HDTV advice needed, please.

[HookeyStreet]

I own an 42" LG 1080p LCD TV (LG5000), it's about 2 years old and cost around £600 when I purchased it.

I've been offered £250 for it and was thinking about grabbing this TV in it's place (LG 50" 1080p 3D Plasma) :

http://www.tvandvideodirect.co.uk/television/freesat-freeviewhd-television/lg-50pz250t.html

It will be mainly used for SKY+HD and gaming (360/PS3).

What do you think, should I go for it?

 

[Athlon2K15]

if i remember correctly LCD's look better under 55" over the 55" is when you would want a plasma. beware that plasma's tend to get the ghost look if you leave it on a static screen

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

As the topic of monitors and TVs is devisive, I would like to state that this is an opinion. With that disclaimer (due to the eventual debate that is going to ensue), my opinion is keep what you've got.

Plasma:
+ Rich colors,
- Power usage, burn in

LCD:
+ Cost,
- Viewing angle, ghosting, black production issues


The larger Plasma will draw down way more power, and the lack of an increase in resolution means that the image is going to be less crisp at the same viewing distance. Unless you're willing to give up viewing resolution (same resolutions, but a bigger screen so less pixels per area) and power efficiency for a slightly larger screen.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

A proper LCD tv will have remarkably good viewing angles. You'd have to go far out of your way to give plasma the advantage there. That said some companies seem to be doing a bate and switch on models, changing them down to VA panels after a bit.

Plasma burn in is much more of an issue for a business using it to display a logo. Even if you get some degree of burn in, which would take some doing, it'd self heal with normal viewing.

With blacks they can do a pretty damn good job with top end LCDs. I just saw a lg 32le5300 the other day and was amazed and how well it compared to my ST30.

Really the vast majority of the old problems for either display type have been overcome. In the next few years they'll probably get less and less distinguished. The two things that will probably never change is the power advantage for top LCDs and the great non-native res scaling on plasmas.

 

[yogurt_21]

how close do you sit to your tv?

from what I see you've got a 42" at 1080p if you sit a normal distance from it say 6-10 feet (~2-3 meters) the picture will be super clear. The 50" would lose in a pure pixel battle at this distance.

If you sit 12 feet or more (~ 4 meters (3.6ish) or more) the 50" would look better as the picture would be more visible.

Plasma will have better colors but that highly depends on the content you mostly watch. If you watch nothing but blu-rays sure it would matter, if you watch cable/sattelite or upscaled dvd's; you're not going to notice the difference. (a caveat here is that local HD over the airwaves really shows a major difference in color quality, so for me who doesn't use cable or sattelite and only uses a hd antenna it would be worth it)

The link didn't work for me for the plasma but any decent plasma these days will not suffer from burn in. (just as any decent lcd will not have viewing angle issues)

So really figure out the content you mostly watch and how far you sit and make a decision on whether the money spent is worth it.

 

[BumbleBee]

after 1000 hours Plasmas are less susceptible to burn-in so you will have to treat it like the prom queen until then. image retention can be removed by running the scrolling bar or playing something vivid like a Disney movie on repeat for 24 hours.

I would buy the Panasonic 42" (£599) or 46" (£714) ST30 instead.

you can read a review here.

 

[HookeyStreet]

after 1000 hours Plasmas are less susceptible to burn-in so you will have to treat it like the prom queen until then. image retention can be removed by running the scrolling bar or playing something vivid like a Disney movie on repeat for 24 hours.

I would buy the Panasonic 42" (£599) or 46" (£714) ST30 instead.

you can read a review here.

I was only considering the upgrade to the 50" because of the larger screen. I think it would be pointless to sell my current 42" (which still runs really nice) for another 42" (albeit a better quality one) or a small screen size increase like 4 inches.

Thanks anyway

how close do you sit to your tv?

from what I see you've got a 42" at 1080p if you sit a normal distance from it say 6-10 feet (~2-3 meters) the picture will be super clear. The 50" would lose in a pure pixel battle at this distance.

If you sit 12 feet or more (~ 4 meters (3.6ish) or more) the 50" would look better as the picture would be more visible.

Plasma will have better colors but that highly depends on the content you mostly watch. If you watch nothing but blu-rays sure it would matter, if you watch cable/sattelite or upscaled dvd's; you're not going to notice the difference. (a caveat here is that local HD over the airwaves really shows a major difference in color quality, so for me who doesn't use cable or sattelite and only uses a hd antenna it would be worth it)

The link didn't work for me for the plasma but any decent plasma these days will not suffer from burn in. (just as any decent lcd will not have viewing angle issues)

So really figure out the content you mostly watch and how far you sit and make a decision on whether the money spent is worth it.

I think my seating distance is about 4m away from the TV.

 

[BumbleBee]

your sitting too far away. 4 meters is 65" territory.

 

[HookeyStreet]

your sitting too far away. 4 meters is 65" territory.

DAMN! My budget wouldn't stretch that far

 

[n-ster]

50" ST30 Panasonic is one of my favorite $/perf TVs. If your room is not bathing in sunlight and energy cost is not that important to you, I'd go with the ST30 over any LCD at the same price.

 

[BumbleBee]

you should be sitting 1.8 meters (6 feet) minimum, 2.4 meters (8 feet) maximum for a 42" television.

if you can't bring the television closer to you then you will have to rearrange your seating or come up with a new budget.

 

[HookeyStreet]

you should be sitting 1.8 meters (6 feet) minimum, 2.4 meters (8 feet) maximum for a 42" television.

if you can't bring the television closer to you then you will have to rearrange your seating or come up with a new budget.

I just measured my viewing distance and right now it's 2m. But, after Christmas, I put my living room back to it's normal state and my viewing distance then becomes 3m.

 

[BumbleBee]

the whole Plasma are power pigs is silly.

Back to our comparison, and the difference seems very large after calibration: 285.63 watts for plasma vs. 61.39 watts for LED-LCD. When the cost difference is calculated, based on US energy charges of around 11.5c kw/Hr and a usage pattern of 5.2 hours per day, it equates to $62.71 per year for the plasma vs. $13.66 per year for the LED-LCD. Over 5 years it would cost roughly $314 to run the plasma, while the LED-LCD would cost $68; an advantage of $246 to LED-LCD. So despite the improvements, there's still no contest in terms of power efficiency: plasma is notably more costly to run than an equivalent LED-LCD. However when we examine total cost of ownership, the figures reverse. The plasma in our example retails for around $2,125, while the LED-LCD retails for $2,839. Add in the power usage costs and the total cost over 5 years is: plasma $2,439, LED-LCD $2,907; an advantage of $468 to plasma over the 5 year period. Even over a 10 year period the plasma will still be ahead by $291.

 

[HookeyStreet]

the whole Plasma are power pigs is silly.

I got up the power usage details and that 50" plasma would draw less than my current LCD

 

[Irony]

I have a friend who just bought a 55" Samsung LCD for $1000. It looks nice, even though its a base model with no wifi or anything. But its thin too, which is a big plus for hanging it on a wall.

 

[MilkyWay]

If you watch some Blu Rays or Sky HD movies the plasma will look different, they have deeper blacks and the refresh rate will induce smoother motion. I actually preferred my brothers plasma to the LG LCD TV i have when i watched a football game at his place, his Panasonic plasma was smoother and more vivid. He also has HD Virgin cable but even lower res pictures scaled well (DVD ect).

I wouldn't really notice a difference with gaming unless i sat close to the screen. 3D might come in handy with the PS3. The refresh rates and that are useless for gaming because i have the 100hz motion stuff on my tv and game mode turns all the options off because it can interfere with the 360s display, effects motion ect.

I think the LG Plasma is a slightly better TV than the LCD. I like Plasma for a living room TV. The drawbacks of plasma have been mostly addressed, burn in isnt as big an issue and power usage has been worked on, they are also not as bulky as the used to be.