Plasma or LCD TV...which is best?

[Troll]

More importantly how many of you wrote off these "big monitors" as a company expense?

Ahem!! naturally the company has to demonstrate its products

[gingerjedi]

Whatever you buy get John Lewis to pricematch and you'll get their 5 year warranty thrown in, I even got them to match Empire Direct.

[hyperD]

Ahem!! naturally the company has to demonstrate its products

And of course, the client presentations - cannot do that on a 19" monitor. And as for "exclusively", I tried to ban the wife from watching it outside of office hours.

[Jawz]

Lcd

[lukemg]

Anyone see this weeks gadget show ? test was to get best 40inch telly for a grand, LCD and plasma then test them against each other.
Key points :
Turned out 50:50 split between the people who liked each screen.
LCD bit better on colour, Plasma better for action (less blurring)
Manufacturer all important as some specialise in one or the other and the cheaper ones are all crap
Make sure it has HDMI socket + freeview receiver.
Think they had a Samsung and a Panasonic.

Didn't pay huge notice because I've got a 32" Sony 4:3 CRT which I am happy with and has been going for about 7 years. When it breaks I will replace but not interested until then, still don't rate the flat panel picture as that awesome. HD output is minimal currently and the technology and prices are still changing rapidly.

[BrilloPad]

I find it quite stunning that shops are allowed to sell TVs that don't have built in Freeview.

For some areas of the country, analogue is less than 2 years from switch off...

"Sorry Mrs Jones, your new tv needs a set top box to work now..."

Won't most people buy with a DVD or Video - and get the freeview with that?

[stackpole]

Mine's so big I don't know what its called.

[Joe Black]

contrast ratio is what can really make the difference between the two. My LCD 40" screen has a contrast ratio of 6000:0

Presuming you actually mean 6000:1, then currently no LCD supports anything like that unless you believe the marketing from people like Samsung (and possibly Sony as well now), who claim such figures by having the backlight at different settings.

As gingerjedi mentioned, http://www.avforums.com/ is one of the best places for the real story, though be prepared to wade through more than a few pages to find it.

[scooterscot]

Presuming you actually mean 6000:1, then currently no LCD supports anything like that unless you believe the marketing from people like Samsung (and possibly Sony as well now), who claim such figures by having the backlight at different settings.

As gingerjedi mentioned, http://www.avforums.com/ is one of the best places for the real story, though be prepared to wade through more than a few pages to find it.

my mistake actually meant 5000:01, who remembers those numbers off the top of their head, i i.

anyway it not marketing hype it manufacturers specifications:

I keep my backlight at a low level for two reasons:

1) after a hours viewing the rest of the world starts to look dark and my eyes hurt

2) Doing my bit to reduce my carbon footprint.

[Francko]

my mistake actually meant 5000:01, who remembers those numbers off the top of their head, i i.

anyway it not marketing hype it manufacturers specifications:

I keep my backlight at a low level for two reasons:

1) after a hours viewing the rest of the world starts to look dark and my eyes hurt

2) Doing my bit to reduce my carbon footprint.

Those are very theoritecal values as there is no standard way of measuring the contrast and the values of thousands is only upon very special conditions which never apply in practice. Specialist magazine have indeed their own way of measuring it and most of the claimed 5000 or 10000:1 is indeed proven to be 500 or 600 in normal conditions.

Having said that, I have moved from CRT to Plasma and yes I have noticed a dramatic improvement in the black levels and in brightness. The result is that the image looks way more real and alive. And I would like to see where you can get a CRT screen as big as 42'' (and now even 50''s are quite cheap) without needing a huge room (well, there isn't, the 36'' I believe is the biggest and be prepared to dedicate a room only to it). I don't understand how CRT purists can fail to deny it.