YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

My ten year old Toshiba TW40x81 is cranking along fine (although in dire need of an alignment at 1080i), but I'm getting the upgrade bug.

I have a dark, basement home theater room, 10x16. Seating will likely be 8 feet away. Space/decor is not much of an issue, so no need for the big $$$ on Plasma or LCD. My working assumption is that rear-DLP's are going to best most Plasma or LCD in terms of image quality, yes? At the very least, the quality/price ratio is way better, at the expense of taking up a tiny bit more space. Is that still the general wisdom around here?

Anyone have any concerns about DLP tech being abandoned? Seems like most manufacturers are focusing on LCD these days, even though my impression was that DLP usually gives a better image. My take is that even if DLPs aren't sold in 5 years, a 1080p unit in the 50-60" range will hold up quite well quality/feature wise.

Assuming DLP is what I want, I'm looking at 50-60" DLP units. Best Buy has the 50" Samsung HL-T5087S on sale for only $1300. It claims to be the LED light source model. Seems like an excellent buy to me, any inside info on what I'm missing there?

But given that this TV should last at least another 10 years, I may also consider the 60" models. Seems Circuit City has the 61" Series 7 for $2K. A noticeable jump, but also gives me a large size increase. Rounding up seems like a good idea given I'll be living with this decision for quite a few years.

Jump on this now? Wait for laser-based unit to come out? With laser, I figure I'll have the choice of snarfing up a bargain on the older LED-based model, or spending more $$$ to future-proof.

Any insight appreciated, I've been out of the game for quite a bit.

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Seems like plasma has pulled ahead of DLP these days (mainly in terms of dynamic range) though I'm not so sure about LCD vs DLP -- I really don't care for the LCD look myself.

Anyway, I'm currently considering the same 61" Samsung LED model and might go for it w/ the latest price drop at Amazon.com (under $1700 shipped now). Unless you insist on buying it locally (and paying the substantial premium), your best bet is probably Amazon.com right now -- Amazon's pricing seems to fluctuate almost daily though.

_Man_

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Do you care about viewing angles? RP-DLP are good if you sit right in front of them, but as you move to the sides for angled viewing, the picture quality suffers in terms of dimness/etc.

Also, if you've looked at the LED-RP-DLP sets, are you satisfied with the brightness, contrast ratio, overall picture quality of them? Also, factor in the cost of a replacement bulb every 3-5 years (depending on how much TV you end up watching on the new set).

(Full disclosure, I'm a 50" Panasonic plasma owner, upgraded from a 56" Panasonic HDTV CRT RPTV, and enjoy the wider viewing angles from the plasma over the CRT.)

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

That particular model at Best Buy is last year's model. Don't know if that matters to you or not. In the newer model line-up I don't believe they offer LED until you get to 56".

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Most of the seats in the room in question do no deviate too far from center. Besides, I thought the new crop of Sammys had pretty good viewing angles. Maybe not as good as plasma, but certainly as good or better than what I have now.


Haven't seen the LED units in person, but have looked at bulb/color-wheel units in the past. They have always seemed to have a very bright, crisp picture. Reports I've seen on the LED units is that they are generally better regarded than the earlier tech. Is that more controversial than I think?

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Interesting, I hadn't known about Plasma getting that much better. But then price/power draw/burn-in issues have always made Plasma a non-starter for me. From what I'm reading, it sounds like price is the biggest downside now. For this particular room, the extra 10" of depth on the DLP is irrelevant.

Yeah, that looks pretty good. Although I'm still wrestling with whether this is really a sweet spot for timing. Black Friday or model year turnover is often a better bet. But then again, for less than my 40" RPCRT....

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Oops, forget what I said about bulbs and LED, no such thing for the LED models, but again, at least make sure the LED models "look" good to your eyes.

Once you go with flatscreen technology, it's tough to go back to a RP model, even with the larger viewing area.

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Just got back from a quick perusing at Circuit City. Gotta say that I was underwhelmed by the Samsung DLP's, and left more impressed by Plasma's image quality and relative affordability.

The 61" DLP had tremendous problems with viewing angle, even in the sweet spot. At no angle was the screen uniformly bright. Straight-on, all four corners were obviously dimmer, and the bright/dark areas just moved around as you changed positions. Clearly they were attempting too large a screen for the projector.

The 50" was much better, but the sweet spot is not very big before the image became uneven. There was also LCD-like artifacting going on during motion.

LCD's were noticably brighter than Plasma (not a concern for me), but they still don't have the response times of the panels fast enough yet. Motion artifacts were very obvious, as well as what appeared to be scaling artifacts (which weren't as obvious on the Plasmas for some reason). Viewing angle seems to be a solved problem on LCD.

The Plasmas were gorgeous, gotta say. And if you don't care about 1080p, surprisingly affordable. The 50" 720p units were reliably at the $1500 price point. 1080p has a stiff $600-700 premium, which at 8 feet you'd really have to be splitting hairs to notice an improvement. I doubt I'd be able to pick them out double-blind. The image quality difference is more likely to come from whether the TV is having to rescale the image rather than the final resolution.

So now I'm leaning Plasma, which is a whole new set of compromises. A 50" 720p is comfortably in my $$$$ threshold of pain. Going up to 1080p gives me pause pricewise, although I'm concerned about future-proofing, even though the image quality is probably a non-issue. Going much larger is really painful, I'd do better to wait if I want >50", but after seeing the 50-60" range, I'd have to say that the current space likely isn't amenable to a 60" unit.

I don't have much of a brand affinity, with the slight advantage to Panasonic given I have a Viera-compatible DVD player. Any thoughts on that? Worth sticking with the Panny? Or is there an obviously better choice out there...

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

I've been a big fan of rear projection tvs, had a Toshiba TW56X81 that I got in late 1999 and now have a Samsung 56" 1080P DLP (regular model, not LED). I also have a 50" 720P Panasonic plasma in the family room. Overall, I'd go with a plasma. I think the picture is smoother on a plasma, and more uniform across the screen. If you're going to be at 8', a 1080P plasma might be the way to go. While a lot of 720P 50" plasmas go for around $1500, you can find them on sale for around $1200, or less, fairly often. I'd wait until the Memorial Day sales start and check the prices on both the 720P and 1080P models then.

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Hmmm... I didn't realize viewing angle (and general unevenness) would be so bad for the new 61" Samsung DLP -- I seem to recall they were just fine a year or two ago when I browsed casually and hadn't heard that it was that bad. I still need to go have a look-see for myself to be sure. I tried J&R just the other day, but they didn't have the new one out on display, and the old one (from last year) was dead.

The newer Panny plasmas do look more and more attractive to me even on paper, especially since pricing for the 50" models seem competitive enough vs the 61" Samsung DLP. I just noticed that Amazon carries the 50PZ85 for ~$150 more than the 61" Samsung right now -- not bad at ~$1850 shipped. And according to the description at Amazon, Panny claims 100K(!) hours lifespan (vs Samsung's 20K hours for their LED light engine), so IMHO that in itself could probably justify the price diff if you plan to put a lot of regular hours on the set, if the claim is true. I figure 20K hours (on the Samsung LED) would probably last ~7 years (assuming 8 hours/day), which is fine enough if true. But the Panny would basically last as long as the rest of the set can hold up -- and presumably, even if you eventually upgrade to something better for your HT, the plasma will still likely be better (and more useable) elsewhere in the house, etc. than the DLP.

But yeah, too bad the plasmas beyond 50" are still far more expensive though. I really do want something closer to 60" myself, but if viewing angle and general evenness of brightness are that bad, then there's not much point to it.

Hmmm... Maybe a 50" 720p as a sort of stopgap wouldn't be such a bad idea, if a 61" DLP won't satisfy. OTOH, maybe I should just wait some more and see how far the larger 1080p plasmas will fall in pricing (and also see what's up w/ Mits' upcoming laser sets)...

_Man_

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Hmmm... What were you watching though? If it's not something high quality on Blu-ray or HD-DVD (or similar), yeah, I doubt there's gonna be much diff even if you get closer. But I wouldn't think you need to split hairs w/ a high quality source at 8 ft though.


Well, seems like most programming will either be 1080i/p or 480i/p. And I would think scaling good quality 480i/p source to 1080p should yield a smoother picture than scaling to 720p, assuming a good scaler is used, but yeah, a lot of things can go "wrong" there, so can't really assuming anything.

_Man_

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

I was pretty surprised myself. I also didn't get the impression that viewing angle was such an issue even a few years ago. And at the time I had explicitly looked at viewing angle on RP DLP's. Up/down wasn't great, but side-side was more than adequate back then.

But the 61" Sammy on display was pretty marginal---it was the first problem I noticed---and it only took two minutes to drop to the bottom of my list it was so bad.

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

It was a straight feed of the HD Network from Comcast. I tried and tried to see a difference but I really couldn't. I don't know what format HD broadcasts, but the 720 and 1080 pictures looked equally good, and I couldn't see any degradation in rescaling (in whichever direction that was happening).

I would concede the point that you could probably find source material that would highlight the difference in res, but if it's that fine of a distinction, then personally I'm not sure that 1080 is worth the $700 right now. For example, with $700 more I'm into the realm of 58" 720p panels. I'd have to think long and hard about whether I'd rather have 1080 (with potentially marginal benefit) or 8 more inches (with rather obvious benefits).

To wit, my continued searching has uncovered the Panny 58" 720p 10-series professional panel, which is basically the cost of a 50" 1080p consumer one. Personally I don't need speakers or a tuner built into the set, so the pro series has definitely gotten my attention.

As stated above, the scalers on the units I saw were certainly doing a very competent job at scaling between 720 and 1080. Can't say that I have a lot of mileage on comparing scalers though.

Accepting that this could change over time, I thought there was still a lot of 720p out there, at least in broadcast? Agreed that HD media content will probably be 1080 from the get-go. At 8-9 feet, with either 50" or 58", it's not clear how much I'd notice the rescale to 720 assuming a good scaler.

Thanks everyone, for the thoughtful discussion by the way, it's helping quite a bit with my reaquaintence of the market.

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

David,

I don't see the old(?) 58" 720p Panny being quite the same price as the newer 50" 1080p Panny's. The cheapest I'm seeing right now at a reputable dealer for the 58" 720p is ~$2050 (at B&H). The cheapest for the newer 50" 1080p is ~$1700 (also at B&H) -- and for the older 50" 1080p is ~$1600 (again at B&H).

_Man_

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Fair enough, I wasn't comparing apples to apples (retail on the 50" 1080p vs mail order on the 58" 10-series). While I'm nowhere near decided on all of this, I would still seriously consider trading off 1080p for 58", even with the nominal price spread.

Based on the THX recommendations I've seen out there, 58" at 9' is in the "grey zone" on where 1080p starts to become an advantage. So 1080p may have an edge there. But 50" at 9' is exactly on the "full benefit of 720p is visible" threshold without encroaching at all into the "1080p starts to become noticeable". So while its entirely possible that I would give up image quality on some source material at 58", it gets much less likely at 50".

The calculus isn't simple, granted. But based on the THX assessments, it seems like if I'm going to get a 50" set, it may as well be 720p. Obviously if money were no object, 1080p would be the right thing at 58". And in fact one option is to just wait it out until 1080p at 58" is the same price as 720p.

TV's stopped being a simple purchase, what, 15 years ago?

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Hmmm... Yeah, this TV shopping is getting tough.

For me, part of the problem is I'm having a hard time locating any local stores that display the new Samsung DLP. I found a local Best Buy that displayed last year's model of the same, and yeah, it did seem rather underwhelming, but then again, the bad (flood) lighting situation right next to that demo unit certainly didn't help matters. I couldn't tell how much of the performance problem came from the bad lighting and how much was actually the TV itself. Seems like all the stores are basically phasing out DLP sales and could care less about making them look good on display, that is, if they stocked them at all. That local Best Buy did actually have the 73" Mits DLP on display in a prime location (right in front of the prime sales rep area/center), but they seemed to have left it running on a dying bulb, which makes me wonder more whether they're making the DLPs look bad on purpose.

Anyway, I do also wonder if part of the viewing angle problem isn't coming from the LED tech itself. A couple other non-LED DLPs (other than the giant Mits w/ dying bulb) in that store looked much closer to what I was expecting, including the 61" bulb-based Samsung from last year. But I really don't want to go w/ a bulb-based unit now. Besides the various apparent downsides to bulb-based DLPs, I do also wonder if their design w/ the color wheel isn't significantly more prone to breaking down too. My in-laws bought a Samsung unit ~4 years ago, and now, it literally sounds like the color wheel might die soon -- it seems to make some rather loud rattling noise for several minutes after power-on.

Anyway, if the 61" Samsung is a no go, maybe I'll wait and see how the upcoming Mits laser-based displays pan out along w/ pricing on the 58" 1080p plasmas -- currently, the cheapest one seems to be the Samsung 58A550, but even that's ~$1K higher than their 61" LED DLP. I really don't want to go down to 50" although the price would fit the bill ok.

_Man_

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Yes, I for one have definitely had to rethink my strategy. I have a feeling that DLP RP is going to die off, if for no other reason than it will likely lose its price advantage over time, and most folks are going be drawn to the sexier flat panels. I have have the same hunch as you about retailer---they definitely are putting DLP in the back seat.

The LED vs bulb thing is a puzzler. The LED units I saw not only had the angle and evenness problems, but I also think they lacked the "pop" that I remember from the older units. Makes you wonder whether they aren't able to get the same amount of light out of LEDs, and even if so, if they are having to really focus the beams to get that brightness (think LED flashlight vs incandescent flashlight). Would possibly explain the viewing angle problem.

I have a feeling I'm going to be waiting to see what happens in 6-12 months. Haven't gotten myself to justify >$3K for a 1080p 58" unit, but the cheaper options are definitely compromises one way or the other.

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Hmmm... Looks like the Mits laser sets will be a no-go for me since it sounds like they're going to price them even beyond the 58" 1080p plasmas when they finally arrive later this year. And as it is, I don't think I can really justify spending the ~$2.5K on a 58" plasma, assuming the Samsung unit will hit that mark by holiday season.

Guess I'll need to look more into the Samsung 61" DLP again. I'm thinking maybe the viewing angle issue won't matter at all if I just rearrange my livingroom accordingly w/ the help of the bit of space savings going from CRT RPTV to DLP RPTV. It just might work out better that way anyhow...

_Man_

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Definitely be sure to see it in person. My experience was that was no viewing angle which gave an evenly bright image. The 50" fared much better in that regard. But based on the unit I saw, I wouldn't remotely consider the 61".

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Seeing is believing.

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

I do wonder if it wasn't just the particular unit you saw though (or maybe something was screwy w/ the setup). Another thing is did you sit down to watch it (or assume an equivalent viewing height)? That could factor into the viewing angle issue too.

When I saw the older 61" LED model the other day, it looked even enough from the sweet spot, but the viewing angle issue would start to crop up as soon as I stood up or moved outside the area directly in front of the set. While that was not actually this year's model, I don't believe this issue has changed though from last year. Certainly, all the anecdotal evidence I could find on the web suggest the same thing -- and there seems to be plenty of folks who are quite satisfied w/ both the older and the newer 61" units provided they watched w/in the sweet spot area.

But yeah, I will certainly want to look some more and find an actual display of that particular model -- and hopefully, in better lighting. And of course, I'll also need to figure out a livingroom arrangement that's suitable for the more limited viewing angle, which may or may not really be doable. If it won't work out, then I may need to reconsider dropping down to a 50" plasma instead (or maybe consider a bargain priced 50" bulb-based DLP as a short term solution or just wait until my current CRT-based RPTV completely dies)...

_Man_

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Hmmm... Seems that *none* of the Best Buys in the NYC area carries this Samsung unit even though various others around the country carry it. I wonder if it's not a BB marketing decision specific to what they believe is the NYC demographic (w/ smaller living quarters in general and likely higher demand for flat panels). I guess I might need to make a long-ish drive out away from the city, if I need/want to see this set in person.

_Man_

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Yup, and this was one of those furniture-store-style blocks in the store with several chairs, a couch, and the unit put inside a home entertainment center. Height was the first thing I thought of when I saw how uneven it was, but even sitting down on the couch, dead center on the screen, the vignetting was noticeable.

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Ok. Finally found the Sammy 61" LED DLP set up nicely at a local Circuit City. And nope, didn't see the uneven brightness issue at all -- well, there was a couple shots from the Apple TV demo they used that apparently intentionally used vignetting (or rather, spotlighting) that had me wondering for a moment, but other normal scenes looked just fine. Also, the viewing angle and overall brightness seemed a bit better than the last-year-model demo unit I saw at Best Buy.

And after checking AVS again today, I see more owner comments that confirmed what I saw at CC, including that this year's model is better than last year's, which I guess should not be surprising considering last year was 1st gen for the LED design. The AVS folks were disappointed though that the 7 series doesn't seem to be using the newer TI DC4 DLP chip -- oh well, can't have it all I guess.

One other thing of interest is I noticed that CC claims the new LED lasts 60K hours instead of 20K hours, which was listed for last year's models (in Samsung's own FAQ).

I think I'm convinced enough to go for it now. Just have to figure out all the logistics of replacing my current RPTV w/ the new one (and probably also figure out what's the best new arrangement in the livingroom).

_Man_

Re: YADLPQ (Yet Another DLP Question)

Happened to do another quick sweep at CC last week. They happened to have the Samsung 61" Series 6-or-7-can't-remember-which side-by-side with a SlimDepth 61". Night and day difference. The slim model had the very noticeable vignetting, whereas the normal unit was fine in that regard. So I'm guessing the slim model makes some very serious compromises to project that side screen.

I did notice that some of the DLP's had what looked like convergence issues. As far as I know, DLP's shouldn't have misconvergence problems. But the material being shown was a mountain range at sunset, and the border between sky and mountains had a red border on some of the sets whereas the others had clean edges. The source material was unfortunate as it didn't have a lot of color range or detail, so comparing displays was pretty futile.