Looking to buy an HD TV

[Glengoyne]

I'm pretty well set on a Samsung 61" DLP. It's most appealing feature is the 120 hz refresh rate. That, and its size, and cost. This looks much more appealing than an LCD.

One of my friends pointed out that the ONE feature to have in a tv is the contrast ratio. He mocked this set's 10,000 to 1 contrast ratio.

So what are the most important features I should be looking at?

[CU Tiger]

120hz refresh isnt nearly as critical (or important) on a DLP...fwiw

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

It's most appealing feature is the 120 hz refresh rate

Why? There is no source material that would refresh faster than 60 Hz. Refreshing the screen twice without changing the image cannot provide any benefit.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Samdari

Why? There is no source material that would refresh faster than 60 Hz. Refreshing the screen twice without changing the image cannot provide any benefit.

One benefit is things filmed at 24fps (most movies, and a lot of TV shows). 'fps' is functionally equivalent to Hz. On a 60Hz set, it will alternate between showing 3 frames then two frames, which some people can pick up on, especially on slow camera motion. On a 120Hz set, it will show the frame 5 times each time.

[weegeebored]

I'm doing some research into buying as well. One thing I learned about DLPs is that they use a bulb (Duh! It's a projector.) that needs to be replaced between one and two years depending upon usage. That's the hidden cost. Plus, the bulb gets dimmer with use so the picture quality will suffer. To me, buying a DLP is like a cheapo ink jet vs. a laser printer -- low initial cost, but high maintenance costs, relatively speaking. Also, the field-of-view seems to be narrower with DLPs so people not viewing straight-on may not enjoy the image as much.

I have decided that plasma is the way to go for large viewing areas. LCDs have made great strides lately (like the Pioneer Kuro 5020), but the good ones are as expensive as plasmas it seems. And the picture contrast will definitely improve once the LED-backlit models become available, so maybe I will even wait to see how those compare.

Which plasma brand/model, however, I have yet to decide on.

One other thing -- let your eyes be a deciding factor. You can read all you want about contrast ratios and refresh rates but if the picture doesn't look good to you the specs don't matter.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by weegeebored

I'm doing some research into buying as well. One thing I learned about DLPs is that they use a bulb (Duh! It's a projector.) that needs to be replaced between one and two years depending upon usage. That's the hidden cost. Plus, the bulb gets dimmer with use so the picture quality will suffer. To me, buying a DLP is like a cheapo ink jet vs. a laser printer -- low initial cost, but high maintenance costs, relatively speaking. Also, the field-of-view seems to be narrower with DLPs so people not viewing straight-on may not enjoy the image as much....

One other thing -- let your eyes be a deciding factor. You can read all you want about contrast ratios and refresh rates but if the picture doesn't look good to you the specs don't matter.

On the bulb, the Samsung uses an LED...so I believe the "bulb" issue is mitigated. Field of view is a concern though. I will admit that I understood that DLP sets were superior to LCD in that arena, so more research is in order.

Oh on the 120hz v 60hz thing. I had a monitor video card combo that worked at 120hz...it made documents on screen look like actual tangible objects. Reading documents was more like reading a piece of paper, than it was reading something on a computer. So I'm sold on that experience.

My viewing environment sort of precludes Plasma, as I have a lot of ambient light that will result in glare off of the glass surface.

Alas I will be doing some critical viewing and more and more research. All of these technologies is making what used to be a simple decision damn complicated.

[Raiders Army]

I'd try the avsforums.

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

On the bulb, the Samsung uses an LED...so I believe the "bulb" issue is mitigated. Field of view is a concern though. I will admit that I understood that DLP sets were superior to LCD in that arena, so more research is in order.

Oh on the 120hz v 60hz thing. I had a monitor video card combo that worked at 120hz...it made documents on screen look like actual tangible objects. Reading documents was more like reading a piece of paper, than it was reading something on a computer. So I'm sold on that experience.

My viewing environment sort of precludes Plasma, as I have a lot of ambient light that will result in glare off of the glass surface.

Alas I will be doing some critical viewing and more and more research. All of these technologies is making what used to be a simple decision damn complicated.

Couple things.
Bulb life is quite frequently dramatically understated.
We probably have instaleed 1500 DLP's in the last 4-5 years. I have changed less than 10 bulbs and I give all my customers 5 years comp warranty on all installed electronics, including bulbs (who is kidding who we addd it in up front but for reference we arent seeing the OH NOs dead bulb again I alwways read about on the intraweb)

Secondly, just to be sure you understand frame rate and cycles. A hertz is nothing more than a full wave in a sine wave (from zero to peak back to zero to negative pak back to zero) in other words it is a measure of load speed. It has ABSOLUTELY ZERO effect on static images. So if your monitor made "documents" look different it was not the hZ difference at play there.

[Glengoyne]

Just wanting to follow up on the thread and say that I decided on a Panasonic 50" Plasma. The 720p Vierra. model 50PX80U.

In the end it was the field of view and the price. The 1080p model of the panasonic is very highly rated, and the reviewers say the only difference between these two is the 1080p at 2k or more versus 720p at 1k.

I haven't gotten it home yet, but I'm looking forward to test driving it some this weekend. In all I found the reviews on Cnet to be very helpful.

edit:CU For what its worth, I move things around on my desktop all of the time. So the 120hz does come to play even on a desktop.

[CU Tiger]

edit: good luck