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What to buy with Panasonic Plasma off the market
#411178 03/29/15 03:06 AM
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I was really disappointed when Panasonic dropped their Plasma based TV's. For those of you like me who really liked the contrast, black levels, color, etc., what do you do for a replacement?

I am moving away from Seattle and will finally have a house with a basement/rec room. I am tempted to go back to the ceiling mounted FP but that is such a hassle that I may go with a 75" to 80" TV. They all look great in the store but my current Panasonic Plasma still blows me away and I hate to take a step back technology wise.

NC

Re: What to buy with Panasonic Plasma off the market
GregMatty #411290 04/05/15 03:02 AM
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Samsung F8500 Plasma if you can find one. I went from 3 Panasonic Plasma's to the Samsung, its gorgeous. I swore I'd never own a Samsung Plasma but then they came out with this one. Super Bright, white is actually white, and black is deeeeep. It is also the thinnest Plasma I've ever seen, LCD type thin. It does have an aggressive anti glare filter on it, so you need to mount it at the right level so it doesn't dim when you stand up.


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Re: What to buy with Panasonic Plasma off the market
GregMatty #411298 04/05/15 05:19 PM
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Originally Posted By: GregMatty
I was really disappointed when Panasonic dropped their Plasma based TV's. For those of you like me who really liked the contrast, black levels, color, etc., what do you do for a replacement?

I am moving away from Seattle and will finally have a house with a basement/rec room. I am tempted to go back to the ceiling mounted FP but that is such a hassle that I may go with a 75" to 80" TV. They all look great in the store but my current Panasonic Plasma still blows me away and I hate to take a step back technology wise.

NC


I agree, the problem that arose was that the "masses" wanted a monitor they can hang on the wall and as thin as possible and as a result the plasma technology was not suitable for such a purpose along with the constant reminder that they were less energy efficient than LCD/LEDs.

As you stated, the regular buyer just sees a bunch of these bright televisions in the store with the contrast and color cranked up so that is all they care about, they will never understand the more technical aspects of superior black levels and how that affects color etc. From what I am reading other than the LG OLED's(which are still comparatively too expensive), even some of the best 4K monitors still can't match the black levels and overall color balance of a good plasma.

We have seen it throughout consumer electronics history where alleged newer technologies aren't any better or sometimes not even as good as what they replaced.

Re: What to buy with Panasonic Plasma off the market
GregMatty #411314 04/07/15 03:24 PM
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I'm sure if you searched hard enough you could find a TCP55ST60 or ZT model. I bought mine a year ago and LOVE IT


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Re: What to buy with Panasonic Plasma off the market
GregMatty #415653 11/28/15 12:29 AM
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Sorry for the very late reply . . .

I have a 65" ZT model that I bought two years ago and I am still enjoying it.

I have heard the new OLED TVs that Panasonic is developing to be released in time for Christmas 2016 will be a big improvement over current LCD/LED and surpass, hopefully, their own plasmas.

I agree the LG OLED's are an awful lot of money but they look pretty darn good.

Maybe I'll upgrade my center channel for Christmas this year and wait another year for the new OLEDs?

Greg

Re: What to buy with Panasonic Plasma off the market
GregMatty #415656 11/28/15 03:05 AM
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The Panny OLED is using a LG Panel. Hopefully will be FLAT and not curved. Very intersted in what they do with it


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Re: What to buy with Panasonic Plasma off the market
GregMatty #415771 12/02/15 03:58 PM
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South Korea's LG Display to invest $8.7 billion in new OLED plant
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/2...U8Pc5SMrPHFA.97


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Word of warning when buying 4K
GregMatty #415807 12/04/15 08:39 PM
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I never really understood the following of Plasma TV's until I finally saw someone with one calibrated properly. Yes, the picture was very impressive. Sadly there were many uncalibrated low quality plasma TV's sold and the market was killed for them.

So what do you have to choose from now.

Well, the LCD answer to Plasma is FLAD. The problem with LCD is that as the pixels themselves do not glow, you need to have a back light to shine through the screen with the LCD blocking the light to give the colour picture on the screen. All is good but black can only be as black as the amount of light that can be blocked and white can only be as white as the total brightness of the back light. A compromise at best. FLAD moves the back lighting from being around the sides to being an array of smaller LED blubs covering the whole back panel of the TV that can be turned on and off in grid arrays. This means that when displaying darker parts on a screen, the blacks can be blacker as the back lighting for that particular section can be turned off so less background light is there to illuminate the LCD filter.

So, if you are looking at LCD for your next TV and want better dynamic range, then FLAD is the way to go.

But then you get into the HD vs UHD. Is getting 4K going to give you a better picture. Well, this is where some things get fun. 4K does give more detail and though some disagree, there are those of us that can tell the difference between 1080p and 2160p. The other thing that is coming into play is the possibility of the expanded colour space taking the picture from 8bit/channel to 10bit/channel and upping from NTSC/709 colour space to a better DCS/REC2020 that allows the TV to display colours that simply were not possible to produce before. To get that added colour you must move to the newer 4K TV set.

The down side to the move up however is historic video footage. I have current 1080p HTPC media center that stores a copy of all my old movies and TV shows. The 4K tv however needs to upscale the video from all my lower res sources to display. Up-ressing from a 1080p or 720p material is very good, Going from a 480p is pretty good but pushing the limits. So a DVD does look watchable but you can tell that it is not nearly as sharp as it should be. Your TV enhances the loss or resolution in 4K far more than an older HD 1080 tv ever did.

Where the real problem comes in is bad quality DVD's or any item that you ripped and compressed as that process reduced and eliminated much of the detail that was close but would not have been seen at a lower resolution, but when you try and upscale it to 4K ends up looking awful.

Any the problem gets worse. If you try and play this media on a device that itself upscaled to 1080p (that many media players do) on your 4K TV your picture will be so fuzzy it will be almost unwatchable. This is because the TV then tried to upscale an already upscaled picture and hell breaks loose.

If I play a re-compressed DVD on my Kodi media player with the screen res set to 1080p, I get a far worse picture than if I re-set the media player to output at the native 480p res for the media player and let the TV do a single upress to the 4K.

Just figured I would put some experience out there and see if anyone else had had the same results.


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Re: Word of warning when buying 4K
GregMatty #415808 12/04/15 10:57 PM
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The biggest concern I have is that they don't use FALD ( full array local dimming ) on any mid range sets that I can find. You have to buy the upper tier models (6G Canadian) to get that benefit. I am extremely bothered by light bleed from side lit TV's and also the uniformity issues. I am continuing my search for a plasma to replace my ailing panny. I found some Samsung online as mentioned above but they are only 60" and would really like a 65. Also watch for IPS panels which have better side viewing but cant reproduce blacks as well.

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Re: Word of warning when buying 4K
GregMatty #415814 12/05/15 02:05 AM
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Why do you say 6G? I picked up my Panasonic 65CX850 that has FLAD + DCI + HDR @ 4k60p for under $3000 CDN + tax

Great TV with a THX certified screen and full ability to to do ISF screen calibration without the need to get into special hidden setup modes.


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