What are the negatives about purchasing a large LCD set? (1 Viewer)

[Frank@N]

I prefer to look at stores that don't work on commission.

Yes, lighting and signal quality are obvious problems.

But I can shake off the 'help' alot easier and don't get the hard sell in any particular direction.

Last time I walking into a HT-only store, they immediately steered me to the massive Anaconda CRT...just because they thought it was the best.

Then they stick to you like glue until you quickly buy or leave.

 

[Leo Kerr]

Some of the LCD screens are very nice.

Some are really nice.

They don't have a lot of the plasma liabilities - they shouldn't burn, for one. At least, not the same way or as fast. (I don't think LCD direct panels have any where near the same troubles as LCD projectors with polarizers going wonky.)

Bear in mind that there are good LCDs and there are not so good LCDs.

In my personal opinion, the Sharp Aquos line is the best.

Second best - pretty close, that - was, of all people, Viewsonic. And they did have some pretty large ones.

Leo Kerr

 

[GregHC]

I just bought a LCD RP, I know a lot of people dislike them, but hey It was in my price range, I looked at all other and kept coming back to the same tv. (I looked into Plasma, RP, DLP, and other LCD RP) What it came down to is what I LIKED, and in my budget, because all displays have their positives and negatives.

As far as why do people go to BB to check out displays.
Price, Selection, Ease. In my area, there are about 3 HT shops.
Shop 1, Sony, Hitatchi, Pioneer, and LG.
Shop 2, Pioneer, Sony, Toshiba
Shop 3, Sony, Hitatchi
BB - Sony, Hitatchi, Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Pioneer, Toshiba, JVC, and Zenith

Now I know I can go into any of the high end shops to look at the high end models. But I then have to drive all over town and have very little to compare off of.

 

[CalvinCarr]

The BB I go to is actually dark in the TV section.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

The calibration allows you to set the television to a standard that the industry has carefully chosen. It allows for optimim viewing (and listening) conditions according to the way the DVD people master the video (and audio). Can you set them to what you like personally? Yes, but that does not make it "correct". Trust me, after you watch a correctly calibrated TV and get accustomed to the picture (it may take a while, depending on how out of whack the picture you are used to viewing is), you will start to notice richer colors, finer detail and blacker blacks than the old washed out, too bright, "sharpness" enhanced (this is bad, trust me) picture. For an analogy, you can drive your car steering with your feet for years and you may become so adept at it that changing to driving with your hands feels weird, but that does not mean driving with your feet is "correct", "easier" or "safer".

Speaking of safety, the calibration also minimizes the chance of burnin, increases the life of the bulb and/or set and the disk only costs $20-40. So, kudos all around to calibration!

 

[ChrisWiggles]

This is something calibration certainly does not do.

And as for my bashing of BB, it remains legitimate, as they do not calibrate their sets, so viewing uncalibrated sets and attempting to decide which looks best is a complete waste of time. It's like watching with your eyes closed.

 

[Mary M S]

RP LCD's (3 in family- all 60"¨ Sonys)
My only issue in my particular unit would be with line crawl.
Costs of bulb replacement in future. (my set goes on in the morning- off about 1am, have not replaced a bulb yet, but this issue will come).

In DancesWWolves< After Wind in His Hair trades Dunbar his bone breast plate for jacket. There is on moment where Costner is centerscreen striding from background into foreground later in film.. The Displays line flickers horribly on the breastplate.

Occasionally on a long slow pan with a cityscape in the distant background the same effect (to greater and lesser degree) is noted on skyscraper windows. This is infrequent but always noticeable to me, it draws my eye, others who watch with me, have been surprised when I comment since they are watching the action in the foreground and generally miss it.

I purchased a large LCD years ago due to certain personal criteria:

The system needed to do double duty for watching news in the morning and for evenings with blockbuster films and surround sound running full bore.
Projection would be difficult, if not impossible due to size of room (and see above - seems overkill for Satellite news feeds etc).
I had poor light control in this room.
I needed the new thinner cabinetry that was coming out to shoehorn larger screen size into room.

I have been thrilled with the Sony RP LCD. Black level is not as good as some choices yet far better in my real world viewing than some purists might indicate. (for my tastes)

If you are critical enough of a viewer to pull out your hair over black levels/motion artifacts etc but not in a position to slowly upgrade to better electronics (over time, and something to look forward too!)
By better electronics I'm referring to HighDef STB's. High Quality DVD players etc. It might be best to go CRT

DLP and LCD to me are technologies which I call "feed gluttons" when screen size reaches a larger range requiring quality electronic feeds for ultimate performance. Otherwise things like SD Satellite can be to some (see mother description below) unbearable.

Our viewing distance is CLOSE, pixel structure is more of an issue for me on DLP (I can see DLP structure more often than I spot it on LCD's). Viewing angle is incredible on this screen particularly a plus when close seating tolerances place a room full of viewers off axis.

Be careful on a large LCD as to vertical axis, which has much lower tolerances than its horizontal. These displays do not loose brightness on side to side off axis to any great degree, but will loose quite a bit, if you get your display height wrong.

Again feed hungry, Heavy DVD viewing on an excellent progressive player will astound you, rivaling a HD feed. But trashes in trash out, some poorly transferred DVD's do not profit from being blown up to larger size.

A dark movie such as "Donnie Darko" lantern lit scenes in "Master and Commander" etc require all windows treatments shut during daylight viewing, with excellent detail and color at night. (this set does very well on any feed in daylight with windows open..but if your picky about low lux detail in films, watch above choices at night. Full darkness in room will not affect PQ, ambient is not required; but backlighting does always reduce eye strain for extended viewing.

Other family members, Mother and Mother-in-Law who have these units are non-critical viewers and utterly wowed by these displays. MIL because basketball is just so incredible on a 16.9 ratio Vs 4.3 for a rectangular court. And Mom, just because she (and all her friends, acquaintances etc) think it is an incredible view. These people invariably ask if the unit is plasma. (In their vague way ...Plasma equating to best of the best, so its a compliment) (We gave the unit to her and I have to tell my MIL once every 3 months No, its not a plasma it is RPLCD after her friends come by and she has been trying to explain the display) Moms has sometimes hideous SD viewing since I have not convinced her to go through her HD upgrade yet. They see nothing wrong with PQ under there individual setups and love these units.

I have no issues with motion lag (sports) and highly recommend that you do calibrate using Avia or VE, I need to redo my tweaks off factory since this was lost when unit was unplugged to redo my cables.
Pulling your bright/contrast back is (one item) necessary for my pref. in calb.

I was not wowed by the earliest direct view LCD, but since currently not in the market for a display, - have not paid attention to newer releases (last 2-3 years). I have noticed that there are more extensive choices on showroom floors improving in PQ each year.
Sorry for these long TrainOT posts lately I require strict editing and (time to do so) which I am in short supply of currently. Hope you can pull anything useful from above.

 

[Mary M S]

One last addition:

I will say it and run..........(like hell)

This particualr display benifited greatly from replacing High end Monster component cable with the lowest end "Better Cable" componet set.

The calb was difficult to dial in, particualy as regards sateration levels (with red being an issue and skin tones either pasty or ruddy attempting to resolve) till I changed out the cables.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Short answer: yes, but ...

Long answer: there's no law to say that you 'must' calibrate your set. Indeed, almost certainly when you factor in personal characteristics, the ideal picture may not be to your taste. Obvious examples include:

(i) age (inevitably as we grow older we become less able to detect dim light and colour perception veers towards everything appearing yellowish)
(ii) colour blindness

but beyond that are simple personal preferences. If you find a technically properly balanced picture too dark/cold looking/whatever, then it ain't right for you, and it's your TV set, not anyone else's.

However, it's usually the case that personal preference is only directed at one or two aspects of the picture (typically brightness levels and colour warmth). However, a calibration disc assesses a lot of factors (including some I bet most people on HTF didn't even think about until they got their discs), and the chances are that tweaking these parameters will improve your viewing pleasure. So in other words, it's probable that tuning your set will overall improve your picture quality, and if you then want to alter some aspects of the picture for your pleasure, then that's fine.

However, at the risk of sounding like a fanatic, try the 'technically correct' picture for a while - you may find it grows on you. The nearest analogy I can make is moving from a typical low-fi audio system to 'proper' hi fi. At first you may bemoan the apparent lack of bass (in fact mostly booming distortion) but you soon realise that you're hearing details that you weren't aware were on the record, spatial positioning is suddenly very apparent, etc. It may initially have been less superficially exciting, but you soon appreciate its subtler merits and what has been replaced is in retrospect unsubtle. It's the same sort of thing with calibrating a visual display.

However, I would caution against taking this too far. On calibration discs there usually are sets of fairly basic tweaks and then some very sophisticated ones for experts only. Stick to the basic ones unless you're a professional.

 

[Alan Wise]

I have two RPTV's
The Sony KP-57WS510 CRT-RPTV that I purchased in January, and the Hitachi 50V500A that I got three weeks ago.
I have calibrated both with the use of my DVE disc, and the help of this and another forum that I belong to.
Based on this I would like to add the following to this thread:

The Sony CRT-RPTV is in my opinion a fabulous TV for the money. With the Service Menu tweaks I performed, it looks beautiful with most any media. The only drawbacks I find are the off axis viewing angle and screen glare if the room gets too bright.

The Hitachi LCD-RPTV looked like %&*! out of the box. To the point that my wife said "why on earth did you get this thing ?. However, after doing some relatively extensive research on another forum (there is a "Master Thread" for this TV on there), I was able to tweak it to near perfection. Like others, I had initially set the Brightness and Contrast to less that 40%. I soon learned, and read, that this is wrong! The low Contrast idea is for CRT sets where high Contrast causes "blooming". LCD-RPTV's do not suffer from this problem. I know some people that crank theirs up to 95-100%. I have mine set at 76% and love it it there. No, there is no issue here with causing undue stress on the bulb. This again is thinking carried over from the CRT's.
The bottom line is that I now have this thing at what I believe the manufacturer intended it to look like. Why they were so far off in their default settings I don't know. The picture during High-Def viewing has more detail than my Sony CRT-RPTV. The colors are fabulous. The viewing angle is immense, and you never need to adjust the convergence (there isn't any). It weighs half of what the Sony does, and takes up less space.
There is a greater disparity of picture quality when changing to Standard Def. versus High Def. than the Sony. There is occasionally Screen Door Effect" present (usually on clear blue sky images on High Def, never on DVD).

I guess that you can see I like both TV's. However, I will agree with most that for the money (currently) you get a considerable amount for your dollar spent on the CRT-RPTV's. If you have the room and don't mind running the auto convergence now and then, you can save your money to use for other system upgrades (the diffence in price between the two could allow you to add that seperate AMP to your receiver, or get that Universal Disk Player, etc...)

That's my two cents, or actually it looks more like 15-20 cents.

Best Regards, Al. Wise

 

[andrew markworthy]

Different set, but mine is set at about 60%. I'd still advise against setting the brightness to maximum. LCDs are relatively new devices, and I'd sooner err on the side of caution (apart from which, 100% brightness on my set is unbearable).

 

[ChrisWiggles]

There is no technical reason to recommend such. Phosphor-based devices suffer from wear of the phosphor over time, which is increased with increased use of the phosphor. LCDs use bulbs which are full-on all the time (negating the effects of displays that have different bulb brightness settings, in which case using the lowest setting usually allows for the best picture, and the longest bulb life).

Otherwise, adjusting brightness and contrast is only affecting the panels, and has no affect whatsoever on the bulb. You don't suffer from burn-in, so your advice is not necessarily warranted, except that yoo do want to calibrate properly so that you are maintaining full white detail and not clipping by setting your contrast/brightness too high.

 

[Alan Wise]

Andrew,

My brightness for the "Night" setting is 60, and the "Day" setting is 70, with both having contrast at 76. I have read replies from people that have their brightness set on 85 or so, but they also comment on how easy it is to get a facial tan while watching their TV.
I personally would think it would cause one to get a headache. I have not eperienced any eye strain at these settings even after rather lenthy viewing sessions.

I think what needs to be understood for most folks here is that you can't use the same setting mentality for the RP-LCD's that we have grown to take as gospel for the CRT-RPTV's. It would be like going bull riding by strapping on the saddle from a horse. Sure, you will indeed ride him, but you may not like the experience that much (probably won't make that 8 count). It's going to take the likes of this forum to extract the very best from what ever the new technology has to offer.

I am looking forward to what LCOS may provide in the near future. Although based upon the recent news from Intel, we could be waiting a little longer for that to get more affordable.

Al. Wise

 

[Shane Martin]

I was getting convinced to purchase a LCD RPTV up until I started looking at them more critically. I decided I couldn't live with the picture problems I was seeing. For some people these are no biggies, but for me I couldn't deal with the size/value and the black level. The only one that looked acceptable to me was the Sony XBR 60 and 70 and those were QUITE expensive to me.

The XBR was the first LCD I've seen with acceptable(to me) black level.

The bulb burning out prematurely was also a mild scare.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Shane, have you looked at LCDs when they've been correctly calibrated? If you're just going on what you've seen in stores, then there are potentially huge differences between what you've seen and what can be achieved. Most screen displays in stores are appallingly overbright and designed to attract Joe Six-Pack who, let's face it, would be attracted to a cotton reel being pulled on a piece of string.

 

[John S]

Ohhhhh.. the Sony 60", I just seen this recently at a brick and mortor, and man, they are quite good, I really thought it gave any other technology a run for it's money, and until I seen this set, I was pretty down on RPLCD. Not anymore at all.

 

[Shane Martin]

Not ISF calibrated but avia and such yes. The XBR was the only one that would be acceptable to me but its too expensive(for me) and the size I would get. When my wife decided to give up the idea of a Flat TV, I had more options to explore. I found the picture of the CRT's to be just better and I could get a 55 for $1700 which as you can tell is roughly about 1/2 price or more of the LCD's or DLP's. In fact, I preferred the DLP's(due to cost and PQ), over the LCD's except the XBR. Then when my SO relented on the idea of a flat tv and dealt with the size, I spent FAR less $$ and took the difference and upgraded my audio system.

Really If I bought the XBR I'd be really happy but I would not have upgraded my audio system.

 

[Doug Miller]

Maybe your title should ask "What are the positives about purchasing a large LCD set?" I have the 42in Sony LCD and love it. I had purchased a Sammy DLP first but had trouble with the rainbows. I'll say from first hand experience, that I prefered the way LCD had a slightly softer picture, it looks more real. Yes, there isn't a "true" black, but I'll tell you what, watching Attack of the Clones, I didn't seem to have any issues where I said, "You know what? This just isn't black enough."

No offense meant to Michael, I'm sure he has a lot of experience, but I will say that I have zero trouble watching my LCD at night. I watched the new Peter Pan last night -- looked absolutely terrific -- in a pitch black living room. The details were magnificent, the colors lept off the screen. What some people seem to have issue with is that the credits look brighter because of the lack of a true black. I adjusted the brightness setting, and after a few tweaks when I bought the set, don't have that problem any more.

I've noticed more artifacts on DLP and Plasma than on LCD. Also, as mentioned above, I feel the picture is a little more representative. DLP and Plasma have a really sharp picture, that at times I think look inappropriate with the movie setting. There were also initial problems with motion bluring on LCD, but I haven't noticed it on these newer generation models. (And I watch a lot of sports, my wife would say too much )

Doug

 

[Frank@N]

Yea, my BB is running AoftC on this and it looked really sweet...might be changing my opinion on LCD if a 60" can look this good.

Although I've yet to see this disc look bad on any TV...

Trying to figure out why the new Samsung pedestal DLP was loaded with mosquito noise while showing a Matrix sequel.

 

[Shane Martin]

Frank,
That has to be something going on inside the TV. Something is engaged like a mode of some sort or its the internal processing and someone didn't feed it a progressive signal. The Matrix sequel transfers are reference quality all the way.