Hi all
It's taken me a while, but I finally bought a TV. Much of the help and advice in making a final decision came from these here forums, so firstly I'd like to say thanks to everyone for that. Secondly, I thought I'd share a little feedback in case it is of use to anyone else.
I bought a 37PX80 on Saturday from John Lewis Peterborough. This was price matched to £626 with Sound&Vision.
At the store, JL had the set alongside the new Pana 37" LCD and both I and my girlfriend were initially surprised as to how much better the LCD looked. However, the more we watched (and had a little play with the settings on the plasma) the more we noticed a few issues with the LCD. I must admit though, it was still slightly disconcerting to see them side by side and to see the plasma looking less than impressive. However, I trusted my gut and 6 months of research and went with the Plasma (which I had reserved) and, having got it home and set everything up, I am very glad I did!
I am running in on Cinema mode, with the HDtv Test settings, and contrast and brightness kicked down about another 5 clicks each. I love these settings as they are and everything looks cracking!
SD looks great across the board. Football (BBC) has been fine. I haven't see ITV footie yet (was in the pub last night!). My dvd player upscales to 720p going in to the set and this looks superb (PAL and NTSC). My xbox 360 is outputting at 720p and this too looks very good indeed. GTA at 720p looks tremendous and I haven't seen any of the nasty issues some have reported.
I'd be intersted in hearing any thoughts on whether pushing DVD and xbox output up to 1080i or p would 'theorectically' improve things any more here - I'll be running some tests here myself soon.
I chose a 37" over a 42" as the picture simply looked much better at my viewing distance. I'm sure if I'd gone with the 42", I would feel that the image wasn't quite as clear (especially through the 360) - this was the case when I checked out both sets in a Pansonic store. I've found that you have to be far enough away to not see some image 'issues'. I think this is what confuses some people who come straight fom CRTs, which are much more forgiving in this regard. I think some people expect that with all new plasmas and LCDs, they should be able to eyeball the screen and still see pixel-perfect clarity!
The only retention I've seen is from the TV's own menus and this fades after 20 seconds of full screen TV.
I rarely (can) watch TV during the day, but if I had to raise one 'negative', that might affect some people, it would be that the picture looks its very best in a dark room. For me, for DVDs and games, this is important. For normal TV viewing during the day, though, this isn't really an issue!
So that's pretty much that. It's still early days, and I'm still finding my way, but I think I've done everything right so far, and as I read a bit more and move through the run in period, things can only continue to improve.
If anyone as any queries, or if anything's unclear, I'd be happy to answer.
Cheers
It's taken me a while, but I finally bought a TV. Much of the help and advice in making a final decision came from these here forums, so firstly I'd like to say thanks to everyone for that. Secondly, I thought I'd share a little feedback in case it is of use to anyone else.
I bought a 37PX80 on Saturday from John Lewis Peterborough. This was price matched to £626 with Sound&Vision.
At the store, JL had the set alongside the new Pana 37" LCD and both I and my girlfriend were initially surprised as to how much better the LCD looked. However, the more we watched (and had a little play with the settings on the plasma) the more we noticed a few issues with the LCD. I must admit though, it was still slightly disconcerting to see them side by side and to see the plasma looking less than impressive. However, I trusted my gut and 6 months of research and went with the Plasma (which I had reserved) and, having got it home and set everything up, I am very glad I did!
I am running in on Cinema mode, with the HDtv Test settings, and contrast and brightness kicked down about another 5 clicks each. I love these settings as they are and everything looks cracking!
SD looks great across the board. Football (BBC) has been fine. I haven't see ITV footie yet (was in the pub last night!). My dvd player upscales to 720p going in to the set and this looks superb (PAL and NTSC). My xbox 360 is outputting at 720p and this too looks very good indeed. GTA at 720p looks tremendous and I haven't seen any of the nasty issues some have reported.
I'd be intersted in hearing any thoughts on whether pushing DVD and xbox output up to 1080i or p would 'theorectically' improve things any more here - I'll be running some tests here myself soon.
I chose a 37" over a 42" as the picture simply looked much better at my viewing distance. I'm sure if I'd gone with the 42", I would feel that the image wasn't quite as clear (especially through the 360) - this was the case when I checked out both sets in a Pansonic store. I've found that you have to be far enough away to not see some image 'issues'. I think this is what confuses some people who come straight fom CRTs, which are much more forgiving in this regard. I think some people expect that with all new plasmas and LCDs, they should be able to eyeball the screen and still see pixel-perfect clarity!
The only retention I've seen is from the TV's own menus and this fades after 20 seconds of full screen TV.
I rarely (can) watch TV during the day, but if I had to raise one 'negative', that might affect some people, it would be that the picture looks its very best in a dark room. For me, for DVDs and games, this is important. For normal TV viewing during the day, though, this isn't really an issue!
So that's pretty much that. It's still early days, and I'm still finding my way, but I think I've done everything right so far, and as I read a bit more and move through the run in period, things can only continue to improve.
If anyone as any queries, or if anything's unclear, I'd be happy to answer.
Cheers
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