LED vs Plasma

i bought the samsung 6030 40" FHD 3D for R5900 (hehe they had to beat another price, original was R7500) and im 99% using it for gaming and normal pc stuff. And its great, also have 240hz for the 3d movies.
 
Flame said:
i bought the samsung 6030 40" FHD 3D for R5900 (hehe they had to beat another price, original was R7500) and im 99% using it for gaming and normal pc stuff. And its great, also have 240hz for the 3d movies.
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A quote from your buddy's shop?
 
Thanks for all the assistance thus far. This is a difficult and tiring process, but at least I'll come out the other side knowing more than I did upon starting it and, hopefully, with the most suitable screen for my situation.

PostmanPot - By "PC work" do you mean the web browsing I mentioned? I hope no one's giving advice based on the impression that I'll be using it as I do my current LCD. I'll be browsing FB and YouTube and gaming, all at a distance of 2m.

I was under the impression that all LED TVs were matte. Is the general consensus that most are glossy? If yes, I find that rather disturbing, as one of the things I wanted to count on if I got one is a matte display, and therefore no concerns about reflections.
 
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Bl1zz4rd said:
Thanks for all the assistance thus far. This is a difficult and tiring process, but at least I'll come out the other side knowing more than I did upon starting it and, hopefully, with the most suitable screen for my situation.

PostmanPot - By "PC work" do you mean the web browsing I mentioned? I hope no one's giving advice based on the impression that I'll be using it as I do my current LCD. I'll be browsing FB and YouTube and gaming, all at a distance of 2m.

I was under the impression that all LED TVs were matte. Is the general consensus that most are glossy? If yes, I find that rather disturbing, as one of the things I wanted to count on if I got one is a matte display, and therefore no concerns about reflections.
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Best to get owners to comment on their experience. With the right settings it should be acceptable for those purposes, but it would depend on the user. 2m is close for a 51" HDR, and I know I'd probably be irked, as with 43" HDRs in my experience. On my
42" HDR, downscaled 1080p e.g. from Mede8er has text looking just fine. But I do sit at 3 - 4m.

Your viewing distance indicates a FHD TV would be better. As well as gaming. You need to be at more than 3m from a 51" HDR for it to start becoming difficult to distinguish FHD from HD. From 2m it will be easy. I'd want my games running at 1920x1080.

I think it's wisest to only consider plasma if you can up to R9k for FHD. Once we're there it's a no brainer. Anything less I'm afraid FHD LCD wins (telling you as a plasma fan).

99% of LED-LCDs are glossy.
 
Bl1zz4rd said:
Space_Chief - I don't like the smoothness either. It crosses a line and enters a realm where everything appears unnatural. I'm accustomed to the unprocessed images and I hope I can get a TV where there either isn't any or if there is, it can be manually deactivated. Many people say that they get used to the motion tech, but I don't really want to, and it may mess up my watching things on occasion on my PC monitor, which doesn't have CMP.
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I'm with you, :). For us cinephiles our priority is faithful picture reproduction.

Interesting that you mention gaming being better with the processing. It actually isn't. The time it takes to process actually creates input lag. For FPS, this would be hateful. I actually can't think of a single circumstance where I'd choose to turn AMP on.
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Haha, well I don't really game much (anymore). SO you're right then. The lag is something I hadn't thought of, but in FPS when you blow your friends away you want highest FR and best ability to see detail while moving or panning. But if it causes input lag, it's a defeater.

Good on you for noting that LED is not true LED, but merely a backlight, or side-light, in the case of more expensive screens. There is, as Roman4604 mentioned, local dimming tech, but this is rare, has a halo effect, and still miles away from competing with plasma, which has millions. The blacks on plasma are amazing as a result.
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That's the thing, it's just backlight. We first had LCD, then we got improved colour gamut CCFL LCD and now LED LCD. Plasma is still superior because of the better contrast and the only next best thing is OLED (or AMOLED or some other flavour where each pixel or even subpixel is an LED of its own). We won't see that for a while, so buying plasma with great contrast ratio = PANASONIC = is the best bet. PANASONIC inherited its engineers from PIONEER so one expect some good contrast in these sets.

And as Japanese makers move out of the consumer electronics plasma market = HITACHI and PIONEER, we end up having less choice. Korea is dominating now.
 
PostmanPot said:
Best to get owners to comment on their experience. With the right settings it should be acceptable for those purposes, but it would depend on the user. 2m is close for a 51" HDR, and I know I'd probably be irked, as with 43" HDRs in my experience. On my
42" HDR, downscaled 1080p e.g. from Mede8er has text looking just fine. But I do sit at 3 - 4m.

Your viewing distance indicates a FHD TV would be better. As well as gaming. You need to be at more than 3m from a 51" HDR for it to start becoming difficult to distinguish FHD from HD. From 2m it will be easy. I'd want my games running at 1920x1080.

I think it's wisest to only consider plasma if you can up to R9k for FHD. Once we're there it's a no brainer. Anything less I'm afraid FHD LCD wins (telling you as a plasma fan).

99% of LED-LCDs are glossy.
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Glossy plasma is not so bad, in the daytime there is some reflection but it's livable.

S-IPS LED backlit rMBP display is just as glossy. It's just as bad. I'm watching BBC now on HD plasma and typing on rMBP with lots of reflection from sun going through shutters.
 
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ToxicBunny said:
As an addendum (and this is my personal opinion), HD Ready plasma panels should not be sold.. purely because of the 1024x768 resolution on a 16:9 screen format...
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I completely agree.

And anyone who can't see those stretched pixels and still calls it "awesome" is blind and should rather stay out of these kinds of discussions.
 
PostmanPot said:
99% of LED-LCDs are glossy.
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You mean Plasma's.

Pretty much all LED/LCD Televisions have a Antiglare or Matte finish, desktop or laptop computers are a different story and often have glossy panels on the cheap models with optional matte finish such as with the MacBook Pro's.

Glossy can give the illusion of better colours at the expense of usability.

Cheap Plasma's on the other hand are always glossy/untreated, so buy a premium model that has a genuine anti-glare coating not some bull**** anti-glare software technology.

Glossy is fine of you have a dedicated room for it that has the TV in the right place so there aren't reflections onto it, or you have plenty of curtains that you don't mind closing.

If I had to do it all over again I would still buy a Plasma but instead for my E550 (5-series) I would buy a 6/7/8 series that has a genuine anti-glare surface.
 
My LG LED (47LM6610) is glossy. The previous LG LED I had (47LW4500) was matte. Was quite disappointed with the reflectiveness of the screen but for a free upgrade (warranty) I didn't complain.
 
Something else I've heard is that the plasma downscaling (eg. if I was to ouput 1920x1080 from my GPU to a 1024x768 screen) also causes lag in games. It takes time, and although this may not be a large amount, any delay is bad.

SauRoNZA - I definitely want something with anti-glare.

Not too sure what you mean by "stretched pixels". The content I've watched on plasmas before has looked great.

Can anyone find fault with this? http://www.samsung.com/africa_en/consumer/tv-audio-video/television/lcd-tv/LA37D550K7RCXA
 
Bl1zz4rd said:
Something else I've heard is that the plasma downscaling (eg. if I was to ouput 1920x1080 from my GPU to a 1024x768 screen) also causes lag in games. It takes time, and although this may not be a large amount, any delay is bad.

Not too sure what you mean by "stretched pixels". The content I've watched on plasmas before has looked great.

Can anyone find fault with this? http://www.samsung.com/africa_en/consumer/tv-audio-video/television/lcd-tv/LA37D550K7RCXA
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There is no delay, at least none that I have seen. I've had my friends bring their PS3 over and we have never seen any delay.

Exactly, content on plasma looks great. That's why I called him a troll.

If you're gonna get a LCD, get a series 6.
 
Bl1zz4rd said:
Something else I've heard is that the plasma downscaling (eg. if I was to ouput 1920x1080 from my GPU to a 1024x768 screen) also causes lag in games. It takes time, and although this may not be a large amount, any delay is bad.

SauRoNZA - I definitely want something with anti-glare.

Not too sure what you mean by "stretched pixels". The content I've watched on plasmas before has looked great.

Can anyone find fault with this? http://www.samsung.com/africa_en/consumer/tv-audio-video/television/lcd-tv/LA37D550K7RCXA
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We mean stretched pixels, because the pixels on a 1024x768 16:9 plasma will have to be rectangle to allow for the 4:3 aspect ratio to display on a 16:9 panel. It does dithering of the colours and such so you can't really see it, but the picture is not as crisp as on a 1:1 pixel mapping or with a true 16:9 aspect ratio resolution.
 
1024x768 is a 4:3 aspect ratio resolution. Using that resolution on a 16:9 aspect ration shaped TV will not be as good as using 1280x720 or 1920x1080 which are 16:9 aspect ratio resolutions. Pulling a squarish shaped image to fit a rectangular shaped screen will always cause stretching of the image.
 
Bl1zz4rd said:
mercurial - Why's that? What be wrong with the 5 series?
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They just don't look that good. Do yourself a favour and go to Audio Vision either in Canal Walk or The V&A. Have a look at the Series 5 and 6 LCDs and let me know how they look to you :) The downside is that the Series 6 is bloody expensive.
 
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