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New LED or Plasma TV

You can also find a lot of reviews on places like amazon, newegg or just search best ratted tvs and that should help you out! Don't be afraid to buy a 2011 model either, a lot of them don't always add a ton of features that justify a $500 price increase.
 
I would have to say avoid LEDs if you are picky about a cinema experience.

The bright lighting makes most things look like they were shot with low quality home cameras. I see this all the time when I am at Best Buy. Human Skin tones and such are way too bright. You will also notice a huge difference in movies. They look "real" vs the image that was intended to be conveyed by the director.

I urge you to go check them out in person, I think you will see what I mean.
 
The one thing about checking them out in person is that they aren't usually calibration and the color is going to be way off anyway. You can pick up a calibration dvd off amazon for a few bucks. You should definitely check them out in store, just be don't be to judgmental on the picture.
 
We have a plasma in our house that my roommate bought and we get a lot of sunlight. It's almost unbearable to watch during the day, the reflection is so bad. At night it's amazing though. We also have a plasma at my parents house that we've had for a long time, and have never had an issue with the burning in or whatever. It's in a room with no windows and the picture is just amazing.
 
Like many others have said... if lighting is not an issue, a hi end plasma will be amazing... if you need the brightest thing because it would have to deal with a lot of ambient lighting, then go with LED.

Plasma black = BLACK!
LCD Black is not deep, not BLACK like plasma. The main reason is that in a plasma display the color black is a pixel that turns off, on an LCD it's a pixel that is going for the color black, with the backlight coming trough it still, so you get a slight gray to it.
 
TrueFX said:
I would have to say avoid LEDs if you are picky about a cinema experience.

The bright lighting makes most things look like they were shot with low quality home cameras. I see this all the time when I am at Best Buy. Human Skin tones and such are way too bright. You will also notice a huge difference in movies. They look "real" vs the image that was intended to be conveyed by the director.

I urge you to go check them out in person, I think you will see what I mean.
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That can be turned off and on most TV's, even has various levels. My LG has "True Motion". There are certain things like sports and movies that I leave it completely turned off for, but then other random shows like sitcoms, etc. I will turn it on a low setting.
 
Just went through this decision myself, picke dup a 55 in, for my game room few months ago, I went with Plasma, mainly b/c im a sports fanatic, and LED hasn;t been around to long, and all I can say is I made the right choice, the refresh rate is much quicker and alot better in plasma, but that also has to do with the manufactor of the tv itself. Another thing is about any issues, if at any point you need to fix it the LED is alot more hassle and money to have fixed. But then again, once you get to the store and look at both LED and plasma, just look at the manufactor you want and check both tv's out I was lucky enough that best buy had themn side by side so I was able to see same channel on both tv's at same time and I saw alot better pop in color and picture on the plasma than the LED

Happy hunting, I think I shoudl ahve went to 60 instead of 55 LOL
 
royalwulff said:
So what do you mean by local dimming?
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The best LCD LED tv's that can more then rival a good plasma are local dimming LED. It's the technology they use to actually light the screen. Most LCD tv's are lit around the edges and I think it uses a florescent tube. Even a lot of the new LED tv's are edge lit LED. The best picture you can get from a LED tv uses LED's that are behind the screen or local dimming. You have to research the models to find out which are local dimming and which are edge lit.

While I agree that plasma is an awesome screen right now I'd still buy LED for the size, energy and heat savings and just as good a picture.


Beast mode from tapatalk
 
I have two Panasonic Viera Plasmas ( 60 and 37) For the price You can not beat the Plasma. Forget about the heat or energy requirements-- typically overblown. Check on slick deals and be patient. The deals will come and you will save some serious dough. You just have to know what you want and be ready to pull the trigger fast.
 
Nate

hit up avsforum.com you will find all the research you need on any model you are interested in.
 
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TrueFX said:
I would have to say avoid LEDs if you are picky about a cinema experience.

The bright lighting makes most things look like they were shot with low quality home cameras. I see this all the time when I am at Best Buy. Human Skin tones and such are way too bright. You will also notice a huge difference in movies. They look "real" vs the image that was intended to be conveyed by the director.

I urge you to go check them out in person, I think you will see what I mean.
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This is to me the biggest factor. It is called the "Soap Opera Effect". If you watch movies, the plasma is hands down the better choice. More on Soap Opera Effect here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation

Golf Ghost said:
That can be turned off and on most TV's, even has various levels. My LG has "True Motion". There are certain things like sports and movies that I leave it completely turned off for, but then other random shows like sitcoms, etc. I will turn it on a low setting.
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You can only reduce the effect but not eliminate it. That reduction is done in a very artificial manner as well, which takes you further from the original format.

jschlesi said:
I have two Panasonic Viera Plasmas ( 60 and 37) For the price You can not beat the Plasma. Forget about the heat or energy requirements-- typically overblown. Check on slick deals and be patient. The deals will come and you will save some serious dough. You just have to know what you want and be ready to pull the trigger fast.
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Dead on about the overblown heat or energy requirements. CNET showed the difference to be $8 a year for the average person. It is primarily a marketing tactic for LCD's. Not worth considering.

We have both in our house. LED upstairs and Plasma downstairs. More light upstairs and the LED works great. Less light in the basement and we always watch sports and movies down there.
 
All4's said:
This is to me the biggest factor. It is called the "Soap Opera Effect". If you watch movies, the plasma is hands down the better choice. More on Soap Opera Effect here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation



You can only reduce the effect but not eliminate it. That reduction is done in a very artificial manner as well, which takes you further from the original format.



Dead on about the overblown heat or energy requirements. CNET showed the difference to be $8 a year for the average person. It is primarily a marketing tactic for LCD's. Not worth considering.

We have both in our house. LED upstairs and Plasma downstairs. More light upstairs and the LED works great. Less light in the basement and we always watch sports and movies down there.
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So "off" isn't really "off"?
 
I fully admit that I am TV tech challenged, but, if you do not play video games, but love to watch sports, what do you guys think is best?
 
Golf Ghost said:
So "off" isn't really "off"?
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Right. When you turn the True Motion "off", the TV software is now not doing anything to address the frame rate issue at all.
 
All4's said:
Right. When you turn the True Motion "off", the TV software is now not doing anything to address the frame rate issue at all.
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Thanks.
 
trae* said:
Nate

hit up avsforum.com you will find all the research you need on any model you are interested in.
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Great Choice Trae, as well as Cnet and Crutchfield (you can actually speek with someone knowledgable here.)
 
Great info guys! IceyShanks, you never did post your final pic in that forum. Ha! From all that I've gathered It's about a $800 difference in the LED to the Plasma for the size I'm looking for. Sounds like I can't go wrong with either choice but the plasma for the room without widows might be the way to go.

I think some of you have already answered this in regards to movie watching, but as far as Blue Ray movies go, still say plasma gets the slight nodd?
 
Nate said:
Great info guys! IceyShanks, you never did post your final pic in that forum. Ha! From all that I've gathered It's about a $800 difference in the LED to the Plasma for the size I'm looking for. Sounds like I can't go wrong with either choice but the plasma for the room without widows might be the way to go.

I think some of you have already answered this in regards to movie watching, but as far as Blue Ray movies go, still say plasma gets the slight nodd?
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Yes, all movies, regardless of the format it is distributed on, are shot at the same frame rate (24 per second). If anything, the HD nature of Blu Ray only highlights the problem from my experience.
 
I looked at both plasma and LCD a few years ago and was told at that time that pixel failure made plasma less attractive in the long run, I guess because of the cost to repair the burned out pixels and the fact that can occur after only a limited number of hours. Is that still true or have there been advances in plasma technology or was that ever true? I bought LCD at that time and have been happy with it.
 
No longer true in most cases but it depends on the manufacturer. Panasonic is typically considered the best because they purchased the Pioneer KURO technology which eliminated this as well and simultaneously came close to perfecting plasma technology.
 
I have a feeling I will soon be considering a new tv purchase... My 61" Samsung LED DLP makes more terrifying sounds than a sinking ship... Its only 3 years old and still looks great but already fixed it once, under warranty, and had something burn up on it a few months back... Terrible, toxic electrical smell. Read that it was likely one of the un-used inputs...

I'll probably go LED LCD, just based on the power savings which is significant at this size.
 
DaBuckBoys said:
I have a feeling I will soon be considering a new tv purchase... My 61" Samsung LED DLP makes more terrifying sounds than a sinking ship... Its only 3 years old and still looks great but already fixed it once, under warranty, and had something burn up on it a few months back... Terrible, toxic electrical smell. Read that it was likely one of the un-used inputs...

I'll probably go LED LCD, just based on the power savings which is significant at this size.
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Actually that isn't really true and I wanted to let you know prior to you hitting the stores. The difference between the two, even at that size would be about $25 a year (and that is if you turn the backlight off on the LED). Given the price difference, you would need decades to recoup your money.

Choose types solely on your viewing preferences (movies, sports, etc.), viewing angle needs and room brightness. Then after settling on the type, choose based on picture quality and feature set.
 
Nate said:
I think some of you have already answered this in regards to movie watching, but as far as Blue Ray movies go, still say plasma gets the slight nodd?
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Plasma is going to present you with the best movie watching experience.
 
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