Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Choosing a Television

I am looking for a 40" to 42" television and am not sure which technology to go with, LED or Plasma. The Samsung LED's look extremely sharp with great detail, but I still hear good things on Plasma's. I am unsure on which way to go, though Plasma's are less expensive, looking at them at B-Buy the Samsung LED's look much clearer than the Plasma's. Would like some input as to why you prefer one technology over the other and what brands you consider better.

Thank You,
Tim

Personally, given those 2 choices, I'd go with Plasma.

IMO, better price, better picture quality.

The store is a tough place to evaluate tv's. I have a Panasonic 50" plasma. I love it. Less than 2 years old but they get better every year. I know what you mean about the Samsung Leds looking so sharp. But every time I see one they have Avatar or an animated movie playing. I would love to see what a regular movie looks like on it. The reason I love the plasma is that everything looks natural.

My vote would be for plasma.

With digital displays one should not look more "sharp" than the other. If a picture does look sharper, it's because the set is playing games, and not delivering the picture as intended. Things like the sharpness control, and edge enhancement actually destroy fine detail in order to make larger objects appear to pop.

Not saying that the LCD (there's no such thing as an LED set outside of sports stadiums), can't be tuned to deliver a more accurate representation of what's on the disc, but it seems that the plasma is more right out of the box. Still don't trust the default setting of any display. You'll in the very least want to change it to "Movie" mode.

All that said, my vote goes to the plasma too.

The LED bsck lit Lcd's do use less energy than Plasmas but only by a small margin. Most LCD's come from the factory in 'torch' mode where they are set to the highest and brightest settings possible to attract the consumer's eye. Once thsese sets are properly calibrated they look similar to Plasma but IMO, not as smooth/crsip at these proper settings.

I don't think you'll go wrong either way in this day and age. I preferred the LCD over the plasma myself a couple of yrs ago and bought the Sammy 6 series due to overwhelmingly positive user reviews. Never had a problem with it and love the picture.

If it were me I'd get the plasma. The off-angle viewing with LCD/LED's are bad. In my experience, the store adjusts the screens to sell the one they are pushing at the moment. On one trip, the plasma they were trying to push had the best picture. On a different trip to the same store, they had a new plasma they were pushing and the one that looked the best before, was now the worst looking one in the store.

I have an LCD that I bought before the LED backlighting or edgelighting came out. It is true that the off axis viewing is not as good - so I don't sit off axis. The picture continually amazes me when looking at HD TV or DVD's or Blu Ray.

Same here. I bought a LCD a couple of years ago and love the picture. I never had any problem if off-axis also because I don't sit off-axis. I picked a LCD because my living room has lot of light coming in, so in this condition it seamed better than a plasma. If my room would be in a basement with low light condition, I would probably go with a plasma though, the LCD just can't refresh the picture fast enough for fast paced movies or sports, at least not at 120Hz.

Plasma is a bit larger and puts off more heat / uses a bit more electricity but is cheaper and generally good picture.

I have a Samsung LED and it works fine. The only thing I dont like about mine is the 60hz refresh rate. If you get an LED, get at least 120hz or you will deal with ghosting.

Plasma is usually about 600hz now I think, so its a non issue. I would just go with a plasma.

Plasma displays don't use artificially inflated refresh rates like LCD must to prevent ghosting. The phosphor decay rate on a plasma display is tuned to be right around 1/60th to 1/72nd of a second. Just in time to be energized for the next frame.

I LOVE my panasonic plasma. It gets my vote.

I have a Sony with 120 hz refresh - I have never seen any ghosting nor any problem with sports. The only problems I have seen have been pixelation due to insufficient bandwidth on cable.

Hi
I have Samsung's 40" 610series LCD
it is 120hz and I still see ghosting even in characters that are walking when playing blu-rays. I have tried Smooth, clear and sharp settings for the 120hz and makes no diference. If watching a hockey game on HD it still takes time to refresh and blurs when the players are skating. The ghosting really annoys me in movies.For instance in Night and Day when Tom is walking down that alley in night I see three ghost images around his head.
and 240hz is not much better.
I am taking my HD reciever to the store next week when there is a hockey game and I am going to watch a game in HD on Plasma setup directly to the tv no splitter and see if there really is a difference

I have a 120hz and ghosting still occurs and watching fast sports is still a pain. I am also told 240 hz is not much better

maybe HDMI Cables do make a difference though, however reading a A/V mag they said its a waste of money the more expensive ones were.

maybe time to try a monster cable

Nope. A bad HDMI cable will cause sparkles, not ghosting. If you're getting picture and audio your cable is fine.

Plasma will usually have the edge for blacks. I would give the edge to LED for color accuracy, especially if it is calibrated.

If your budget is limited, you are more likely to get better bang for your buck with a mid grade plasma set. Either way, have fun shopping. Adding new gear is always a treat.

Troyd,
I have none of the motionflow features activated on my TV. No extraneous processing. I have zero blur and zero ghosting. I don't know if you can turn it off on the Samsung but would suggest you try if you haven't already. As far as cables, go to Monoprice. I am hooked up with all Monoprice cables and again, no issues.

What ever you do don't buy a Monster brand cable, don't feed him. Monoprice cables are just as good if not better and the only time you might have an issue regardless of what brand is if you have a long run, say over 12ft.

Color acurracy would be even bewtween plasma and a good LED lcd when properly calibrated at least the ones I have seen set up in some demo rooms.