Plasma TVs vs. LCD Projectors for Your Home Entertainment?

Kent Brewster asks: "We're working on making the presence of a TV set in our living room as unobtrusive as possible. The two main flat-or-invisible screen choices seem to be plasma and LCD projection. Gateway has a $3000 42-inch plasma screen, but I see ominous comments on Usenet about how that one's not really an HDTV and therefore to be avoided. Projector Xpress has a page of Sony projectors that are at or around that $3000 mark, and the street price for a home system that's HDTV-compatible seems to be working its way down to $1000. I would love to hear from anyone who's actually owned one of the Gateway models and might be willing to discuss pros and cons; same goes for anyone who's watching TV on a video projector. How's your bulb life, and what do they cost? Is the thing hot and noisy? Was it hard to set up? Have you integrated it with your home theater? Are you using a screen, or just shooting it onto the wall? If I do this, am I going to feel like an idiot a couple of years from now when LED bulbs replace everything?"

Comments

projector all the way

[Bonewalker]

I use an NEC LT-150 projector with 800 lumens. I am thrilled with it. It uses DLP technology and is HDTV ready.

Also, I have hooked it up to my home theater and watched crystal clear DVD's on the size of my wall, played my PS2 on it, and used it as my computer screen on occasion when playing some games. It works perfectly in all of those scenarios.

I have even pointed it outside and the picture was stunning up against the neighbor's house...it was at least 40 ft wide and 25 feet tall!

Also, it is a very small device. Much smaller than InFocus' stuff. Very easy to hide, or remove and put away until you need it.

Best part is they are available on ebay for less than or close to $1000.

Recommendations

[90XDoubleSide]

If you have the room for a projector, and are willing to have a giant screen in your room, then there's no reason not to go with one and get a three to four times as big of a picture. If you're willing to go up to about $4,000, shop around and see if you can find an InFocus Screenplay 5700. It's MSRPed at $5K, and I know plenty of places sell it for $4K, maybe you could find a good deal to bring it down further. It's a 16:9 widescreen, DLP projector running at 1024x768 with HDTV support up to 1080p, recommended for use with a 100" screen. http://www.projectorcentral.com/infocus_screenplay _5700.htm

Re:42" not HDTV

[PsychoI3oy]

IAAFGE*

the 42 inch is HD compatable, meaning it will accept a component input that's HD and downconvert it to the TV's native format, EDTV. EDTV = 480p, or standard resolution but progressive scan. HDTV = 780p or 1060i. having viewed HDTV signal (from dish network) on said plasma screen, i can say that it looks awesome, and might be a good set now while the cable companies & TV stations sort out the transition to being fully HD. for reference, all (most?) DVDs are EDTV, such that any dvd with a progressive scan player hooked to the gateway or a $6k sony/philips/whatever will look nearly identical. can't speak to much on the projector issue, but i've heard bulbs can be rather costly, and ambient light is always a consideration. the gateway 42" plasmas are in their 3rd if not 4th generation, and previous complaints about contrast ratio and how 'black' the darkest colors are have been addressed, such that owners of older models might be complaining about issues not present in the one you'd buy today.

hope this helps.

other features in the gateway TV: standard analog tuner, inboard speakers (pointing out the sides of the tv, but not bad sounding at all), wall mount bracket was $179 when i left, they may have changed the price, extended warranty options, including accidental damage protection (trust me, you dont' want to have to pay to get it fixed), a host of monster cables available, professional installation available, standard floor stands if you don't feel like haning it on a wall. etc.

*I Am A Former Gateway Employee

XGA DLP

[i_am_nitrogen]

I'm very happy with my XGA DLP projector (Plus UP-1100P business projector with modifications to improve home theater quality). I've got it mounted from a vaulted ceiling using two unistrut (U-shaped channel with holes in it) lengths and threaded rod for adjustment, so mine's not too invisible. I use a 110" diagonal 4:3 painted area for my screen (88x66"). I just used flat white paint from Lowes. There is a place called Screen Goo that makes paint designed for projectors; on there you can find some cool pictures of a house where the projection screen was integrated into the room decor by painting it on the wall, with a decorative border. Without the projector on it just looks like a landscape with a white area and then clouds above. You can get some high-grade glass and put the projector in another room, with just a small hole in the wall, for noise elimination and complete removal of any sign of electronics (except for speakers, of course).

4 years ago

[ballpoint]

I faced the same choice. Plasma was > 15000$ while SXGA projectors were around 6000$.

I went for an LCD projector, installed upside down (in ceiling mode) and projecting onto a 100" diagonal pull-down screen. DVD playback via PC VGA out; TV/Video S-Video in). 5x100W RMS + 150W RMS sub sound system with excellent speakers.

I've watched around 400 DVDs by now. Haven't changed the lamp yet. The power supply broke down once (300$ repair) and the projector has developed a nasty 'shadow'. Fixing it is quoted 2000$ so this is out of the question. (I could fix it myself; probably a leaky capacitor in the A/D conversion but the schematics are not available)

What I don't like:
- steep projector repair prices (avoid InFocus ?).
- screen is not quite flat causing waving lines.
- darkening the room is mandatory (problematic in summer)
- projector and PC are noisy (tho my sound system can easily overwhelm them)
- watching non-HD TV. The quality sucks.
- not suitable for 'background' TV viewing.

All in all I've had a very good time (at about $10/hour in viewing costs), and while prices have come down significantly I don't regret my 'investment'.

A TV and a home theatre are very different things. So when HDTV becomes available I think I'd go for plasma.

Wait a little if you can

[feyhunde]

I work for a midsize company that does displays in R&D. My advice is to wait. There are huge issues with Plasma that make it a ripoff. Projectors are better, but only good for dedicated home theater. It is like this, Plasma is photo-emissive. It depletes itself constantly, but not on a linear scale. The first thousand hours are key. That means, you turn on your TV from outta the box, turn on a test screen, leave for a few hours, and the screen is damaged forever. The damage can be localized too. Watching a TV station that uses a bug will burn in the bug after a while. The full color gamat is not being used, so the depletion is not equal and the image suffers. This holds true for all emission displays. If you hook up your plasma to a computer that has a fixed image, say a start menu or a dock, or a SCO logo burning as a backround, it will burn in. It is only possible to remove by reverse driving the image, and that requires 1337ness and an understanding of colors. As for LCD projectors, they choke with the lights on. They are good for home video, and do great there, but are not normal TV's. My advice is to wait. The gen 6 LCD plants will be here soon. With them will come 42 AMLCDs that will be fast enough and bright enough for this use. They should also be much cheaper, possibly low end models for under $1500. There are a few good ones that exist now, but are more expensive due to reduced capacity. You can get a beautful 42 inch AMLCD for about $10,000 now, but that price will drop very quick very soon.

plasma vs. lcd vs. projector

[rudog]

Throwing specs around is great but really won't answer your question; as opposed to user-experience, which I can offer.

Where I work I use NEC 42" plasma screens daily, I have 2 friends with 50" pioneers plasma screens and have worked with sony plasma's previously. I have several 17-18-19" LCD's for work and 1 friend with a Panasonic LCD TV ( I believe it is 36" diag). We also use several runco hd-dlp front-projector/wall-screen set-ups and 1 samsung rear-projector dlp-tv.

In all cases if you sit closer than 6-8 feet to the plasmas' then any you will constantly notice jaggies during normal tv viewing and several types of ghosting/artifacts during any high speed action sequences. The NEC's cost us about US $9k /each.

The problem is that you buy a big screen for just that reason - real estate - and if you have to sit 10 feet away then it defeats the purpose because then your new 61" whizbang looks the size of your 27" whatzit you started out with.

Enter the LCD, They have better control over jaggies but then you are very constrained when it comes to viewing locations - you basically need to be directly in front and within about 8 feet in a well lit room in order to view it comfortably.The pc screens all run about US $1k, but the tv ran my friend US $5k.

Projectors are all about tweaking, on 2 of our runco sets we have rooms with one wall entirely of glass i.e. tons of sunlight, and the projectors are set to throw a 72" screen from 8 feet away (they are ceiling mount) and they are beautiful to see in action - no jaggies or artifacts and colors are spot-on. But it did take about 3 days of tweaking to get that with all video sources.And they cost about US $7k per set-up.

Our primary Runco set-up is a 14footx8foot screen with the projector set 20feet back. This was because even after going through all the specs before hand, the darn thing wouldn't give us the full image from the 16foot distance reccomended by the factory install team.

And after 2 weeks of tweaking the image is barely viewable with all lights off, the images ae fuzzy and color alignment is all wrong; we have to replace the bulb about every 3 and a half weeks @ US $600/bulb; and this was their top of the line dlp from 2 years ago -almost US $20k.

The samsung rp-dlp is beautiful in action and doesn't have any issue with ambient light in the room, however it did run about US $5k.

For a home setup, I have a great 36" toshiba digital tv. Complete with component connections and a sony HDTV tuner + PS2 + gamecube.

This gives the best cost/performance ratio as it cost only US $1200 plus another US $1200 for the tuner, which isn't included with any of the other set-ups.

Bottom Line: Get out to all of the showrooms you can and actually look at these things in person, You will be surprised at how good your current set-up actually compares to what is available out there.

Hmm...

[Andy Dodd]

Super-high-res projector capable of 3000+ lumens - $20k+ most likely.

"OK" projector, maybe 720p-capable, 1200 lumens - $5-6k, maybe less.

Curtains: $100 or less.

So I can either spent $15000 overcoming lights in the room, or I can spend $100 and install some fucking curtains.

Real tough decision there.