45 replies to this topic

[Owen]

Vidman, on 13 February 2012 - 11:06 PM, said:

My Topfield PVR can set the video output to AUTO which switches the display output to whatever the channel is broadcasting.
Would this setting work most efficiently though a scaler?

I agree, screwing around with the output every time you wanted to change the channel would be a nightmare....

Every time the set top box alters its output to a diferent pixel format the TV/projetor must re sync to the new signal and that typically takes a couple of seconds of black screen, thats why set top boxes and PVR's dont change there output on a channel by channel basis.


Taking the 65" Panasonic Plasma over the 70" LCD was a simple choice but its sad that there is still no true replacment for the 70" SXRD 5 years on. With prices so low these days you would think there would be room for a couple of large up market models but all I expect to see in the next 12 months is a couple of big LCD's that are not going to cut it for quality.

[Vidman]

Yeah its disappointing no doubt. The 70" SXRD was a great unit -- But I even remember back at the start of 2007 when we bought it - that they were on the way out. I dont think there was much of a market for TVs that large apart from people like us who have dedicated home theater rooms/systems. And we're certainly in the minority. Hence Sony discontinuing these sizes. Even today the largest set Sony makes is a 60".

Most people just buy a 42" plasma or LCD for their loungeroom -- which again has probably contributed to the lack of HD programming on digital TV since the difference between SD and HD isnt that great on sets 42" and under. Its screens 46"-50" and above where HD becomes far more necessary to get a great picture I think. That's why I'm considering a scaler but they are just so pricey. Anyone know of anywhere in Melbourne you can see a demo of a DVDO or Lumagen scaler in action? I'm pretty apprehensive buying one of these sight unseen...

[cwiggles]

Hi,

the only thing I would do is make sure you like the image quality of the Sharp Quarton screen. Early reviews of Sharps 4 colour screens was quite scathing on some sites, with most reviewers canning it for being one of the most unnatural colour reproductions. I only found these negative reviews just after i bought my 46" (2D) model about a year ago. In truth I had to fiddle with the settings a little because the picture was harsh, esp so comming from a crt widescreen TV. Personally I think some of the critisisms were overly harsh. About the only negative things I have encountered with the Sharp range is their lack of extra's such as IPTV, streaming off a PC network and so on. It seems the newer models now offer some of these, but they don;t seem as feature packed as Samsung, Sony or LG TVs. Firmware updates are quite sparse as well, I think I've only seen one for my model. I know some of the other brands release f/w updates much more regularly.

Craig

[jliang70]

Vidman, on 15 February 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Yeah its disappointing no doubt. The 70" SXRD was a great unit -- But I even remember back at the start of 2007 when we bought it - that they were on the way out. I dont think there was much of a market for TVs that large apart from people like us who have dedicated home theater rooms/systems. And we're certainly in the minority. Hence Sony discontinuing these sizes. Even today the largest set Sony makes is a 60".

Most people just buy a 42" plasma or LCD for their loungeroom -- which again has probably contributed to the lack of HD programming on digital TV since the difference between SD and HD isnt that great on sets 42" and under. Its screens 46"-50" and above where HD becomes far more necessary to get a great picture I think. That's why I'm considering a scaler but they are just so pricey. Anyone know of anywhere in Melbourne you can see a demo of a DVDO or Lumagen scaler in action? I'm pretty apprehensive buying one of these sight unseen...

You can contact Synergy Audio to find out the local dealer for DVDO and I am not sure who the local dealer for Lumagen is.  I bought all my scalers from US supplier and both DVDO and lumagen have universal power supply unit and so a transformer is not required.  Lumage is the better unit and it does produce a much sharper picture than DVDO.  Both unit will be a step up in video processing compare to Panasonic.  Lumage is a more complex unit to program and use and if you haven't calibrated a TV before the learning curve to set up lumagen is quite steep.  My advice is consider a calibration package from calman and chromapure with auto calibration add-on.   Now you can see the price is already over $2000 and this one reason why I did not buy the panasonic VT30 because the PQ of VT30 does not warrant the $1000+ difference over Samsung and the saving I had with Samsung cover the cost of Lumagen for me.

[Owen]

Vidman, on 15 February 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

That's why I'm considering a scaler but they are just so pricey. Anyone know of anywhere in Melbourne you can see a demo of a DVDO or Lumagen scaler in action? I'm pretty apprehensive buying one of these sight unseen...

If your Topfield is changing its output every time you switch between a HD and an SD channel the TV's on screen display should show 578i or 1080i when the channel change occurs. If you dont see the on screen message the Topfield it is not changing pixel format which means an external scaler is pretty much useless unless you are prepared to manually change the Topfields output when changing channels.

[TheFrog]

re SD vs HD....there is a huge diff between them on my 37 or 42in HDTV's......even 10mbps 1080i crap looked outstanding on the plasma, much more depth to the image, but it still looked good on the LCD and if you ever have a DVD and a Bluray of the same film, DVD can look utterly terrible going from BD-DVD, but good DVD still looks good without having a direct compare to HD.

That said, Alien 1979 from One HD FTA {fullscreen WS} looks better than my 2.35 bluray of it as the screens are way too SMALL to do justice to 2.35 content.

[Owen]

TheFrog, on 16 February 2012 - 09:14 AM, said:

That said, Alien 1979 from One HD FTA {fullscreen WS} looks better than my 2.35 bluray of it as the screens are way too SMALL to do justice to 2.35 content.

That's why I am constantly recommending people get the biggest screen they can for movies, a scope image on a 65" is not very big at all and at 3 metres viewing distance is not even a back row of cinema viewing experience.

[BusterB]

Owen, on 16 February 2012 - 07:29 PM, said:

That's why I am constantly recommending people get the biggest screen they can for movies, a scope image on a 65" is not very big at all and at 3 metres viewing distance is not even a back row of cinema viewing experience.

-
Hi Owen,

In that case, as the 70 inch Sharp is the biggest TV available in OZ at the moment and for people that can't go a PJ, would you still recommend the 65 Panna over the 70 inch Sharp ?? Even with the Sharp being calibrated.

Regards

BB

[Vidman]

BusterB, on 17 February 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

- Hi Owen, In that case, as the 70 inch Sharp is the biggest TV available in OZ at the moment and for people that can't go a PJ, would you still recommend the 65 Panna over the 70 inch Sharp ?? Even with the Sharp being calibrated. Regards BB

Hi Buster,

I ran some extensive tests in store and I ended up choosing the 65" Pana. The Sharp did not handle fast movement well at all - and would pixellate badly on motion.
I also found the picture on the Sharp to be very unforgiving on anything except HD footage -- the image was so harsh that any jagged edges or compression artifacts on SD pictures were really emphasised.

Having had a 70" for the past 5 years I was nervous going backwards to a 65" but the picture on the Panasonic was really hands down the winner and I have quicky adjusted to the -5" difference.

[Owen]

BusterB, on 17 February 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

-
Hi Owen,

In that case, as the 70 inch Sharp is the biggest TV available in OZ at the moment and for people that can't go a PJ, would you still recommend the 65 Panna over the 70 inch Sharp ?? Even with the Sharp being calibrated.

Regards

BB

There is an 80 or 85" Panasonic but the price is silly.
As for the Sharp you can calibrate all you want but it will still look like an LCD.
I would take the 64" D8000 Samsung or 65" Panasonic ST or VT in preference every time even though they are smaller. Move your seat closer to the screen to compensate.

[Rokkz]

Hi Guys

I actually had the 70" Sharp on order for less the $3800 after a quick look, however after researching a little further the unevenness of the rear LED grid is shocking on panning with solid colours, eg football grass, blue sky, snow...etc. This really threw me off, as far as panning smoothness it did a better job than the samsung plasma,
I was quite surprised with the backlight problems, as I have the first samsung 9 series 55" LED rear lit, dim-able, and the back lighting is spot on, many enthusiast friends who have come over swear based on the picture its a plasma.

I ended up cancelling my order and now have on order the 65" ST30. I wasn't will to sacrifice that much quality for size.

Cheers

[BusterB]

Hi Rokkz,

I would be interested in your thoughts once you have the ST30 up and running. Apparently the latest firmware from Panna allegedly resolves the green tinge issue that appears to be plaguing screens over in the U.S and U.K accordigng to AV Forums and AVS Forums.

Although I'm no videophile and have my Sammy set up pretty darn good, I would consider the ST30 even with all the talk of "green tinge"

Thanks

BB

[Rokkz]

BusterB, on 29 February 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

Hi Rokkz,

I would be interested in your thoughts once you have the ST30 up and running. Apparently the latest firmware from Panna allegedly resolves the green tinge issue that appears to be plaguing screens over in the U.S and U.K accordigng to AV Forums and AVS Forums.

Although I'm no videophile and have my Sammy set up pretty darn good, I would consider the ST30 even with all the talk of "green tinge"

Thanks

BB

Bustb, received and setup the 65ST30, no green tinge , is such a good picture, plasma buzz still gives me the shits but something I have to accept!!
Blacks or very good, contast is fantastic, almost LED like.


Cheers

[Owen]

LED has no better contrast than LCD as native contrast ratio is limited by the LCD panel in a "LED" TV.
The native contrast ratio of the ST is well above a normal LED TV, only a local dimming LED LCD can compete with the ST for overall contrast but still they cant compete with Plasma picture quality.

[Rokkz]

Hi Owen

The 9 Series Rear LED local dimming as mentioned, blows it out of the park in blacks and contrasts, in a side by side comparison. quite disappointed with the ST30 Blacks compared to the 2009/10 9 Series rear LED, however the motion clarity and very little motion artefacts make up for it. The fact the plasma displays the picture so to speak, rather than shooting the picture at you like LED is easier viewing, but buzz is a PITA, 2012 and they still can't get there **** right.

I know I was and am spoilt in my opinion on of one the best Rear LED's to the hit the market, unfortunately they were to expensive to make and design and cost ruled the way.

Cheers

[Owen]

I did miss that you owned the old local dimming Sammy but my response was general in nature and I chose my words carefully, native contrast and overall contrast are quite different, as is dynamic contrast. The old A9 series used an LCD panel with relatively poor native contrast compared to later Samsung LCD panels and it is way behind a current Panasonic plasma, panel quality and image processing where also rather ordinary.

Local dimming is no substitute for native contrast as it brings with it serious issues. The dimming zones in the old 9 where quite large and when a zone is dimmed all of the pixels in it get dimmed even when they shouldn't be. This results in distortion, crushed shadow detail and a dodgy gamma response which damage image quality significantly.

So, unless you value black level on a full black screen or better measurement numbers in a basic and useless on/off contrast test over all else local dimming is a poor solution IMHO.

LED lighting with or without local dimming does not alter the fundamental look of LCD, the "shooting the picture at you" look is only one LCD issue and it is shared by CCFL LCD's like the B750 Sammy I own not just LED illuminated models. I dont have a problem with the blacks on my Sammy (unless the room is dark) but the picture quality or lack there of bothers me constantly. Perfect blacks would not cure what I dislike about LCD yet cheap Plasma's with crappy blacks look good to me because there is much more to a good picture than black level alone IMHO.

[TheFrog]

Quote

I will not discuss the SD and DVD performance in length but just say that the size of this 70-inch TV disqualifies most low-resolution video content. A DVD looks acceptable but I cannot recommend using low-resolution content on the TV because it tends to look soft and boring. This is not an ideal size for watching SD TV channels or compressed YouTube videos, so if you are planning on buying this TV make sure you have high resolution content on a PC or is using a Blu-ray player. The TV deserves it.

http://www.flatpanel...l&id=1330691169

re 70in Sharp

[miata]

Rokkz, on 28 February 2012 - 05:27 PM, said:

Hi Guys

I actually had the 70" Sharp on order for less the $3800 after a quick look, however after researching a little further the unevenness of the rear LED grid is shocking on panning with solid colours, eg football grass, blue sky, snow...etc. This really threw me off, as far as panning smoothness it did a better job than the samsung plasma,
I was quite surprised with the backlight problems, as I have the first samsung 9 series 55" LED rear lit, dim-able, and the back lighting is spot on, many enthusiast friends who have come over swear based on the picture its a plasma.

I ended up cancelling my order and now have on order the 65" ST30. I wasn't will to sacrifice that much quality for size.

Cheers

At $2699 for the VT, I'd be at Len Wallis today, if I could afford it! http://blog.lenwalli...-plasma-or-lcd/

[mjs]

miata, on 14 March 2012 - 10:50 AM, said:

At $2699 for the VT, I'd be at Len Wallis today, if I could afford it! http://blog.lenwalli...-plasma-or-lcd/

usual story ... if it sounds too good to be true, its probably not true

snafu at LW by the look of things, pretty sure they are referring to 65ST30A as per elsewhere on their site where they quote that "special" price for the ST

Still, might be worth a try pushing for the VT on the basis of that's what they have quoted !!

[miata]

mjs, on 14 March 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

usual story ... if it sounds too good to be true, its probably not true

snafu at LW by the look of things, pretty sure they are referring to 65ST30A as per elsewhere on their site where they quote that "special" price for the ST

Still, might be worth a try pushing for the VT on the basis of that's what they have quoted !!

Having dealt with LW several times since the early 80's, I'd have every faith in what was posted this morning in the blog and if it WAS a mistake, I'm pretty sure that they would honour the price.

[memberx]

It's ST.

http://www.lenwallis.../flat-screen-tv