LCD and plasma panel TVs suck!

[KurtNYC]

Holy crap. My TV half died last week so I went shopping this weekend. I had ignored the whole plasma/LCD thing since I wasn't in any hurry to plunk down $2000+.

What surprised me was how bad this technology is right now AND no one seems to notice! I went to 3 different stores because I thought possibly they didn't have them set up right. The salesman at Best Buy admitted that they all pixelate every time there is movement on the screen. He told me that he ust tells most people to watch the TV from a minimum distance of 8 feet and then you don't notice it as much! The LCDs have horrible blacks and the larger plasmas looked like they were rendering in 64 colors (posterizing).

Meanwhile the high-end CRT (analog TVs) are dissappearing. So I either spend $300 on a crappy 27" tube TV or $1200 on a crappy pixelating LCD panel. What a nightmare.

[Ian David]

1. They're acclimating consumers to accepting lower-quality pictures...

the same way they're acclimating us to accept lower-quality audio-- especially on our cell phones.

The broadcast industry wants to be able to cram as many channels and other "digital services"-- such as digital rights management signals-- into their bandwidth. Necessarily, image quality will have to suffer.

Eventually, television will look and sound like this:



And we'll LOVE it... because it's BIG!

[wildhorses]

3. OMG is that Max Headroom?

isn't that his name? and whose head was it they used...dammit!! :shrug:

[HughBeaumont]

5. Matt Frewer -

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001242/

[wildhorses]

8. thats him. thanks for the link.

:hi:

[dr.strangelove]

6. Matt Frewer played Max

[Deja Q]

20. Ironic, given how they tout it all as being higher quality...

They are more energy efficient, and for standard home users, they won't care. But especially for graphics-oriented workstations, et al, CRT is still the way to go.

Indeed, those LCD TVs show demos of a comparison between LCD and CRT. It's not even real; they fuzzy up the same image - old school CRTs are not THAT bad. (not good either, but not THAT bad!)

[XNASA]

2. Agreed.

I'm a TV Engineer, and I won't have a plasma or LCD screen in my house at this time.

Bet a big Toshiba CRT. It's the best way to spend your money right now.

[sir_captain]

4. Kurt, I am a hardcore high-end videophile, and I disagree

Of course, there is nothing better, right now, than a high-end CRT-based HDTV. That said, you cannot take what you saw at Best Buy or similar stores to be anything like what those displays are capable of. Best Buy has some crappy-ass SD feed going to all their tvs, and they have the contrast and brightness turned all the way up cause of the light in their stores.

I have a Sharp Aquos LCD tv which I calibrated using professional calibration tools. My blacks are not quite as black as I would like, and certainly not as good as a CRT (though this will be improved greatly by the use of impending LED backlighting.) My picture is gorgeous. LCD actually has more accurate colors (when properly calibrated) than either CRT or Plasma techs.

LCD tvs do not pixellate with high-speed images (if you saw pixellation, that was in the source--not from the tv.) What they did do (and the cheap house-brand ones still do) is smear a bit during high-movement because the response time of the pixels was not fast enough (this was also an issue for LCD computer monitors for many years.) Luckily, response times on new LCD panels are so low that this is no longer a problem.

What I'm saying is, go find someone who knows what they're doing and has a good LCD or Plasma set hooked up to a high-definition source and you'll change your mind. They are a beautiful, beautiful technology.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

10. My brother has a Sharp Aquos

I'll be getting one of my own probably right after Christmas.

The picture on that thing is unbelievably gorgeous.

Of course, we didn't truly realize it until the cable man came and hooked up the HD cable channels.

[sir_captain]

11. Yep

one of the issues with a higher-resolution display is that it shows how awful a regular television signal actually is.

[KurtNYC]

14. That is encouraging

I was having hard time believing I was seeing these things at their best but after 3 stores...

[sir_captain]

15. Yeah, you have to remember

that a) the people who work at these stores have no idea what they're talking about. b) the tv's in those stores have been on for thousands of hours in a row c) they are horribly calibrated cause studies have shown that people buy tvs in stores that are bright and have colors that "pop" and unfortunately, this is pretty much the opposite of a tv showing an accurate image

but fear not, they are actually really great. and you can get a terrific 32" LCD set from Sharp or Samsung for under $1000 now. I'd say within 2-3 years, they'll drop to the $500 range.

[democracyindanger]

7. I've got a plasma

the straight digital cable signal isn't that great. Haven't worked up my tolerance level to call the idiots at Comcast for HD yet, so I haven't viewed any HD channels yet.

But DVDs and XBox 360 look freakin' amazing. Also plugged my PC in for shits and giggles and that looked amazing to.

A lot of it depends on the signal you're plugging into the tv.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

12. You seriously need to get the HD channels

It's so totally worth it.

[bikebloke]

9. Something new on the horizon

Laser television.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/home-theatre/laser-tv-here-comes-the-plasma-killer/2006/10/11/1160246198806.html

[jus_the_facts]

13. I get 6 channels with rabbit ears....plust a couple more fundie channels..

....for free on a couple of TV's that're at least a decade old...if I watch either of them it's to watch a DVD or PBS when they've got something interesting on...which isn't very often anymore...I wouldn't get cable or satellite if they were giving it away...I'd rather read than watch anything on television...either books or news online. :)

[Xithras]

23. You know you're going to lose that, right?

All broadcasters are being forced to transition to digital signals by January 1, 2009. On that date, all of those channels you currently get will TURN OFF. If you want to keep watching them, you'll either need to replace your TV's with new models equipped with digital tuners, or buy a standalone digital tuner for each of your tv sets.

[jus_the_facts]

24. It's no great loss...I'm sure in a few years I'll just use the idiot box..

...to watch DVD's as the quality of television programming is so poor now by '09 there'll be no reason to even have the rabbit ears anymore regardless.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. I don't know.

I was looking at some flat-screens in the electronic section of a big box store this weekend and they looked absolutely beautiful.

[Downtown Hound]

17. Not only do they suck

They are delicate as hell. I had a little 15-inch LCD TV. Anyway, I was all relaxed one day watching a movie on it and I'd just finished drinking one of those half-liters of Diet Pepsi. I threw the bottle up in the air and twirled it around, meaning to catch it but in my relaxed couch potato state, I fumbled it and it bounced off of my hand and hit the TV. You know what happened, THE FUCKING SCREEN SHATTERED. An empty plastic bottle barely bouncing off of it and the damn screen shattered. It was a $450 15-inch TV. Luckily it was under warranty but still, I mean, how pathetic is that? You can pay thousands of dollars for this technology and all it takes is for a couple of stuck pixels or a plastic bottle to ruin it.

I have since given up on TV's. It's all computer for me now. TV, DVD, internet, and games when I play them all in one. Too me, that's the way of the future, not this plasma TV crap. However, if someone is going to go the HD route with TV, the best way is an HD CRT display. They cost much less that plasma and LCD, have a better picture and won't shatter when an empty plastic bottle hits them.

[mikeytherat]

18. The pixilization and posterization are from a poor source or signal

Most big-box A/V stores have one or two satellite feeds spread over 30-60 displays. Pixilization would indicate a poor digital signal (I had a first-generation DirecTV service back in '95, and the pixilization was very bad). When you see a high-def display with a clean high-def source, the picture is nothing short of stunning (if you ever get a chance to check out "Uncharted Waters: The Florida Aquacaves" on the Discovery HD Theater channel on a good HD display you will see what I mean. It is some of the most amazing high-def footage I've ever seen).

I've got three flat-panel LCDs and I love them! And true, nothing really beats a good CRT (tube) TV for best picture quality, but my old high-def tube TV weighed in at almost 300 pounds, and my heaviest LCD panel weighs less than 50!

mikey_the_rat

[Deja Q]

19. Pity; CRTs also give a better color gamut and shadow detail...

No graphic designer should be using a LCD...

And despite an improvement in sharpness; this LCD stuff is not all that worthy...

Time for me to get a spare 19" CRT for storage, when the time comes. x(

[DrDan]

21. poop

I have had my JVC plasma for 2 years. I have not noticed any pixelating. I think the picture is great.

The only problem I have noticed - it was $4k, not $2K.

But - this time of the year - college football season - worth every penny.

[Xithras]

22. LG makes a very nice CRT HDTV.

I don't know what your size requirements are, but a friend picked up an LG 30" 1080i CRT HDTV, and I think it was only about $700. The image quality was stunning, and as an added bonus it does its own internal HD upsampling so even analog signals end up looking a lot cleaner. DVD quality was stunning, and when we hooked up the HD signal from the sat, we were floored. If they had it in a 32"-36", I'd have one in my living room right now (I have a 32" analog now, which is the perfect size).

As far as I can see, the only place a plasma or LCD is superior is space...most of them are less than 6" thick, while the LG is a more conventional 15 or so inches. Unless you wanted to hang it on the wall, I don't see that as a big advantage.

I personally don't watch all that much TV, but if I DID and I were buying one today, I'd probably go with one of the CRT HDTV's over the plasma or LCD versions.

[NewWaveChick1981]

25. I stayed in a hotel a month or so ago, and it had a flat-panel

tv in the room. :yoiks: Since there was no hint of a HD channel on the cable lineup, the picture just sucked very badly no matter what I did to it. :cry: I'm gonna wait until all the bugs are worked out and the price comes down before I even consider anything like replacing the TV we have at home. :(