i know i know.. old tired thread subject.. but im REALLY close to buying a new tv (finally) and was wondering what i should lean towards buying.. i WAS leaning towards a LCD but now im not sure and talking to my tech nerd brother in law. I'm looking for a 52", hdmi, 120hz type tv.. and would like to keep it around (or under if possible) $2000.
Here's my setup as of now... i run digital cable thru time warner, i have a xbox 360 (no hdmi - component) and i only have a regular old dvd player (no bluray yet).. so, for the most part im using this tv for movies and gaming..
i've been told in the past that if im gaming i want a LCD for sure since plasmas have burn in issues (is that still the case?). i've also been told if i want to watch movies i should look for a plasma since they are better for motion and have deeper blacks. does 120 hz take care of the motion problem for lcds? I'm also hearing that plasmas dont last as long and are noisier than lcds.. but i know that plasmas ARE cheaper than lcds as well for the most part..
with all of this info, i keep going around and around in circles... which is better to have for what? i guess i need to answer that myself.. but i thought i would ask some of the experts out there too for what they thought. the living room im setting this up in tends to be on the brighter side, but not overly bright i dont think.. not sure if that is pertinent.
You should seriously go look through the AVS Forums.
Pretty much anything you can think of has been answered there and should be pretty easy to find. Generally in great detail too.
My 2 cents...
I own a Pioneer Kuro 5080 which I paid just over $2K [about $2050.00] shipped to my door and its hands down the finist TV I have ever seen even if it only 720P [1365 x 768 native res]. The black level is really something to be seen and as such the contrast ratio is as amazing as said to be. Burnin is definitly not an issue with most quality plasma sets [Pioneer uses Orbiting to move all the pixels on the screen around all the time] and have a few tools to make any image retention dissapear if that should that occur.
I use mine for everything from the PC to game consoles to DVD and HDTV with no burnin of anysort over the last year of almost continous use.
I say go plasma as LCD just isnt worth the money vs performance at this point though its getting better for about the same money as a quality plasma. Honestly most companies are making LCD's instead of plasma since they can gross far greater profits [ Sony admittedly leads that race ] I like the look of film and for me Plasma is much closer to that than LCD.
Im also a huge fan of DLP and have had a few projectors and continue to use an Optoma HD72 @ 96" 16x9 [3chip DLP@720P]
If you want cheap go LCD if you want excelent almost CRT quality and cheap prices go with an RPTV DLP set, if youre serious about Plasma get a Pioneer ! Skip the others and buy the best I know you can get the new 1080P 50" for about 2K on the net delivered : )
Whatever you do dont buy from Best Buy, Circuit City etc since their markup is truely absurd comparred to many great comapnies on the net.
I dont want to say where I got mine [forum rules] but if anyone is interested shoot me a PM.
