Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Suggestions on a New TV???

About two months ago I bought a Samsung HL-S5687 DLP and love it. It also comes in a 50 inch which is a little closer to the size you mentioned. I think that Samsung has now put out an HL S5088 model with some additional features which you might want. Might also give a chance to get the previous model on sale.

The 10,000 : 1 contrast ratio is what finally sold me on it. The picture just looked better than the other models I compared it to.

I can’t remember the model but it was a 37 inch Sony HD CRT that had the best picture of anything I looked at but it just weighed to much.

Dean

I'd not heard of the Oppo having issues (I stay away from AVS like the plague). Oddly enough the first disc we put in, The Shawshank Redemption had some very odd issues. Often there were major blocking issues in the blacks, and there was an odd "ghost-like" image whenever there was back and forth movement, along with some other oddities that would be difficult to explain. I was starting to panic thinking that it was another bad tv.

We then put in Kingdom of Heaven and all of the issues we'd been seeing with the first disc were gone. In fact this disc looked pretty darn good!

Next up was one of my personal favorites, Fargo. Holy shnikes! Absolutely amazing picture. I've seen HD DVD and this was close...and I was sitting only about 5' away! The movie sucked us in, and we ended up watching the entire thing. Wow...can DVD look any better?

Yep...Moulin Rouge. It was getting late, so I couldn't stay for the entire movie, but my god...The first close-up of Nicole Kidman looked better than any image I've ever seen on a television.

So...where does that leave me? The issues with Shawshank were not minor, but how do you explain the next three discs? Is it the Oppo? The disc?

I had similar issues with ambient light washout issues. I ended up with a Samsung 50" plasma. Very glad I went with the plasma, it has zero washout issues. Inky blacks.

I'm sure the 42" would likely fit into your budget.

I have to remember the "garbage in, garbage out" rule. 1 out of 4 seems to point to a source material issue, not a hardware issue. And yeah, you have to put your industrial strength crap filters on when wading through AVS.

The macroblocking issue, concerning the Oppos with the faroudja chip (971/981), seems to be a factor, primarily, with displays that also have the faroudja chip, such as the Samsung DLPs. Proper calibration of the display seems to render the problem inconsequential or nonexistent. I have the 971 and have used it with two different Samsung DLPs, both professionally calibrated, and have never noticed a macroblocking problem.

Good info. I'm about to pull the trigger on a 981HD to go with my new set. The Oppo people told me the macroblocking issue doesn't pop up on the HD-ILA sets much if at all, unless the calibration is really screwed up to begin with.

BTW I'll put the Oppo sales and support team up near the Axiom folks in terms of outstanding service.

Grunt-

Contrast ratios and screen brightness seem to be bygone issues with most current-generation displays. Funny thing about contrast ratios (and most manufacturer specs): The spec for my sets contrast ratio was some blah blah figure like 8 or 9k to 1 or something but most real-world tests (meaning on sets calibrated for home use in normal conditions) the figures were closer to 1000:1. Remember the manufacturers post "best-case" numbers. They max out the settings in a controlled environment. The actual picture quality when they do this is probably horrible, but it produces the numbers they want. But brightness, black blacks and white whites and the rest are much better now than even a couple of years ago, from my own observations. The JVC 52z55 (?) I looked at 2 or 3 years ago looked great, but had some sharpness and artifacting issues and the blacks were a little washed out. The 56fn97 is I believe 2 generations newer and these issues are gone.

Well thanks again for all the great suggestions everyone. There doesn't appear to be any reason not to consider a plasma tv in the mix according to what everyone is saying. As well thanks John, for your HP suggestion, that is a brand i would normally overlook because they are not widely available. That set looks like a great deal however. Lots to think about when i start shopping, but i'll just make sure i get an opportunity to see every set possible.

I guess to summarize, it looks like i am even farther away from a decision now than i was before! So really, thanks for nothing!

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but if you do alot of console gaming on your TV, I would lean away from plasmas due to burn in issues.