Some plasma TV queries: Panasonic G10A plasmas OK for SD?

[rossnroller]

Hi folks. This post is specifically about the Panasonic G10 plasmas, but I also have some more general plasma-related questions. Apologies about this, but I need to set the context before I ask the questions. I've tried to be concise, but that's not a strength of mine...if you're well informed about plasma, pleeease stay with me.

My faithful Sony Trintron TV is switching itself off intermittently, and although you can coax it to perform properly by giving it a thump or ten on the right side (until the next time it goes AWOL, which could be 5 minutes or 5 hours), I fear its time has come. The cost of repairs will be more than $200 even if it's a cheap part that needs replacing or repositioning or whatever, and new technology is calling...

So, I've been researching my butt off re LCDs, LED LCDs and plasmas, and have come to the firm conclusion that plasmas represent best bang for buck now, and still give a better picture (I'm an obsessive hifi kinda guy who sits between the speakers with tweeters at ear level blah blah...in hindsight, it was inevitable I would swing towards plasma). I know there are plenty of supporters in the LCD camp, but I've made my decision on plasma suiting our needs better all round, so not interested in any further debate or advice on that.

We don't have a huge living room and sit about 2.5 metres from the TV. I am looking at a 42 inch or 46 inch plasma max, and leaning towards the 46 inch.

Going by the reviews online and punter feedback on forums like this, I have identified the following as the final contenders:
Panasonic Viera THP46G10A
Panasonic Viera THP42G10A

Both are full high definition. I figure going this route, rather than just buying a high definition set, amounts to a bit of future-proofing, although doubtless the technology will continue to advance rapidly and probably a new format will pop up that will eventually relegate both plasma and LCD TVs to history.

We watch a lot of TV (just free-to-air programs at the moment, but obviously will watch the digital channels when we get the plasma). We habitually record most programs on DVD RAM rather than watching live, so we can flick through the ads, pause when we want, etc. We quite often record movies on SBS, but hardly ever hire out DVDs. I see a hell of a lot of movies at the cinema (more than one per week on average), and would far rather do that than hire movies on BluRay (or DVD for that matter) to watch at home.

OK, that's the background. Now to my queries. I don't understand much about this stuff, so pls excuse if these questions are naive.

I believe high definition only comes into its own when viewing BluRay, playing games using a console or whatever, or connecting the computer to the TV via an HDMI cable. We don't have a BluRay player – yet – and I'm not sure I'll be rushing out to get one any time soon. I am not a gamer. And I don't envisage hooking the TV up to the computer very often, if at all.

Given our viewing habits, I'm wondering whether I need to step outside the glowing reviews of the Panasonic G10s and make a choice more specifically tailored to our needs. I am especially thinking this way after coming across a couple of comments from punters who have one of the G10 plasmas, who claim that while they excel with high definition, their handling of SD is only mediocre.

1. Is free-to-air TV broadcast in SD? If so, is it likely to stay this way once the switchover from analogue to digital is complete?

2. I assume the new free digital channels are HD – correct? Does this mean that HD free-to-air broadcasts will look better on a full HD plasma, or would HD bring them out just as well?

3. Does anyone have an informed comment on the claim that the otherwise excellent (going by the reviews) Panasonic G10 plasmas don't do SD very well?

4. Any recommendations for a plasma, FHD or otherwise, that does handle SD particularly well? (I'm only interested in the following major players: Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Sharp, in that order).

Finally, yes, I have been to the stores and checked out the Panasonic G10s for myself. They look terrif, but so do all the other plasmas (and LCDs). This is obviously because the stores usually have a BluRay program looped to show all the sets off at their very best, all the time. When I have come across a store that is playing free-to-air TV, I have noticed that the quality of the picture varies quite a bit from set to set, and it's not always the case that the top tier models look best! In fact, often, the cheaper ones seem just as good, if not better. However, I'm thinking this could be to do with the TV settings. I doubt the store guys go around from set to set fine-tuning them individually.

So, to sum up, at the end of all this looking and comparing and research, I'm still not too sure of things. Hence, this call for informed advice! If anyone can help, would be much appreciated.

Cheers all.

[jman98]

I have no knowledge of how Australia does TV, but here in the USA people confuse OTA and HD all the time. All American TV is now digital, but digital signals don't have to be HD. SD OTA is supported just fine in digital. I would assume that this would be the same everywhere.

As far as watching SD on an HDTV goes, I can make some suggestions on that. Basically SD is fine on any HDTV if you have a high quality connection from your SD source AND you stop that ridiculous practice of setting up the TV to show everything in 16:9. 4:3 stretched to 16:9 looks like crap. Some HDTVs have a zoom feature that can correctly stretch 4:3 to 16:9 with some image loss around the edges (it's impossible to correctly resize from 4:3 to 16:9 without some loss) so if you must watch everything in 16:9 at least use that. Anyway, high quality connections include:
HDMI
DVI
component

These are NOT high quality connections:
composite
S-video
Old style coax used in the USA (and maybe elsewhere) for cable TV

In every case I know of, the people who say that their HDTV doesn't do SD very well are stretching 4:3 to 16:9 and/or using low quality connections from their SD sources.

(edited to fix minor misspelling)

[rossnroller]

Thanks, jman98. Will save your comments for ready reference when I have bought my plasma.

Cheers
Ross

[somebodeez]

I don't know about the Panasonics but I our Samsung plasmas!
We have 2 - a 50" and a 63" .

We're not gamers and at this time, we don't have a BluRay player either and in general, SD material looks fine and dandy on our TVs (yep - even on the 63"). We use SD upscaling Pioneer DVD players via HDMI. We have Fios services and HD boxes also connected via HDMI. No motion artifacts - Love it, love it, love it!

The term "digital" doesn't necessarily mean HD. There's SD digital channels and then there's HD channels.

In general, I say go for the bigger one (size does matter )

Have a good, upscaling DVD player using HDMI for your SD DVD until you're ready to move on.

If you need to purchase HDMI cables you'll probably get a better deal on those online rather than at a brick & mortar store.

After you get it home:

Plasmas come set in what they call "torch mode". For the first 100 hours or so of viewing, you may want to consider turning down the brightness and contrast etc. You can find more info about that here:
http://samsungplasmatvfaq.com/index.php/Break-in,_burn-in,_and_image_retention


If you're interested in the break-in DVD as mentioned in the link above -
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=583089
Some people use it, others don't feel it's necessary. I used the break-in DVD for both of our TVs when we weren't watching something. Just thought I'd tell you about it...

At any rate - enjoy it!

[orsetto]

(...) a couple of comments from punters who have one of the G10 plasmas, who claim that while they excel with high definition, their handling of SD is only mediocre.

Those punters should take home an LCD set and test it next to their G10, if they did they'd quit their negative yappin. All flat panel displays, whatever the technology, have fixed resolutions at which they are ideal: any input material that does not match that design precisely (like your SD DVD-RAM recordings) will not look as good as it did on your Sony CRT, an analog display with analogs wonderful ability to conceal flaws. While plasma suffers the same resolution strictures as LCD, subjectively plasma has deeper contrast performance more akin to the CRT experience with SD material. The Panasonic G10 is a plasma, and Panasonic is a known-good plasma mfr overall, so by definition you should have no worries. There will be a period of adjustment as your eyes get used to the plasma interpretation of SD as opposed to your Trinitron, but the adjustment will be easier than if you transitioned to LCD (especially in these larger sizes).

Most flat panels, LCD or plasma, do fairly well with off-air DTV here in the US. The major network stations in big cities generally broadcast as much HD as possible, while smaller markets may lean more towards SD dtv. The DVD recorders with dtv tuners here downsample the HDTV signal to SDTV to record on RAM discs, etc., and it looks surprisingly good. Assuming you have decent reception, even SD dtv broadcasts can look much better than the old analog: signal processing is better and many subtle defects of analog broadcasts don't affect the image. Source material makes a big difference: commercial TV shows look great, but news and sports clips can vary tremendously (some look awful even on a CRT).

You should be fine.

[samijubal]

I have no problems watching SD on a 50" Panny plasma, as long as it isn't stretched. Mine is a 720p though, don't know if that makes a difference.

Panasonic plasmas rock, you'll love it. Just be sure to break it in properly, no static images or black bars for the first 100-200 hours.

[rossnroller]

Guys, thanks a lot for your responses. All noted and saved for future reference. You've given me confidence that I'm going the right way, and for that I'm truly grateful.

Bought a 46 inch G10 today for an absolute bargain price ($1500AUD). Delivery on Wednesday. Can't wait!

Cheers
Ross

[rhegedus]

I have the TX-P50G10.

Superb for SD and HD!

[themaster1]

My bro had a big Samsung Plasma screen, for sports that was something i tell you! Crisp & Vivid

Two things to put in the balance

Plasma life-time is shorter than LCD
Power consumption is huge

[samijubal]

Two things to put in the balance

Plasma life-time is shorter than LCD
Power consumption is huge

Both things of the past. Plasmas are rated at 100,000 hours, higher than LCDs. A properly calibrated Panasonic plasma uses about the same amount of power as a comperable sized LCD and has FAR better PQ.

[rossnroller]

My research supports your comments, samijubal. There seem to be a few enduring myths about plasma that are difficult to shake, regardless of current developments and improvements.

[handyguy]

Panasonic plasmas rock, you'll love it. Just be sure to break it in properly, no static images or black bars for the first 100-200 hours.

My CRT gets write in from Closed Captions. Under strong light I can see that black box rows they put them in. But it's barely visible. I wonder if plasmas would get that too?

[tomwil]

As far as watching SD on an HDTV goes, I can make some suggestions on that. Basically SD is fine on any HDTV if you have a high quality connection from your SD source AND you stop that ridiculous practice of setting up the TV to show everything in 16:9. 4:3 stretched to 16:9 looks like crap.

The 4:3 stretching to 16:9 is a result of the worry of burn-in. Having vertical bars burned permanently into a plasma screen is not fun, and although the possibility of burn-in is far less with modern plasmas, it can still occur.

[samijubal]

My CRT gets write in from Closed Captions. Under strong light I can see that black box rows they put them in. But it's barely visible. I wonder if plasmas would get that too?

As long as static images like CC aren't always on the screen I don't think it would be a problem. I can watch a few hours of 4:3 on my plasma and when I watch widescreen afterwards I see where the black bars were for a few minutes at the most, less if the program is bright vs dark, with a dark screen it takes a little longer to go away.

[samijubal]

The 4:3 stretching to 16:9 is a result of the worry of burn-in. Having vertical bars burned permanently into a plasma screen is not fun, and although the possibility of burn-in is far less with modern plasmas, it can still occur.

As long as widescreen programming is viewed along with the 4:3, it's not a problem.

Most of the people I've seen complain about burn-in took the TV out of the box and started playing video games on it. They definitely need to be broken-in before having any static images on them.