Q. I'm looking for a 46" or 50" big screen TV. My budget is around $900 - $1100. I'm not to concerned with the type of TV, wether it's LCD, Plasma or Projection. Although, this new TVs main purpose is for gaming, so it must have HDMI and at least 720p. I'm also worried about latency as I've read that some newer televisions can be a little slow to display the image due to the image processing that takes place. Does anyone have any good recomendations as to a tv brand or type that fills all these criteria and is within my budget? I'm not opposed to purchasing online although I still want to stay within my budget after tax and shipping fees.
Answer
I do in fact have a recomendation and it's one shared by most experts in the audio/visual field. At this point in time the Hitachi f59 series is the absolute best bang for the buck available on the market, bar none. LCD? Plasma? DLP? Nope, it's got every set below $3000 covered hands down in every relevant category, be it picture quality, gaming performance or maintenance cost. The fact is that CRT is still the benchmark all others are judged by and at this point in time a High Def rear projection set such as the Hitachi offers the savvy buyer all the goodies without the hassles.
The F59 series is available in 51, 57 and 65 inch screen sizes, and as to price, well lets just say that on a good sale day you can pick up the 65 for between $1000-$1200 and the 57 for $999. Personally, I'd wait for the annual 'After the Super Bowl' sales as most retailers really offer some blowout pricing at this time, many close to those of 'Black Friday'. It was 'Black Friday' which put the 51 inch version on my doorstep at $699 shipped and I couldn't be happier with this set, heck I'd have paid full price and still considered it a steal. Yes, it really IS that good! But don't just take my word for it, take a look for youself at some of the factors which lead me to this purchase.
For instance lets look at the bulbs, or should I say lack of. ALL of the others technologies require an arc lamp bulb to provide the light source and it does a wonderful job...for about two years. 18-24 months is the average life expectancy of these bulbs under normal viewing conditions, then its time for replacement at a cost of $200. Average that out over the ten plus years you'll watch your typical CRT rear projection set like the Hitachi with ZERO bulbs and you'll see just what the latest 'High Tech' is really worth.
As you're a gamer this is the best choice once again due to a few things, the foremost being response time. CRT doesn't have to measure pixel response in milliseconds because there are none, thus instant and true image representaion is there 24/7/365. This is critical when playing first person shooters such as Halo on Xbox Live as the lag associated with the other technologies allows the slightest bit of lag. Sure, a 10ms lag doesn't seem like much but it is the difference in that hitting and missing those vital split second shots, the difference between tea bagging an downed opponent or cursing yourself blue over why your 'dead on' head shot failed to take out the bad guy. Of course the fact you require an HDMI port tells me you're of the PS3 persuasion but this set does indeed have and support HDMI so that's another base covered. Oh, and screen 'Burn In' isn't really an issue either anymore so than any other set, in fact less if proper caution such as not leaving ANYTHING paused for extended periods of time are taken.
Now as far as movie watching goes I certainly hope you have access to a lot of DVDs because viewing them on this set is more addictive than heroin or internet porn. My personal collection grows by the week now, even movies I've seen a million times gain new life on this set. And as for cable, well I have digital cable and see NO reason to upgrade to HD because the Standard def stations would remain the same and the combo of digital and this TV make you swear you were watching true High Def when tuned to any of the Discovery Network channels.
I'll not even go into the realm of picture quality, suffice to say 1080i with the true blacks and true color representation only CRT can deliver is still king of the hill despite every attempt to knock it off. So go ahead and pull the trigger on one of these bad boys, I promise, you'll not be dissapointed in any way, shape or form. Good luck and happy viewing
I do in fact have a recomendation and it's one shared by most experts in the audio/visual field. At this point in time the Hitachi f59 series is the absolute best bang for the buck available on the market, bar none. LCD? Plasma? DLP? Nope, it's got every set below $3000 covered hands down in every relevant category, be it picture quality, gaming performance or maintenance cost. The fact is that CRT is still the benchmark all others are judged by and at this point in time a High Def rear projection set such as the Hitachi offers the savvy buyer all the goodies without the hassles.
The F59 series is available in 51, 57 and 65 inch screen sizes, and as to price, well lets just say that on a good sale day you can pick up the 65 for between $1000-$1200 and the 57 for $999. Personally, I'd wait for the annual 'After the Super Bowl' sales as most retailers really offer some blowout pricing at this time, many close to those of 'Black Friday'. It was 'Black Friday' which put the 51 inch version on my doorstep at $699 shipped and I couldn't be happier with this set, heck I'd have paid full price and still considered it a steal. Yes, it really IS that good! But don't just take my word for it, take a look for youself at some of the factors which lead me to this purchase.
For instance lets look at the bulbs, or should I say lack of. ALL of the others technologies require an arc lamp bulb to provide the light source and it does a wonderful job...for about two years. 18-24 months is the average life expectancy of these bulbs under normal viewing conditions, then its time for replacement at a cost of $200. Average that out over the ten plus years you'll watch your typical CRT rear projection set like the Hitachi with ZERO bulbs and you'll see just what the latest 'High Tech' is really worth.
As you're a gamer this is the best choice once again due to a few things, the foremost being response time. CRT doesn't have to measure pixel response in milliseconds because there are none, thus instant and true image representaion is there 24/7/365. This is critical when playing first person shooters such as Halo on Xbox Live as the lag associated with the other technologies allows the slightest bit of lag. Sure, a 10ms lag doesn't seem like much but it is the difference in that hitting and missing those vital split second shots, the difference between tea bagging an downed opponent or cursing yourself blue over why your 'dead on' head shot failed to take out the bad guy. Of course the fact you require an HDMI port tells me you're of the PS3 persuasion but this set does indeed have and support HDMI so that's another base covered. Oh, and screen 'Burn In' isn't really an issue either anymore so than any other set, in fact less if proper caution such as not leaving ANYTHING paused for extended periods of time are taken.
Now as far as movie watching goes I certainly hope you have access to a lot of DVDs because viewing them on this set is more addictive than heroin or internet porn. My personal collection grows by the week now, even movies I've seen a million times gain new life on this set. And as for cable, well I have digital cable and see NO reason to upgrade to HD because the Standard def stations would remain the same and the combo of digital and this TV make you swear you were watching true High Def when tuned to any of the Discovery Network channels.
I'll not even go into the realm of picture quality, suffice to say 1080i with the true blacks and true color representation only CRT can deliver is still king of the hill despite every attempt to knock it off. So go ahead and pull the trigger on one of these bad boys, I promise, you'll not be dissapointed in any way, shape or form. Good luck and happy viewing
Do Plasma or LED or LCD HDTV's look better?
Q
Which has the best picture quality? I'm thinking of getting a big screen HDTV, but I can't decide on Plasma, LED or LCD.
Answer
I usually like JM's answers but on this topic we disagree.
In terms of picture quality:
* Plasma is usually the best image quality available
* LCD with LED back lights and 120 hz refreshsis the next in quality
* LCD is lowest.
Go to HD Nation and look at their holiday buying guide. They review televisions and tend to have their feet on the ground with what they like and ... they all have Plasmas.
LCD panels have 2 inherent flaws:
* Poor black levels. They only produce dark grey. So better models have to put LED lights behind the LCD panels and turn down the brightness behind dark screens. Some models are edge-lit to make them thin, but this causes poorer image quality. The better image quality comes from thicker televisions with LED's behind the panel. Then some models use huge regions of the screen and better models use smaller regions. (There are a lot of variables to try and fix this problem).
* Motion Blur. Fast moving objects tend to blur on a LCD panel so better models offer "120 hz refresh" so it draws each image twice. This cuts the motion blur by half - but it's still there.
Plasma does not need to solve any of these defects so it naturally has a better picture.
DEVIL IN THE DETAILS
In truth they make some very good LCD/LED panels in the higher end models. These will produce a better image than mid-range plasmas. This is because the company spent more money on the CPU, electronics and software to process the image, combined with LED and 120 hz drawing.
A Panasonic Viera TC or ST series is usually considered the best image on the planet.
MY CHOICE
I suspect my next television will be a higher end Samsung LCD/LED panel with the Smart Hub. This is because most of my TV watching are broadcast TV shows and Hulu/Netflix streaming. The Samsung Smart Hub runs these signals through it's internal processing to produce a superior image from less-than-superior sources.
I have a second smaller television for gaming and I do not watch a lot of sports so the motion-blur issue wont bite me too much.
If you mainly watch BluRay and want the ultimate image quality - perhaps sacrificing Apps or other features, then look at the Panasonic TC or SC series of plasmas.
Hope this helps.
I usually like JM's answers but on this topic we disagree.
In terms of picture quality:
* Plasma is usually the best image quality available
* LCD with LED back lights and 120 hz refreshsis the next in quality
* LCD is lowest.
Go to HD Nation and look at their holiday buying guide. They review televisions and tend to have their feet on the ground with what they like and ... they all have Plasmas.
LCD panels have 2 inherent flaws:
* Poor black levels. They only produce dark grey. So better models have to put LED lights behind the LCD panels and turn down the brightness behind dark screens. Some models are edge-lit to make them thin, but this causes poorer image quality. The better image quality comes from thicker televisions with LED's behind the panel. Then some models use huge regions of the screen and better models use smaller regions. (There are a lot of variables to try and fix this problem).
* Motion Blur. Fast moving objects tend to blur on a LCD panel so better models offer "120 hz refresh" so it draws each image twice. This cuts the motion blur by half - but it's still there.
Plasma does not need to solve any of these defects so it naturally has a better picture.
DEVIL IN THE DETAILS
In truth they make some very good LCD/LED panels in the higher end models. These will produce a better image than mid-range plasmas. This is because the company spent more money on the CPU, electronics and software to process the image, combined with LED and 120 hz drawing.
A Panasonic Viera TC or ST series is usually considered the best image on the planet.
MY CHOICE
I suspect my next television will be a higher end Samsung LCD/LED panel with the Smart Hub. This is because most of my TV watching are broadcast TV shows and Hulu/Netflix streaming. The Samsung Smart Hub runs these signals through it's internal processing to produce a superior image from less-than-superior sources.
I have a second smaller television for gaming and I do not watch a lot of sports so the motion-blur issue wont bite me too much.
If you mainly watch BluRay and want the ultimate image quality - perhaps sacrificing Apps or other features, then look at the Panasonic TC or SC series of plasmas.
Hope this helps.
Powered by Yahoo! Answers
No comments:
Post a Comment