted in HD, or only football?

Their HD service includes several Sky channels (inc. sport) in Hi Def plus BBC Hi Def and probably a few others. Hate paying Murdoch anything though !

My suspicion is that the number of free Hi Def channels on Astra will increase over the next year or two.

[porcy62]

May you please remember me if it was the Corto Maltese's picture?

it was indeed...

I suspected it, unfortunately I couldn't find the same picture in my computer nor couldn't in google.

[porcy62]

I apology for my ignorance about HD broadcasting. You know, here in the South of the World...

A couple of questions to our US friends:

Do they broadcasting only -over the air- nor by cable or satellite?

Do you note the difference between a HD shooting program and non HD ?

I mean that a real HD should starts from the camera and ends on your HD screen.

Because HD cameras are quite expensive, I presume they use them in studio or for particular events really popular with big budget like NBA, ecc. In a football (soccer for you overseas ) match there are dozens of cameras, they all should be HD. Since the trend is light ENG troupes around the world to get the events, I suspect that most of what you are watching at is not HD from starts to ends.

Industries are developing lighter and cheaper digital HD cameras, but in my studio I wasn't so impressed with their image quality. It seems to me that they only respect the requirements of the format, ie number of lines, pixel, ecc., but they suffer from the heavy digital compression in order to record a major number of informations on a small tape.

My two cents is that all this is the last attempt to get the last money from the old medium (TV broadcasting), waiting for the new one (TV on demand through broad band optical fiber, i.e. the next step of internet).

Something that is already happening with music.

Edited December 2, 2006 by porcy62

[porcy62]

BTW My wife will come back home with one of your f******g flat screen one of these days, and when I will start arguing about the price, she will point me my TT out...

[LennyH]

porcy62,

HD is delivered here by cable, satelite and through the air (picked up by an HD antenna). There's actually a lot of HD programming now, thankfully.

The difference in night and day. It's fantastic.

It is HD all the way like you describe for a lot of the new programming (TV shows, sporting events, etc). Although there are expections:

- Some things are broadcast over a HD channel but it's 4:3 and not true HD. This is better quality than a regular digital channel but it's not HD.

- During a sporting event, not all of the cameras used are necessarily HD. During the big events, the majority of the shots are in HD but it's obvious during some shots that an HD camera is not being used. Many sporting events are still in 4:3, unfortunately.

-Most movies were transferred from film, of course, as are documentaries but the transfer is usually very good. Some documentaries that were originally done on film still look incredible.

HD has come a long way over the 3 years since I fist got it.

[porcy62]

Thanks LennyH.

Just discovered that in Italy we have only one experimental HD broadcasting channel, though HD shooting is developing here too, but it's broadcasted in the traditional way. Obviously it's on Murdock satellite's bunch of channels, and it's not free of charge.

So I presume that for me an HD screen is useless at the moment, when they will put out an HD superDVD and a conspicuos number of old and classic movies, from Chaplin to Ford, from Truffaut to Kubrick, from Tarkovskij to Polansky, I will consider to buy one, unless my wife will beat me before.

[sidewinder]

Just heard that over here in the UK, the Freeview (terrestrial, non-Sat TV) trial of about 400 households in London to put HD channels on the service has been a success. Hopefully therefore they will start to add HD channels to the digital Freeview service (he says, hopefully).

Anything to avoid the Murdoch $$

[Claude]

So I presume that for me an HD screen is useless at the moment, when they will put out an HD superDVD and a conspicuos number of old and classic movies, from Chaplin to Ford, from Truffaut to Kubrick, from Tarkovskij to Polansky, I will consider to buy one, unless my wife will beat me before.

For most people, it's the size of the screen (and the flatness) that makes them decide for a LCD or plasma. There is no CRT screen larger than 36", and CRTs cannot be attached to the wall.

The higher resolution of these screens is already noticable with standard DVD playback. People who use the LCD TV with their game console or the PC will also benefit from the increased resolution.

However standard definition TV usually looks better on classic CRT screens.

So the best choice depends on what the screen is used for.

Edited December 3, 2006 by Claude

[porcy62]

The higher resolution of these screens is already noticable with standard DVD playback. People who use the LCD TV with their game console or the PC will also benefit from the increased resolution.

However standard definition TV usually looks better on classic CRT screens.

So the best choice depends on what the screen is used for.

OK! You all persuaded me!

Tomorrow my wife will go for a big LCD TV, and I will go for a new 4K cartridge.

Joking apart, I will have a closer look at the LCD TV you named here. I'll bring with myself some DVDs I know well: 'Lawrence of Arabia', 'Once Upon A Time In The West', and 'Saving Private Ryan', the latest just to check if the LCD can survive 'the motion blur proof' of the first 20'. Maybe a better proof would be the Wimbledon Final Match, but I doubt I can find it in the Video Shop. Another good test for definition is a sequence of trees with the leaves hit by wind, wide shot, medium shot, details. So maybe I'll bring Antonioni's 'Blow Up' too.

Joking again, pornos should be great on a big screen, well... maybe too great for my self-esteem.

Edited December 3, 2006 by porcy62

[J Larsen]

I have a question. I have a new Sony LCD 16:9 TV. 16:9 = 1.78:1. I have a bunch of DVDs that are 1.66:1. My TV/DVD combo always wants to stretch these to 16:9 or compress them to 4:3 depending on which settings I pick on the TV. Is there a way to get it to show the movie in its true aspect ratio? It seems to me that this should be simple, but I haven't been able to figure it out.

If it matters, the DVD player is also a current Sony model. The DVD player and TV are connected via an HDMI cable. I set the DVD output resolution to 1080i when appropriate and 480 otherwise.

Thanks.

Edited December 3, 2006 by J Larsen

[RDK]

I have a question. I have a new Sony LCD 16:9 TV. 16:9 = 1.78:1. I have a bunch of DVDs that are 1.66:1. My TV/DVD combo always wants to stretch these to 16:9 or compress them to 4:3 depending on which settings I pick on the TV. Is there a way to get it to show the movie in its true aspect ratio? It seems to me that this should be simple, but I haven't been able to figure it out.

If it matters, the DVD player is also a current Sony model. The DVD player and TV are connected via an HDMI cable. I set the DVD output resolution to 1080i when appropriate and 480 otherwise.

Thanks.

J - can't speak specifically to your Sony as I have a Samsung DLP. But you should have your DVD player set to 16:9 output in the set-up menu (it should offer you a choice between widescreen or 4:3 TV). That should output everything in its correct aspect ratio (unless either DVD player or HDTV has some option setting to stretch the image. You should use the widescreen (16:9) setting on the TV. There shouldn't be a great deal of difference between 1.78:1 and 1.66:1; does it actually stretch the image or is the difference simply hidden by overscan?

You also shouldn't have to switch your DVD player between 1080i and 480. Well you can, but it shouldn't be necessary. Often, the converters in the TVs are better than those in the DVD players, so (in my case at least), I output my DVD player in 480 and let the TV upconvert to its native rez (1080). For film content (480i iirc), the TV will/should automatically use a 3:2 frame conversion to further improve the image.

[skeith]

Realism and quality are subjective, but I can't agree that the CRTs provide more definition.

Realism is not subjective, that's the reason because every tape for broadcasting has, or should have, standard color bars at its start, because you can measure the color, and tune up the broadcasting. To put it simple let's we say we have a scale from 0 to 1, black should be 0, white 1, if black is 0.2 it appears like dark grey, if is less then 0 we have a kind of unatural grey that seems a damaged LCD monitor.

Definition depends of the number of pixels, or lines, if you prefer.

In order to appreciate an HD monitor you need, like you said, an HD source. AFIK there are no channels that broadcast in HD, a part some experimental one. We would need a new HD software and HD players.

As usual we are seeing the common 'war of formats', Sony HD is different from Panasonic HD, they are based on different algoritms of compression, (you have to compress every frame of a movie shooted on film), they are, at moment, incompatible.

HD is probably going to cancel movie shooting on film. But, in order to show a movie in a theater you have to transfer your HD movie on film, because theaters haven't got HD projector.

As you can see the thing are a bit mess at the moment.

Frankly would you bet 4K on this?

This discussion is very interesting but reminds me of this interchange:

Sonia: Immorality is subjective

Boris: Yes, but subjectivity is objective

Sonia: Not in any rational scheme of perception

Boris: Perception is irrational and implies imminence ...

and by the way, how good is that 26 inch Sharp LCD?

[porcy62]

Realism and quality are subjective, but I can't agree that the CRTs provide more definition.

Realism is not subjective, that's the reason because every tape for broadcasting has, or should have, standard color bars at its start, because you can measure the color, and tune up the broadcasting. To put it simple let's we say we have a scale from 0 to 1, black should be 0, white 1, if black is 0.2 it appears like dark grey, if is less then 0 we have a kind of unatural grey that seems a damaged LCD monitor.

Definition depends of the number of pixels, or lines, if you prefer.

In order to appreciate an HD monitor you need, like you said, an HD source. AFIK there are no channels that broadcast in HD, a part some experimental one. We would need a new HD software and HD players.

As usual we are seeing the common 'war of formats', Sony HD is different from Panasonic HD, they are based on different algoritms of compression, (you have to compress every frame of a movie shooted on film), they are, at moment, incompatible.

HD is probably going to cancel movie shooting on film. But, in order to show a movie in a theater you have to transfer your HD movie on film, because theaters haven't got HD projector.

As you can see the thing are a bit mess at the moment.

Frankly would you bet 4K on this?

This discussion is very interesting but reminds me of this interchange:

Sonia: Immorality is subjective

Boris: Yes, but subjectivity is objective

Sonia: Not in any rational scheme of perception

Boris: Perception is irrational and implies imminence ...

and by the way, how good is that 26 inch Sharp LCD?

The Sharps are not so bad because they are manufactered outside US.

Skeith! Long times!

How are you?

Edited December 4, 2006 by porcy62