Rich H
Second Unit
- Joined
- May 22, 2001
- Messages
- 283
Hi folks,
A while back I started a thread asking for people to post screen-shots from their home theater set-up, and people posted some very cool pictures. Despite the obvious problems and caveats that come from trying to show a display's image quality through a photograph, I find screen-shots strangely compelling. While the full quality of image is compromised, the general essence of the person's display tends to make it's way through the photograph: RPTV screen-shots look like RPTV images, Front Projection and CRT images look like themselves also. It's not all that hard to imagine sitting in front of someone's display from some screen-shots.
Plasma displays have been woefully under-represented, as it's very hard to find plasma screen shots. I decided to make a screen shot gallery of 14 different films being shown on my Panasonic Plasma. The motivation was twofold:
1. For the fun of it! To see how much of the image quality I could capture in the photographs.
2. To help show that the latest plasmas DO produce wonderful picture quality. I'm constantly scratching my head reading (seemingly mis-informed) statements that plasmas produce sub-par images, and are not for the "serious" video enthusiast. I'm a very "serious" enthusiast about PQ, and I bought a plasma simply because I felt it provided the most life-like, dimensional picture I could find. PQ evaluations are ultimately subjective, so I'm definitely not saying "Plasma is best," and the pictures here are unlikely to "convert" the skeptics. But at the very least I hope one can see that the plasma image must have been pretty good to begin with before it became degraded through the photographing process (for instance, high-lights and shadow detail that are visible on the plasma get lost in the photos). Check out the smooth reproduction of actor's skin in, for instance, the Spider Man gallery. I find the images I get from my plasma look less artificial, less like "pixels" or a projected image, and more like I'm viewing an actor's real skin - like I could reach into the screen and pinch someone's cheek.
The links at the bottom of the page lead to two Plasma screen-shot galleries:
Films in the gallery are:
Spider Man
Jurassic Park 3
Sinbad Movies (Vintage Harryhausen)
Monsters Inc.
Attack Of The Clones
North By Northwest
Shrek
The Fifth Element
Wizard Of Oz
Jaws
Toy Story 2
Chicken Run
Willy Wonka
Men In Black 2
The images were optimized for 1024 x 780 resolution. Some are large, so if you are using Internet Explorer I advise pressing your keyboard's "F11" button to give your browser more screen real estate. IMPORTANT: When you click on a thumbnail to expand it, make sure the expanded image comes up with "ORIGINAL SIZE" selected (you'll see the image size options beneath each expanded screen shot). You can expand an image and then simply press "NEXT" on the upper left hand of screen to view the successive full sized images.
LINKS:
Click Here For QUICK TOUR GALLERY
- I advise you start with this gallery, as it gives sample images from each film. If you want to see a lot more images from a certain film, proceed to:
Click Here For FULL FILM GALLERIES
Home Page For Both Galleries:
Click Here For LINK TO BOTH GALLERIES
>Whew< (Wipes sweat off brow.) Enjoy.
Rich H.
A while back I started a thread asking for people to post screen-shots from their home theater set-up, and people posted some very cool pictures. Despite the obvious problems and caveats that come from trying to show a display's image quality through a photograph, I find screen-shots strangely compelling. While the full quality of image is compromised, the general essence of the person's display tends to make it's way through the photograph: RPTV screen-shots look like RPTV images, Front Projection and CRT images look like themselves also. It's not all that hard to imagine sitting in front of someone's display from some screen-shots.
Plasma displays have been woefully under-represented, as it's very hard to find plasma screen shots. I decided to make a screen shot gallery of 14 different films being shown on my Panasonic Plasma. The motivation was twofold:
1. For the fun of it! To see how much of the image quality I could capture in the photographs.
2. To help show that the latest plasmas DO produce wonderful picture quality. I'm constantly scratching my head reading (seemingly mis-informed) statements that plasmas produce sub-par images, and are not for the "serious" video enthusiast. I'm a very "serious" enthusiast about PQ, and I bought a plasma simply because I felt it provided the most life-like, dimensional picture I could find. PQ evaluations are ultimately subjective, so I'm definitely not saying "Plasma is best," and the pictures here are unlikely to "convert" the skeptics. But at the very least I hope one can see that the plasma image must have been pretty good to begin with before it became degraded through the photographing process (for instance, high-lights and shadow detail that are visible on the plasma get lost in the photos). Check out the smooth reproduction of actor's skin in, for instance, the Spider Man gallery. I find the images I get from my plasma look less artificial, less like "pixels" or a projected image, and more like I'm viewing an actor's real skin - like I could reach into the screen and pinch someone's cheek.
The links at the bottom of the page lead to two Plasma screen-shot galleries:
Films in the gallery are:
Spider Man
Jurassic Park 3
Sinbad Movies (Vintage Harryhausen)
Monsters Inc.
Attack Of The Clones
North By Northwest
Shrek
The Fifth Element
Wizard Of Oz
Jaws
Toy Story 2
Chicken Run
Willy Wonka
Men In Black 2
The images were optimized for 1024 x 780 resolution. Some are large, so if you are using Internet Explorer I advise pressing your keyboard's "F11" button to give your browser more screen real estate. IMPORTANT: When you click on a thumbnail to expand it, make sure the expanded image comes up with "ORIGINAL SIZE" selected (you'll see the image size options beneath each expanded screen shot). You can expand an image and then simply press "NEXT" on the upper left hand of screen to view the successive full sized images.
LINKS:
Click Here For QUICK TOUR GALLERY
- I advise you start with this gallery, as it gives sample images from each film. If you want to see a lot more images from a certain film, proceed to:
Click Here For FULL FILM GALLERIES
Home Page For Both Galleries:
Click Here For LINK TO BOTH GALLERIES
>Whew< (Wipes sweat off brow.) Enjoy.
Rich H.