TV & Home Theater

[jjonesz74]

I'm looking at either a Samsung ln46a650 or a Samung Plasma.  I have heard different suggestions from Best Buy and American TV on buying either the 120 hz or plasma.  Does anyone have a preference.  My main purpose is for sports and movies.  It is for my living room which is about 15X20.  Any help would be appreciated.

[Entropy]

My preference tends towards LCDs over plasmas for durability and logistics reasons.

An LCD's most likely "wear item" is the backlight, which is replaceable if it burns out (at least in theory, sometimes it is not that easy in practice).

In a plasma, the light source is the display panel itself, and will eventually wear out over time, resulting in the whole unit needing replacement.  In addition plasmas are subject to burn-in.  Last but not least, plasmas cannot be put on their side and must be stored and transported upright.  LCDs can be placed on their side for storage and transport.

[BBBob]

Plasma's to day will last about 12 years before they will need to be replaced. Plasmas can be laid down, the reason they say not to is during shipping the problem is the glass panel can break. But then can indeed be laid on there side. Contrary to popular belief it has nothing to do with the gas leaking out of the set. The first 100 hours or so is critical to the burn in problem mentioned. If you will follow the instructions for that time frame you will not have burn in problems. The new technology today has just about eliminated that problem. We have run plasmas in the store that had games hooked to them for months and no visible burn in detected. The biggest problem with Plasmas is the reflection problem. If you have a lot of windows or lights in the room you can have a reflection problem. Just like the old tube tv's have a reflection problem. Alot of vendors are addressing the reflection problem with filters. Cnet says the panasonic filters work quite well. I have several friends who own plasmas and the very best thing about them is there will be no motion blur like on the LCD's. Yes even on the 120 refresh LCD's you still have motion blur and I do notice some pixelation and artifacts. We like our sports and an LCD just is not quite there yet. They have made huge improvements but not good enough for me yet. That is my opinion on the subject. Hope that helps some.

Bob

[SlimJim77]

To answer your question...if your only concern is overall picture quality, then the answer is plasma.

[consagra]

LCDs and plasmas both have pros and cons.  For picture quality itself (motion, contrast, etc.), I find plasmas to be superior.  I returned an LCD and got a plasma and have been very happy with it.

[mstng87gt Trusted Contributor]

The A650 in any size has been one of the best LCD's out there to date.  I have to say though that my PN42B450 has the exact same picture, no motion blur and cost now about $1000 cheaper than my LN52A650.  As I have mentioned before there is no burn in or ghosting problems and I have left images on there long enough to have that problem but as Bob mentioned I did the break in and it perform flawlessly.   There is glare though but because I have a ceiling fan and the lights are about 4  feet from the TV shining right at the screen.  There is only glare on my wife's side so it doesn't bother me at all.