Tv change CRT out LCD in, question

[Stephen Coates]

I you probably all expected, I can't really comment too much on LCD televisions (CRTs ftw ).

But my Grandparents have had Sony LCD TVs over the last couple of years and I thought they were very good. I think the big one that they have is 32", so no where near as big as some of the ones mentioned here.

Anyone here had any experience with Sony LCD TVs?

[Harrison]

Sony LCDs seem pretty good, but over priced compared to identical sized offerings from Samsung and Panasonic. And I don't ever think their image quality is quite as good as these other 2 makes either. Not quite the same colour vibrancy or depth of black when you see them running side by side.

[Demon Cleaner]

Is your new plasma full 1080p HD DC? I've noticed a lot of Plasma's are still stuck at 720p resolution.

Are you kidding me

Of course I would buy a Full HD TV nowadays, and like JT mentioned, the V10 models really look awesome!!

What CNet wrote:

The high-end Panasonic TC-PV10 series of plasmas delivers the overall best picture quality of any flat-panel HDTV we've tested so far this year.

[Demon Cleaner]

Got mine, and set it up yesterday, all I can say is there's really no words for it.

[Tiago]

Finally i bought it!!

LG 32"LH5000 100Hz with 2 scarts ; 4 HDMIs ; 1 VGA ; 1 USB

I am very happy with it! DVD;Playstations;TV; and also DIVX/JPGs with USB works very nice. Image quality is very very good.

Now i dont need a to read divx externaly,the TV just do the job :-)

I am watching now to eurosport in HD and is superb !!!!

[Harrison]

That is great you finally decided on one. LG HDTV's always look good when I see them running in stores.

My Mum decided to finally get a new TV last week. She initially told me she wanted to spend around £500, so I found her a nice full HD 40" LCD Samsung, and after looking at it in a store she was eager to buy it. Dad wanted to see it too before she did, so I took them both in to a store to have a look. However she then suddenly changed her mind after seeing the higher up larger models and so she ended up buying a 50" Panasonic Plasma and a nice black glass stand to go with it. It is a really nice HDTV and HD looks amazing on it. They purchased it at John Lewis because all their TVs come with a 5 year warranty, which is worth it over any slightly cheaper Tvs found online in my view.

And her new TV is arriving on Wednesday, so I'm going to be sitting in at their house for the day to recieve it and set it up for them. And I also convinced them to upgrade to Sky+ HD, which is being installed next Monday. So when we go to stay over Christmas we will now have a great TV setup to watch!

[Harrison]

I set their new Plasma up for them and it is very nice. It is at the other end of the scale to the top end Panasonics, so doesn't have all the features such as THX settings, but the picture quality is very good. A 50" TV is bloody huge though! I told her I thought it was going to be too big when she decided to buy it, but her heart was set on it so she did anyway. It is simply massive, but at the same time you do feel like you are at the cinema.

Plus a nice bonus is that they have a Panasonic DVD Recorder/VCR combo unit and it has Viera link so can communicate with the TV via the HDMI cable, which is a nice extra, plus it has Full HD DVD upscaling with colour enhancer which works well. Even if the viera link is only used for things like auto switching it off when the TV goes into standby, it is still a useful bonus.

The model is the TX-P50U10B, which there doesn't seem to be much about online. In the store the information said it has a 100Hz refresh rate, but on arrival it states 400Hz on the box, on the labels stuck to the TV, and in the manual, so that is good. I tried some fast moving film and sports footage and there was no blurring, ghosting, stuttering or shaking during the movement. Everything looks really smooth. So it looks like it really is a faster refresh.

It also has a much higher contrast ratio that we thought from the store info too. 2,000,000:1. The menu systems are identical to the other Panasonic Plasmas such as the V10 and most of the options seem to be identical. I was also led to believe from some forums that it was based on another Panasonic cut down budget model that was missing some ports and features, but this one has the SD card slot and supporting image and HD video playback from it, so that is good and should prove useful for quickly looking at digital camera pictures.

Finally the audio quality is surprisingly good, and the virtual surround sound move, V-Audio, actually adds to the sound quality and really does make the sound space wider and better during films.

So £899 for this 50" Panasonic HDTV does seem a good deal. It can be found cheaper online, but you would only get a 1 year rtb warranty, whereas from John Lewis you get a full 5 year warranty with load replacements if your TV needs repair. So in my view the little extra you pay is worth it for the much better extended warranty.

[Demon Cleaner]

I also got the 5 year warranty from Panasonic themselves.

Don't know which model the U10 is though, usually it starts from Z1, V10, G10/GW10, S10 and then X10, whereas latter is only a HD-Ready plasma.

EDIT: I saw now that it is a 400Hz (mine is 600Hz), and that it has the imo "weird" IFC too. But this one only has 900 lines of resolution, whereas mine has the full 1080 lines.

Can you set the gamma manually on the U10? Usually it's set to 2.0, but 2.2 is the best option.

[Cammy]

I use a MTX LCD TV/Monitor with my A1200. It has a built-in flicker fixer, so all interlace modes look just as steady as they do through the Indivision in another A1200. I use a cheap RGB-S-Video adapter from Amiga Maniac, and the picture is crystal clear.

Here's a little demonstration video I made running Workbench and IBrowse on it, there's more info about the monitor on the page - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kaz6fNpHYIg

[Harrison]

I also got the 5 year warranty from Panasonic themselves.

Don't know which model the U10 is though, usually it starts from Z1, V10, G10/GW10, S10 and then X10, whereas latter is only a HD-Ready plasma.

I've found out it is just a cut down S10. Same panel etc, just fewer inputs (only 2 HDMI ports) and it doesn't have the screen filter to reduce reflection, but I can say that wasn't needed as the TV wasn't setup in a bright room with any direct light on it.

EDIT:

I saw now that it is a 400Hz (mine is 600Hz), and that it has the imo "weird" IFC too. But this one only has 900 lines of resolution, whereas mine has the full 1080 lines.

IFC? What does that stand for?

In the manual it definitely stated Full HD resolution with full 1080 lines. And a real native resolution of 1920x1080. It will be the same as the S10, whatever that's panel spec is.

Can you set the gamma manually on the U10? Usually it's set to 2.0, but 2.2 is the best option.

Yes, I set the gamma and other picture settings up at the time. I always like to make the contrast slightly higher, but the brightness slightly lower, so the black look really black.