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Sony and Sharp Backing LCD TVs Over Plasma?
LostCluster writes "Several reports out of Toyko are indicating that Sony intends on dropping out of the plasma TV business and ramping up productions of LCD TVs instead. Meanwhile rumors have it that Sharp is planning on investing US$1.9 billion on an LCD production plant."
BBC News: Sony denies plasma TV withdrawal
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I have been looking at LCD Tv's for my home for the past few months. Unfortunately up until this point the plasmas have been slightly more in my price range for the size I am looking for. Will this shift to LCD technology cause the plasmas to come down in price, because they are "outdated" technology, or will we see the LCD prices come down because there is more production?
Also, any Slashdotters have recommendations on going with a plasma vs an lcd? Power usage, heat, image quality, overall life of product?
Jeez... if it's not profitable at the insane price plasma TV sells, I guess it won't be profitable anytime soon...
Early adopters might get burned on this one... we don't even know how long they last yet. How can a plasma screen fail? LCDs get annoying stuck pixels, CRT just pass out... what about plasma? Do we have an estimated life expectancy on those?
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
Plasma gets burn-in. LCD does not. This is news?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Auntie Beeb claims that Sony are denying reports: it sounds as though industry analysts may be describing what Sony should do, rather than reporting what Sony is doing.
This is where the serious fun begins.
I don't think it's too far off to guess that companies like LCDs not only because they're cheaper, but because they fade after lots of use with bright (hot) backlighting. That means automatic obsolescence.
... reports ... indicating ... intends ... rumors ... planning ...
let's wait for real info shall we ?
Plasma is in a stadium now where LCD was a few years back : cool technology but stuck in the circle of expensive->low sales->expensive->...
Give it some time.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Plasma TVs always had the appearance of being a niche item to me; only useful for when the cost and logistics of making a big LCD got overly prohibitive. I've got a feeling other makers are going to follow suit as well as LCD technology allows for larger, better screens than before. It just seems more beneficial to have one line that scales than two very separate technologies that require you to diverge your resources.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
LCD TVs over Plasma
I was thinking that they meant to display LCD TV over a plasma medium. Kinda like PPP over ethernet, or Voice over IP, or Ethernet over Reality TV.
Does this have to do with the alleged issue of color fading in plasma sets?
LCD are only really better due to higher display resolutions ( with HDTV becoming more standard in America, and Europe getting it in the next year or two, manufacturers are investing in high resolution displays which lcd's are better at ). Current generation LCD's do however have an absolutely terrible contrast ratio. Compare the picture quality of a plasma to that of a lcd and most of the time you will notice a GREAT deal more vibrant colours on the plasma. Also, if you are using for home use, and not commercial, then it is very unlikely, in a typical household, you will ever get screen burn on your plasma. I've had mine two years now and it's as perfect as the day it was bought, AND i can actually watch it in direct sunlight unlike most of the lcd tv's being displayed now days.
Do plasma displays offer any advantages over LCD displays? They are power hogs and consequently produce a lot of heat, they have low spatial resolution and they have low color resolution. What is there to list in favor of plasma displays?
Plasmas are nice for moving images, although the resolutions don't typically match HDTV resolutions at the moment, and low-end plasmas basically suck for resolution (480P). LCD TV displays are often made now in HDTV compatible resolutions (1280x720, 1920x1080) which automatically makes them a better choice, until plasma displays also come with decent resolution at a comparable price. I'm not saying that there aren't cheap plasmas that have HDTV native resolutions of course, just that the majority of cheap 42" plasmas have 480 lines of resolution *still*.
The sensible person, of course, will wait 3 years and then pick up whatever is the best techology then, for a much nicer price. Of course, I did promise myself my next TV would be at least 40" on the diagonal, and plasmas are much better at these sizes than LCD TVs which generally top out at 30" for a lot of money.
Have a look at the latest Philips LCD models, especially their Pixel Plus and Pixel Plus 2 designs. Simply put, they're stunning. Better pictures than most CRT televisions, in fact. And direct sunlight doesn't faze them at all.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
And look at the cost too. What are the benefits of having a smaller lcd to a larger plasma?! Most new plasmas have screen burn elimination features, high contrast ratio's, and are a lot cheaper than the equivalent lcd size screens.
Kodak is backing OLED displays, because they own all the patents on it.
You watch a TV from typically 6-5 feet ... So I guess bad pixels won't be noticed that bad :)
..
But the view angle + illumination + contrast vote goes in favour of the Plasma.
Btw, won't a company prefer something with builtin obsolence - oh, wait, there's no monopoly yet
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
OK So I'm not a BSD style troll. But Sony sure seems to have lost a major part of their value and seeming invulnerability in marketshare. Sadly, Sony is no longer my preferred company when it comes to buying electronics equipment.
In related news Samsung have recently announced a 102 inch plasma , so I doubt plasma is dead yet.1 6225410440.htm
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200412/kt20041216
In other words, making CRTs is a cast-iron bitch.
They're cheap because of economies of scale and engineering experience.
Plasmas and LCDs, on the other hand, have (IIRC) direct connections to the pixels to light them up. No steering of a beam involved - just switching electronics, which we've gotten really good at in the last few decades.
Now we're just waiting for economies of scale to knock down the prices, and engineering experience to make manufacturing more efficient.
Twenty or thirty years from now, I'd bet a flat-screen TV can be had for the equivalent of a few hundred bucks.
I still think that CRTs offer the best picture out there, at least for the price. Sure they may take up a little extra space. But they are much better. Most CRTs I've seen last 10 years + with being on for many hours per day. You don't have to worry so much about burn in, and they look good from just about any angle. I don't think i'm going to buy anything other than a CRT for quite some time.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
And what about DLP? High resolution, no burn in issues, high contrast, vibrant color, light wieght and small footprint, although not small enough to hang on your wall. What more could you want? (Oh, and a $300 bulb every few years under average use, can't forget the negatives).
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
What's the problem with plasma, anyway?
Does this have to do with the alleged issue of color fading in plasma sets?
It's all about cost.
I happen to work at one of the Sony plants which makes plasma TVs (hence the anonymous posting). Sony does not actually make the plasma panels. That fact was noted in some of the newspaper reports. So all Sony does is assemble them. Well, that's not completely true. We manufacture some of the electronic components that go into the set, but the actual plasma panel is not Sony. So we don't have a lot of ways to reduce cost.
Plus, the only real reason anyone manufacture's plasmas is because making large LCDs is really expensive and difficult. That's why you only see large plasma sets -- plasma TVs fill the niche that large LCDs would fill if they were available. You don't see small plasmas since you can get small LCDs. So, as LCDs drop in price and increase in size they will inevitable take the place of plasmas completely.
Parent is correct.
Plus the gases diminish in quality over time. If you look at a Plasma that has been in use for two years next to the very same plasma tv you'll see the difference. I've done this very same thing. Plus the gases don't work as well in higher regions such as Colorado.
No problem with LCDs in Colorado and also no problems with burn in or quality decreasing over age. Also LCD TVs are lighter. A plasma TV weighs in at 60-100 LBs (average).
UID 1000000 is just around the corner.
IMHO, as long as plasma TVs are trendy, Sony can't afford NOT to make them. There are people who buy Sony just because they see it as a high-tech company, and I don't believe they can afford to loose that. Their speed in denying this report prooves it.
Just
These plasma screens are inferior in so many ways:
- less lifetime
- more power consumption / heat
- less resolution
- deteriorating display quality
Is there even only one discipline where the point goes to plasma?
Makes sense. Plasma TVs are not really worth it, money-wise. Beautiful picture, yes, but they have a fairly limited lifespan as the gas starts to lose its charge. I couldn't justify thousands of dollars that I'd have to end up spending again in a few years as the picture fades.
DLP does have another drawback.
The one-chip DLP method of displaying of an image basically paints the red, green and blue color parts of the image at different times rather than at the same time like most other display techs. This bothers some people, it is noticible to a lot of people if they move your eyes much when there are bright objects on a dark background. Some people feel nauseous because of this effect. It has been improved with faster color wheels but a lot of displays still use 2x speed color wheels.
What are the benefits? You mean apart from a better quality picture, HDTV support, etc?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
how on earth does anyone know that a plasma TV will last 15 years?
Well, it's an estimate, but an educated one. At the manufacturing plants we do life testing where we burn in the test units for a specified amount of time (usually three months or more) often under some extreme environment. This is the routine life testing and doesn't even consider the tests which the original design models go through. Anyway, from what we learn from the life tests, we can estimate how long the sets will last in the consumer's homes. 15 years might be a bit optimistic, but it's not a bad estimate. In all honestly, I would put it closer to 10-12 years.
And yes, I make plasma TVs.
I saw an ad recently boasting a plasma TV with a 'double the standard lifetime' of 60,000 hours.
Baz
This is good news considering one of my Sony plasmas refused to turn on after only a year (instead flashing an error code). After months of fighting Sony for support, they finally shipped a refurbished replacement from one end of the US to the other. This unit was purchased from Sound Advice as a consumer product and yet was treated as an "industrial" product, from both companies, when the need for support came along.
"Is there even only one discipline where the point goes to plasma?"
How about no stuck pixels? mind you, stuck pixels are usually NOT covered by warranty unless you have at least a few in the same section of the screen - and they can be VERY annoying...
Well it's ONE plus at least.
Will LCD avoid the need for cooling fans or will the required brightness for a larger screen mean brighter backlights and therefore more heat?
With all these comments about Plasma Vs LCD I'm surprised no-one has weighed in with an opinion about DLP.
Sure, you can't hang a rear projection unit on the wall... but with DLP having better resolution, contrast, and brightness than Plasma... and without the burn-in issues of Plasma (or the convergance issues of older projection units) it seems an outstanding choice for screen sizes over 40"
My friends have one. They got it last Christmas and you can already tell that it is not as bright as it used to be. Their problem is they got the TV without discussing with the sales people what their viewing habits were. They have a tendancy to leave their TV on all the time.
Plasmas are good money makers because the bigger ones are not really that more expensive to make. Getting under 42" actually costs more. LCDs are the opposite.
I have the old fashioned project 5-CRT based HDTV widescreen and have looked at LCD based solution. My opinion, unless you just have to have it NOW wait till later in the year as the prices have been dropping a lot lately and can only get better.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Since there seem to be quite a few postings that are negative on plasma display technology, here are some reasons to purchase a Plasma TV over an LCD TV:
- Display size. Plasma is available in much larger sizes, and is cheaper at the 42" size than LCD.
- Black level. Good plasma (i.e. those based on Panasonic glass) panels display a darker black. LCD blacks often are very bright gray - especially noticable when viewing in a dark room.
- Viewing angle. LCDs usually offer a narrower viewing angle than plasma displays.
LCDs do have several advantages, IMO:
- Resolution. Some displays even support 1080p resolution.
- Less prone to burn-in. I have heard that over a long period of time, the dyes in LCD panels can burn in, but it is such a long time it is not a factor for most users.
- Lower power consumption and heat.
I hope that since they are focusing on LCD they make better smallform lcds. (PSP) "Damnit there are 20 dead pixels in my TV!"
Possible withdrawal from plasma market by Sony
"It was discovered on the 20th that Sony is considering reducing the scale of its plasma TV manufacturing and sales business. There is also the possibility that it will withdraw entirely from the market next year. Currently Sony manufactures and sells plasma, LCD and rear-projection types of slim TVs, but with the continued increase in size of LCD screens, it is looking at concentrating its business resources on LCD and rear-projection units, thereby increasing its competitiveness in the market.
Slim TVs had, until recently, been divided along clear lines, with LCDs being used for medium and smaller screens, plasma for larger screens, and rear-projection used for the largest sizes. However, advances in LCD technology now allow mass production of screens of up to 40 inches in size.
In addition, with a Sony/Samsung LCD factory coming on line next year, it appears that Sony have decided it is more profitable to produce their own LCD screens rather than obtain plasma screens from other manufacturers.
Sony's main plasma screen factory in Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, will reduce its production of plasma screens over time, and increase production of LCD and rear-projection screens."
We were looking at installing some displays around the offices to show news, PR, etc (you know, that "modern look" you see everywhere).
After some reasearch we chose LCDs due to the aging and burn-in issues of Plasma TVs. An LCD would be more expensive, but give us a much better life.
Other offices went with Plasma TVs instead. Fast forward a few years, now they are complaining about brightness issues, logo burn-ins, etc and they are budgeting to replace them. Our LCDs are happily chugging along.
So these news, true or not, do not come as a surprise to me.
/insert flames from irate plasma TV owners below
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
I've always been a fan of projector's, and the current projector market offers greater value than both lcd and plasma technology. This can be seen with Panasonic's latest projector ( PTAE700 ) which has a contrast ratio of 2000:1 and a high lumens output to match, all at a price of under £1500 ( and that includes the screen ). The problem with the projection market however is a lot of people do not have the space ( or do not want the clutter ) of setting up a projection entertatinment system. I used to live in a shared household, where we had a projector setup due to having enough space. Im not currently living in a one bedroom apartment with the misses, so dont have the same space available and therefore if I want to choose a large tv I only really have plasma/lcd to choose from ( as rear projections also take up too much room ). Conclusion - Projectors are brilliant if you have the space and want a home cinema setup. If your less technically minded, or simply dont have the space, then you need to look to flat screen models for equivalent big pictures.
Interesting. That one I was unaware of. I'll have to investigate that aspect before purchasing my next TV.
However, how does this compare to the compression artifacts of current digital signals? I have a CRT HDTV hooked up to DishNetwork, and some channels have incredibly poor signals most likley due to overcompression, which really does negatively affect the viewing experience. Note that these are the regular channels, not the HD channels.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
In a plasma display, the brightness will decrease to about ~85% of the original over the first 10,000 viewing hours, and will then stay about there...
The Main problem you'll encounter with plasmas is burn-in, but as long as you're not silly (display the same image for 40,000 hours or something) you won't have a problem.
My plasma has done 47,000 hours now, and still displays a picture beautifully, with very little burn (enlightenment pager in one corner, oops!), but the display driver just recently failed - it's going to cost me about £300 to get a new one. No big deal!
I like the way plasma screens look at least the "young" ones say way, but If the USA is the main driver behind HDTV the drop in the US dollar (which is unlikely to stop while Bush is in the White House), will kill plasma. Unless there are markets in Asia which can pick up the slack from dropping USA sales. Even if Europe catches up to the USA in HDTV availability, I think controls on European retailing will keep the sales slow. My limited USA biases understanding of European retailers is that most of them have a fixed minumum mark up around 50% they must apply to consumer sale. If this is not the cast fill me in. I have not idea what the availably of HDTV is in Asia. I know Japan got burned on analog HDTV a while ago. What is going on in Japan, Singapore, Korea and Taiwan as far as HDTV goes now?
Let's see, perhaps a $300 bulb is more expensive than the replacement value of the largest TV in our house (25 inch).
And resolution is worthless if you're feeding noisy over the air analogue signals. Same goes with contrast, color, etc. I'm not too sure our digital signals are clean enough to use.
How does having a projector properly mounted to the ceiling and a screen against a wall take up any more space than a LCD or equivalent?
That's the nice thing about a projector, you can mount it just about anywhere.
I don't read AC A human right
What about the window-screen effect?
Does the new Texas Instruments HD3 chip reduce that?
Chip H.
My fellow circuit city employee's say Sony is planning out comming out with new LCD technology (actually, they've been working on it for quite a while). Its supposed to come out sometime next year. Basically, its an LCD where the pixels don't get old and stick and stuff :) (yay!) It's called A1 Addinene (sp?) If anyone has any more information on it, lemme know (i'm curious)
~Just keep eating, porky. Fat people are harder to kidnap.
Let me see: they're on 24 hours a day and they tend to display the same image for very long periods of time. Can you guess what happened? Yup, within six months they were badly burnt, and after a couple of years they were nearly unreadable.
They've recently all been replaced with orange LED-grid displays. They're brighter, bigger, much easier to read, and probably have huge lifetimes.
I hate to think how much money they spent on all those plasma screens...
If you are listing negatives, don't forget the hum of the cooling fans in the projectors that aren't present in any other display devices.
DLP are just as big as CRT, and have a VERY narrow viewing angle. DLP is nothing close to light weight and small footprint when compared to LCD and Plasma.
... since plasma is a superior technology that can bring nothing but benifits to the customer and re-seller it must be stopped!
LCD is to plasma what VHS was to Beta.
It's obvious that since people want plasma and it's selling so well certain markets must be purged of this annoyance to our corporate overlords so they may more effectively dominate that market with all the fear and intimidation of a Soviet Agriculture Minister.
I just got a Panasonic AE700U ceiling-mount projector, and it casts an awesome picture onto an 8-foot (110 diagonal) screen even in light. It is an lcd-based design (yes, LCD's will also get burn-in if left too long on one image). On the plus side, this HDTV unit was around 2100 bucks, and it takes up almost zero real-estate in the room.
Six score characters.
Brevity being wit's soul
I have enough space.
Correct me if I am wrong, but when I went to the 1996 Comdex, the Plasma displays I saw were much brighter than the LCD's and you could view them from any angle, like a TV. I've yet to see this with LCD, though it is getting better.
.02
And the reason for this, I thought, was because PLASMA was actually made up of mini CRT's. Each pixel being a mini-CRT. You get the benefits of CRT - higher contrast, better refresh speeds. But you also get the down side -- burn in, lowering brightness, etc.
I think Plasma screens look better, when compaired apples to apples. But LCD is better bang for the buck.
My
Plasma Myths
LCD's also have lousy contrast ratios and poor refresh rates compared to Plasma. However, in the market, one technology doesn't automatically trump another. You gotta shop SMART. Currently there are some good LCD screens that outperform some poor Plasma screens. So just buying Plasma doesn't guarantee you a better picture over LCD. It really depends on how much money you're willing to spend.
Eventually LCD's are going to catch up and surpass Plasmas but that's not the case now or in the near future (next year or so).
I myself have a demo Panasonic 42PX20 that has about 6000+ hours on it and I've not noticed any brightness changes at all. My only complaint is that the picture isn't as good as a CRT. But that's true of all flat panels I've observed.
Important shopping tip kids: Contrast is the key, watch dark scenes. Most of the flat panel screens (LCD, Plasma and RPTV LCD screens) will crunch black. So as soon as you get to a dark scene, you don't see shades of gray, everything just goes to black. (Some TVs will auto-adjust their contrast/brightness to counter this but then you end up with brightntess shifts between bright and dark scenes).
Caveat Emptor!
i didn't know you could get 61" crt's....
No company likes to have knowledge of its plans to discontinue a product released early since no one wants to buy a product that is going to be orphaned. I'm sure Sony doesn't want sales of its plasma screens to die off before it is ready to announce it so it can clear out its inventory and current orders and contracts.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Currently, I'm involving in developement of software for shopping mall directory. Meanwhile, the Marketing Dept still deciding which type of TV we should choose for the display. Anyone have comment, which one is more suitable for mall directory? LCD or Plasma TV?
It's a no-brainer for me, certainly. Plasma looks like crap if your misuse it and cause burn-in. LCD looks like crap straight out of the box.
By the way, those complaining about Plasma fade ought to check out the lifetimes on the newest models - Panasonic Series 7 is very nice indeed.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Granted, LCD's may catch up with Plasmas from a eye candy picture viewpoint, but they haven't yet IMO. And in case Anyone is wondering if I bought a crap LCD, the answer is NO (it's the Sharp LC-30HV6U LCD). The Plasma is a Panasonic TH-42PWD5UY.
Again individuals have different preferences, but to me the Plasma wins hands down. Most people that come into my house like the LCD better, however, but I think it has more to do with the aesthetics of the case (nice silver compared to the dark grey plasma).
Let's see, I am willing to bet that Sony has a pretty decent stock of current Plasma TVs that they would love to sell. It will be much harder to sell said TVs if the marketplace knows you are abandoning Plasma for LCD. Therefore Sony wants to keep this little bit of news underwraps as long as possible!
Current generation LCD's do however have an absolutely terrible contrast ratio
Three letters you need to know:
D
L
P
Contrast ratios on DLP systems are fantastic. So much for there ever being any reason to go with plasma, ever.
Also, if you are using for home use, and not commercial, then it is very unlikely, in a typical household, you will ever get screen burn on your plasma.
Right, because nobody would ever spend a lot of hours playing Grand Theft Auto on their big TV's or anything.
DLP gave my wife and I headaches (even after professionally calibrated) and I ALWAYS see the "rainbows". It's distracting.
Returned it for a Sony Wega RPLCD and love it.
Who says plasma is horribly expensive. $1850 for a 42" screen is nice:
9 3- EVEREST-22213DKMLK838&ic=TH42PWD7UY
http://www.plasmahouse.com/itemdesc.asp?CartId=
Panasonic plasmas 4000:1 contrast ratio actually is watchable in dark movies. LCD looks awful in dark scense. It's just a gray mess.
Why do you think all the professional users at TV News studios use Panasonic plasma and not LCD? Because it looks much better for video. Black is black not gray.
You don't need HDTV resolution at 42" if you are sitting 10 feet away. Why pay for it?
Panasonic's latest generation has a 60,000 hour life on brightness and burn in is similar to CRT.
-weld
Let them kill off plasma, it has a short part life and is expensive to maintain. LCD still lacks contrast and pixel response times. I'll take DLP any day of the week over either one.
today is spelling optional day.
A projector. At least the bulbs are easy to replace when they go.
Half open the blinds, and project porn onto them so that the whole street can watch!.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
DLP sets and LCD sets of the same screen size have pretty much the same footprint. A 50" LCD set does NOT have a 50" LCD panel. It has a very small LCD panel, which is projected.
plasmas suxor.
Lied to by a huge company? Never.
My money's still on DLP.
They may have improved them since my experience, but in 1999 my company bought one for a client. We had it for a few months before they took delivery, so we used it from time to time.
One day there was a video crew in the office shooting some of our execs for something, and they needed a backdrop. Someone decided to put the plasma behind the people and put the company's logo onscreen.
When I shut it down after a few hours of it displaying that logo, I could still see the logo. Fortunately, it wasn't long enough to be permanent, and went away with some more normal use-- but that it burned in at all in only a few hours means I'd think twice about using it in situations where the display is static for extended periods.
It might still be okay for your purpose, if you don't just leave a listing of stores up all the time. If you have a fullscreen slide show advertising different stores in the mall as a sort of screen-saver that runs until someone comes up and wants to consult the directory, that might work.
I'm waiting and hoping for the LED backlights to become standard on LCD TVs (and monitors) I thought that was a good solution a while back and wondered why it wasn't being done, I guess someone else had already thought of it though and were working on it because I have heard the first ones will be out next year.
This should greatly reduce the power consumption and eliminate the problem of varying levels of brightness depending on where on the screen you are looking if they use more smaller light sources instead of a few large ones as they do currently.
I don't know how much white LEDs cost but they can't be more expensive than the backlights they use currently, and since LEDs are quite long lived it would eliminate the #1 cause of LCD screen failure.
On the plus side, your television might have a slightly higher resale value! =)
My other OS is the MCP!
I own a Toshiba DLP. I looked for a long time at all the options and DLP simply has an amazing picture. I love my TV. I highly suggest others look into it... if you don't need to hang it on a wall DLP might be the way to go.
Use the Z-modem protocol between Information Superhighway routers to compress the plaintext. ~LordOfYourPants
The GLV itself isn't tough to build so I'm curious what the hang up was in getting GLV displays to market. Do lasers die young or did Sony just buy it to kill a competing technology?
It's a time consuming process that equals expensive product. The prices will never come down to our liking. Even projection screens haven't come down to the $500 dollar level. I have seen some for around $800-900. All of these technologies are not cheap to manufacture.
There is one hope SED flat panel displays. Slash did an article a week ago. These use nonexpensive manufacturing processes but they wont be out for some time.
Ok, i actually own a Sony WEGA 36", and its NOT 250lbs. Its still heavy, weighing in at 100lbs, but lets not over exaggerate here.
Sorry, I meant the Sony WEGA 34" model which, as you can see is spec'd at 194lbs unpacked. Packed it is in the 240-250 range. I know this, because a friend, against my counseling, bought one last month.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
But why is he still smiling when the lights come back on? OH SNAP!
Hey, I thought the guys on slashdot sometimes used their brains. But it seems that it is too much of an effort to find out that the most basic plasma patents were owned by Fujitsu who is considered by the other Japanese keiretsu as a small little underdog that they'd be happy to see smashed. Everytime Sharp or Sony sells a plasma some of that money goes to their hated partner, so I would not be surprised if they tried to influence the market into getting more into LCD screens...
Sorry but I will keep my little 35" plasma thanks.
Must be getting old.
Checking your link, that WEGA is nothing like mine, especially at $2100. Mine is a plain ol' CRT, and cost me $800 new at bestbuy...but according to this my TV is actually heavier then your friends...assuming its still the same TV (I don't think mine has the clear edge chip).
At any rate, I still don't see how weight matters, its not like I move that much.
I'm astonished people haven't brought up front-projection yet. A friend of mine has a vibrant, crisp, GIANT 120" widescreen viewing experience in his basement, for a total investment of $1400 for the projector (he went LCD) and $400 for a high-gain screen. Native resolution of the projector is 1280x720. We hooked it up to a 1.8GHz PC through the DVI connection and almost passed a brick when we saw the quality.
I'm currently broke, but my next television won't be a television -- it will be a projector hooked up to my ReplayTV (and game systems, and DVD player).
You can get 3 chips DLP sets out there. Usually 10% more than 1 chip ones. I really couldn't tell the difference though and went with the 1 chip DLP.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
And resolution is worthless if you're feeding noisy over the air analogue signals.
Get DVDs and an upconverting DVD player that can create 720p/1080i signals, and you'll be glad you have a higher definition set.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
1080p is fairly common now in LCDs, both in the direct-view ("flat panel") and rear-projection variety. LCD is a progressive technology by nature, so any native 1080i LCD set is actually a 1080p display. Whether they bothered to include hardware to process a 1080p input signal is another matter.
DLP is just starting to get to 1080. CRT rear-projection sets typically support 1080i, but due to the size of the phosphors on the tubes, most of the sets can't really resolve 1920x1080i. (The phosphors are larger than the pixels we're trying to represent)
DLP doesn't have to be projectors only, there are also sets out there.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Replacing my 55" CRT rear projection TV with an LCD or plasma flat panel would be prohibitively expensive. Replacing it with an LCD or DLP projection unit wouldn't be too terrible on the bank account.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why get an upconverting DVD player if your display will effectively be doing the same thing itself?
DEFINITELY you fucking imbecile
no bloody rainbows when i watch a dlp projector? that would have been in all caps, but for the shoddy lameness filter that can't tell that some times yelling is appropriate.
"Population 1,656"
You sure you don't mean 10 times more? Any particular model numbers you can provide?
A quick search shows 3-chip DLP front projectors starting around $18K and some models are over $100K. Skimming avsforum I see comments from just last week implying that there aren't any 3-chip rear projectors on the market. There are definitely 3-chip LCD and LCoS models, but 3-chip DLP seems to be very rare.
There are a few different issues with DLP. One is the rainbow effect that Jeff talks about. There is also the color wheel issue. Some newer DLPs have more colors on their color wheel (7 or 8 instead of 6) designed to lessen the rainbow effect.
The military did a study of how far you had to go to get rid of the rainbow effect completely, it the rotation speed is like an order of magnitude higher than current DLP sets run at right now. I forget the exact number though, so Google might help.
In contrast, LCDs have the screen-door effect and are usually cheaper. DLPs tend to give you better black levels (look at the screen when it is turned on without a signal to see your black level).
The review started by trashing some compteitiors. After reading further I found;
The TX-P2775H is one of the few HD sets on the market that come equipped with an ATSC high definition digital tuner; all you need to do is connect an antenna. Television stations that had HD content at the time looked stunning; the viewer witnesses perfect color rendering, realistic image depth, and unbelievable resolution.
Thanks for the info. I'll watch for the prices to come down and tuners in smaller sets.
The truth shall set you free!
Why get an upconverting DVD player if your display will effectively be doing the same thing itself?
Because the upconverting player is working with the original signal, which is not just stored pixel data. If I understand correctly, it's more like waveforms, so you can get better quality generating a higher res image from those waveforms than you can by generating a lower res image and then scaling that.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Interestingly, 55% of the potential LCD buyers are interested in using their LCD tv as a computer monitor as well.
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Laugh at my ignorance while I learn Rails - a Real ne