TV Buying Question LED or LCD?

[Atreides]

For a non-gaming computer monitor I might actually pick up an LCD but that's also because it'd probably be small and I'd be sitting close to it.

But for gaming I would never even consider using an LCD over a plasma. Between dynamic contrast/contrast issues and ghosting you're really crippling yourself unless you get a top of the line TV. Go with plasma definitely.

[Boyiee]

There was a mention of a plasma brand -not to get- was that the panasonic viera?

[Darus Grey]

Panasonic viera, but only a couple models(s2, etc)

[Atreides]

I've heard that certain sizes/models of the viera can have issues with floating blacks but it'll really depend on which TV you get. Assuming there are no problems with the size you're looking at the lower end panasonics are about the same as the lower end samsungs.

[Boyiee]

Yeah 50" seems a little large to use as a monitor, the 42's were around what I was looking for.

[Aesctaa]

I have been using a 32" Samsung LCD as a monitor for a year or so.

First off as a TV, my much larger Panasonic plasma in the living room destroys it for image quality and clarity, don't ask me why, it just does. Its hugely noticeable, pictures come from exactly the same satellite feed.

As a monitor, theres a couple of drawbacks with using a big TV like this Samsung, i don't know if its the same for the plasma since i never tried hooking it up.

1) You need to get a screensaver on a really low timer, like 40 seconds or less, or some pages temporarily burn into the screen horribly, leaving discoloration on certain areas of the screen for 30mins-1hr depending on the severity. WoW is for whatever reason especially bad, 10mins of WoW and i have marks all over the screen for 1hr+.

2) This TV being a couple years old is only 1366x768 resolution, its really restrictive for a lot of things, from photo processing to gaming. I kind of doubt even the 1080 TVs are really sufficient if you are serious about those things.

Its nice for just browsing firefox with a lot of screen area for the money, but unless someone with a more up to date TV has experiences to the contrary its still not really an easy way to a cheap replacement for dedicated monitors.

[Reality]

one thing I want to clear up, from personal experience

image retention/burn in is still very real for plasmas

i used to use my samsung 50" PN50-B650 (1080p) for a secondary monitor on my PC, for games. while playing FFXI, I use the distance plugin and if you don't have anything targeted, it will display 0.0 in the upper right corner

i haven't played FFXI on that TV in about 3-4 months, and if i put my face right up next to the screen I can still see the 0.0, I ran the contrast/brightness at 95/45 and broke in the screen during the first 500 hours or so with multi-colored images, and was careful and always used the scrolling bars after playing FFXI or any game with static images

my recommendation would be to run the contrast/brightness on a new plasma at around 60/30 and crank up the cell light for the first 1000 hours until the phosphors inside the panel have aged properly and evenly

[Amele]

brightness is still an issue for plasmas as well.

plasmas will have better contrasts and colors (at comparable price points) but less brightness, so in well-lit or direct sunlight environments the lcd will have the better apparent picture because it's brighter.

watching horror movies in the dark though? plasma all the way

[Atreides]

I think people only really think that's an issue because of glare, some plasmas use plain reflective glass panel screens so glare might become an issue, but most of the ones I looked at were treated to prevent it.

So unless it's super bright and you don't have a mildly glare resistant screen you probably won't even notice that. Standard bulb-lit LCDs shouldn't be any brighter than plasmas even on their highest settings. LED's are a lot brighter yes, but almost unnaturally so.

[Reality]

yeah new plasmas have anti-glare coating (mine has a reddish color when the TV is off, but if you're watching TV you can't see the coating)

I'd say the room my Plasma is in right now is in a well-lit (natural light, sliding door with vertical blinds lets a lot of sunlight in), and I haven't had any issues with not being a bright enough screen compared to my LCD's that I used to have (32", 42", 46")

[Darus Grey]

image retention/burn in is still very real for plasmas

i used to use my samsung 50" PN50-B650 (1080p) for a secondary monitor on my PC, for games. while playing FFXI, I use the distance plugin and if you don't have anything targeted, it will display 0.0 in the upper right corner

Honestly a lot of it is psychosomatic, since we're aware and looking for it, we see it(you expect to see it, and thus you do).

Like I can always see the street fighter 4 timer on my very old plasma, no one can see it but me, and if I actually test it for color differences it's not there, as the gradient is same as the rest of the screen when displaying solid colors. So I know it's not there even though I see it. It's maddening really.

Even still, if it took you essentially (what I assume to be) thousands of hours of play to get it, and it's only noticeable if you're specifically looking for it an inch away from the screen...sounds pretty damn good to me.

Old CRTs were no where near that level of reliable in terms of burn-in. Which is why I say, if you don't worry about it on a CRT, you won't worry about it on a Plasma.

In those same conditions, even an LCD will burn-in(heat component, not a fading component like in plasma), difference is we're not told to look for it on an LCD, and thus we never see it.

Human mind is all kinds of fucked up.

[BerenTebogo]

Panasonic viera, but only a couple models(s2, etc)

I have one of these from like 3-4 years ago

I like it though. But then again, I don't do much "HD" stuff, even when I have the opportunity. Looking to change that a bit.

[Reality]

I agree with it largely being psychological, just checked for the 0.0 and its gone, so after a few months it disappeared

I still dont regret going plasma though, the most natural color reproduction (this is fact btw) of any HD panel you can buy that isnt an HD CRT such as those beastly Sony FW900's

[Atreides]

lol my first HDTV was this 600 27" Samsung CRT, it was like 175 lbs and max 480p but it was AMAZING for video games

[Cyn]

Honestly a lot of it is psychosomatic, since we're aware and looking for it, we see it(you expect to see it, and thus you do).

Like I can always see the street fighter 4 timer on my very old plasma, no one can see it but me, and if I actually test it for color differences it's not there, as the gradient is same as the rest of the screen when displaying solid colors. So I know it's not there even though I see it. It's maddening really.

Even still, if it took you essentially (what I assume to be) thousands of hours of play to get it, and it's only noticeable if you're specifically looking for it an inch away from the screen...sounds pretty damn good to me.

Old CRTs were no where near that level of reliable in terms of burn-in. Which is why I say, if you don't worry about it on a CRT, you won't worry about it on a Plasma.

In those same conditions, even an LCD will burn-in(heat component, not a fading component like in plasma), difference is we're not told to look for it on an LCD, and thus we never see it.

Human mind is all kinds of fucked up.

Plasmas still burn-in. I see it from time to time with plasmas used for digital signage. At work I had a 50" Samsung come back from a 2 week rental and I could literally read every word of the slide that it was displaying.

Took about 4 days of running nothing but static to get rid of it.

[Reality]

Plasmas still burn-in. I see it from time to time with plasmas used for digital signage. At work I had a 50" Samsung come back from a 2 week rental and I could literally read every word of the slide that it was displaying.

Took about 4 days of running nothing but static to get rid of it.

Not burn-in then, just bad IR

Nobody said they dont have IR, in fact my Samsung manual says not to leave static images on the screen

Also a lot of companies use plasmas for large panel digital signs because theyre cheaper than LCDs but theyre a bad match for that kind of use

[Darus Grey]

Plasmas still burn-in. I see it from time to time with plasmas used for digital signage. At work I had a 50" Samsung come back from a 2 week rental and I could literally read every word of the slide that it was displaying.

Took about 4 days of running nothing but static to get rid of it.

It's really important to differentiate image-retention from burn-in.

Modern Plasmas do *not* burn in, burn-in is when the cells(plasma or LCD, or phosphor on CRTs) more or less get so hot that they're permanently stuck in an "on" position(this is a really simplified explanation).

In plasmas at least, there's mechanisms that regularly strobe through each individual cell shutting them off, making it actually impossible except for a hardware malfunction and/or defect.

Image-Retention is just when some cell ages faster(the more luminosity they have, the faster they "age"), as the plasma gets cooler over it's 15-20yr lifespan it takes longer and longer and longer for image retention to happen, and to remove it becomes shorter and shorter and shorter as an extension of that.

That's why it's recommended to break in a plasma for 200-1000 hours when you get it, basically sacrifice a couple months off it's lifespan to simply not worry about it, people rarely keep them that long anyways.

[Boyiee]

So we still agree on 40-42" plasma for computer monitor and gaming? Lol I think only tiger direct has one for a good price. Gonna be weird dual monitors with a 26inch but whatever

[Reality]

I wouldnt use a plasma as a pc monitor, you'd have constant IR from things like the desktop icons or taskbar, would be annoying at least to me, the setup i was using was my 24" lcd for desktop use, and put all my desktop icons and taskbar on that screen, and the plasma was set as the primary screen so games loaded on it instead of the lcd

[Boyiee]

Right now I have it so my right monitor that is angled to me is my desktop, icons, taskbar, xfire etc... and main monitor in front of me is only games. Both 26inch, so it would remain the same, just with the main one in front of me being 40inches, and my tv as well as console screen.