don;t worry about burn in on plasmas anymore.

honest! hehe

I’ve seen burn in happen on plasmas and let me assure you it took half a year for that to happen. I cannot see how anyone that owns their TV and actively watches it would allow burn-in to happen.

How did the plasma burn in? keep in mind this was about 3 years ago (plasmas have matured alot in that time) but a store left a dvd menu up for many months.

If someone watched the bloody tv and started to see the signs of burnin, all they needed to do was stop whatever was causing it for it to correct itself.

BTW I’ve seen PC crt monitors with burn in so bad, the company logo was burned into the screen even when the monitor was off - no joke.

And yes SED looks promising but then Bill said he wanted a TV this year, not 2 or 3 down the road. =)

Was really impressed with the 50u series of panasonic plasmas last year. Both the ED and HD version were amazing direct view sets.

As monetioned, The difference between ED and HD is so minor unless you are on top of the TV. Thing is though the MRSP of the HD version of the panny lost $500 from 3000 list to 2500 list.

Stands to see if the 60u pannys are still worth saving the money sticking with ED.

Avoid LCD unless you need a TV for the kitchen. Too many issues in terms of PQ compared to plasma.

I was down to the Tosh DLP and the Sony SXRD and on all my “look at them” testing the Sony won every time by a large margin. To me, the DLP just don’t look that good. yes they are very bright. What killed them for me, and this was with the Mits 1080p and all the Tosh’s too, was that when the camera would pan up and down the picture would go to shit until it stopped moving.

Also, the Sony to me looked far far better on SD content. This was across every store I went to, so I believe it cancelled out the bad video feed issues. Some stores looked worse than others, but the Sony always looked the best. I would get the sales guys to switch to SD feeds so I could compare.

All sets looks pretty dang great on a good HD feed.

But I watch television and I don’t always get that option.

I love my 60″ SXRD. Be sure to look at SD on the DLP before making a choice.

Bill Get a panny plasma….42 ED version……unless you are within 8ft of an HD version 42 and and ED version 42…..You cnnot tell the difference and even then most video nuts like me will have a hard tilme and thats side by side compare!

Get the 42 panny ED…..be careful of burn in for firt 200-400 hrs …then never look back. only thing i can say is if you want to spend a little more check out the pioneer 43 plasma…cleanest pictures on the planet …hands down….

LCD and DLP suffer from viewing angel issues unless you are directly in front of them….blah. along with the other issues mentioned.

I own a 42 panny ed a few yrs old now…and a 50 pioneer elite plasma 1120

SED was the main thing a lot of people were waiting for, with promises of 100,000:1 contrast ratios. Toshiba just announced that instead of later this year, they won’t come out with it until the latter half of 2007.

They talked about how the fast price drops in plasma and LCD flat panels have forced them to reassess their business model.

Even if SED displays are way better than anything out there, the price gap between it and LCD/plasma could get ridiculous as heavy competition, despite heavy demand, is causing price to drop rapidly.

Some guys who’ve really followed this market say there are more plants expected to come on line this summer so by the Holiday season, people expect a big drop. Also, cheap no-name brands are forcing prices down of the premium brands too.

This year is suppose to see the arrival of more 1080p displays. Apparently, LCD can produce 1080p sets int he 40-45 inch range while plasmas can’t as easily.

One model being discussed is a Toshiba 46-inch with HDMI 1.3 (one of the components Sony is supposedly waiting to get into the PS3) for $3500. This was due in May but now projected to August.

I would say stick around $2000 and then look to upgrade in a few years.

Maybe by then the SED and OLED will prove themselves or prove to have been pipedreams. If nothing else, all other displays will have gotten better and cheaper.

I’d highly recommend DLP technology for your new set. LCD’s are nice, but only if you’re looking to hang them on the wall, or over a fireplace and don’t want to pay the bigger bucks for a huge plasma HDTV. They aren’t that great for gaming, the black levels generally suck unless you go with a really high end model, and the screendoor effect would be a problem on a 55″ set in that size of a room.

My Dad has a Sony 60″ LCD (KDF60XS955), and while it’s a nice set, it doesn’t look nearly as good as the Panasonic DLP that I have with the HD2+ chip in it. Blacks are washed out, screendoor effect is really bad unless you’re sitting around 15ft away from it at all times, and the viewing angles are piss poor.

The only thing that you need to look at with DLP technology, is that alot of the Best Buy/mass produced Samsung’s have what is called a wobbulating chip. That means that the tiny mirrors on the chip move (wobble) and this can cause some artifacting and issues with movement (especially gaming). Maybe it’s gotten better, but I remember reading alot of threads over in the gaming section of avsforum.com about unhappy Samsung DLP owners with wobbulating DLP chips.

The reason why those chips are so popular is that they are cheaper to make (ie. mass produced models). Instead of 1:1 pixel to mirror ratio, you only get half the number of mirrors to pixels (each mirror is responsible for displaying 2 pixels, whereas with the HD2+ chip, it’s 1:1 so each mirror is fixed and only projecting 1 pixel.

Again, I haven’t shopped for a DLP in a while, and maybe the Sammy’s at Best Buy have better chips, but do some research specifically on the kind/type of DLP chip in the set you’re looking at as this can make all the difference in the world. Of course, if you don’t know what a non-wobbulated set looks like, you won’t know any different (which is what I think BB counts on, hehe).

Bill - Even if LCD’s don’t have burn in issues, stay away from them. Their responce time is slower and you will see motion blur, particularly in sports and action movies.

Nice chart comparing the sets….I thought that LCD was burn-in free as well, but sometimes even I get confused in keeping all the new tech straight.

Bill…someone mentioned bulb life on the RPs….big issue. They can range from $200 to $450 or so, and beyond….be careful in that aspect.

from the 2005 year (in terms of larger than 34″ 16:9), plasmas, led by panasonic, had the 2nd best PQ (picture quality) with first place going imo to the good rear projection CRT’s like those from hitachi.

Hard to beat direct view like a plasma though such that the lesser black levels of the plasmas were made up for by the 160 degree view.

For DLP’s I have zero issues with samsung as well as native lcd’s (sony’s bravia line is made by samsung pretty much) but where DLP really shines is in front projectors with > 76inch displays.

The sony sxrd is a nice Lcos unit (beats the snot out of the JVC D-ILA lcos) but its projection and has so so black levels. Also the 2005 sxrd was sony’s first generation of sxrd, I’m VERY paranoid about first gen items especially after the trajedy toshiba went through with their Lcos line.

Keep in mind also that the half height projections (lcd, dlp, lcos) all run off a costly lightbulb you WILL want to get a spare for.

LCD has, across the board, the worst PQ of all the techs out there. Motion blur, horrid black levels, and fading at angles. If you are looking in the 42+ size, just ignore LCD and stay with plasma.

The projection LCD’s are just a waste of time, rear and front. DLP owns it in all arenas with sony’s LCOS is giving the DLP’s a run for their money in the rear projection setups.

I was REALLY impressed with the panasonic 50u model plasmas, have yet to see the 60u’s from this upcoming season but those are the sets I want to see.

It looks like the DLP has VGA input and the plasma doesn’t. (maybe BB just has it listed wrong?) but VGA seems to be the best quality picture for the 360 as you can set the resolution to match the TV’s native resolution (720p in my case).

I think you will be happy with either one, but once again, I LOVE my DLP.