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Sony KDFE42A10 or Panny 42 ED plasma (1 Viewer)

vinny.s

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Well, I have narrowed it down to 2 TVs that I think are great for the money. I viewed both of them at tweeter and thought the pq was basically equal. But I feel that viewing them in the store short changes both TVs. I know that the panny will have better blacks, no SDE but it is ED and not HD. So which TV would u pick???? thanks
 

Kevin C Brown

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I looked at these two. Two very big things turned me off the Sony: poor blacks, and poor off-axis viewing angle. Oh yeah, one more thing: I have a 32" Toshiba CRT now. 24" deep. The Sony is 20" deep. I want something a lot narrower.

The Sony 50" Qualia SXRD set is incredible. But it has that Iris control to get blacks as good as a plasma. And believe it or not, but Panny blacks are among the best of *any* plasma. But the 42" Sony isn't that great. Poor blacks also affect contrast ratio.
 

Sean Laughter

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That's weird, looking at the Sony in the store it seemed to have much better viewing angle than most other rear projection sets I'd seen. I also didn't see much problem with the blacks, definately not the poorest one can get with LCD, and apparently among some of the better blacks on LCD rear projection.

I should also mention that the 42" Sony A10 also has a dynamic iris.
 

Michael TLV

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Extra pixels matter if you are going to sit up close to the TV. Once you are 8 feet back, the ability to see the individual pixels drops off.

At this point the visible resolution becomes similar.

The Sony is better in rooms with lots of ambient light given its non reflecting screen ... but the plasma with the glass surface will be harder to watch.

LCD projector has to deal with a consumable ... the bulb ... factor in paying for a new bulb every 3 years ...

Sony should be a bit more tweakable than the Panasonic ... although the Panasonic has more grayscale memories.

Plasma sets also more prone to image retention issues if you are careless. Not a worry on LCD.

Lots of differences ... these are but a few.

Regards
 

anthony_b

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Another vote for the Sony. I have the 50a10, highly recomend it. Great balacks and iris control.
 

Sean Laughter

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The manual talks about setting the iris and there's plenty discussion about it over int he massive A10 thread over at AVSforum. They were debating whether it was a truly "dynamic" iris or not or if the setting just set it to one position and it stayed there, I think they eventually decided it was truly dynamic, but I'm not sure, the official thread over there is far too massive for me to parse through at the moment.

On the "Specifications" tab on the link you just provided it's about the 19th bullet point down:

 

Kevin C Brown

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I guess it isn't the same iris control as the SXRD set, or they would have advertised that aspect of it more. ;)

Article in Curtco's Digital TV mag this month where they talk about a study that IDC did between plasma, LCD, and LCD rear projection, and a CRT benchmark. They do mention the fact that for RP's, you have to replace the bulb every 2000 to 3000 hrs. They also did a simulated aging test (can't remember what the time frame was) where they got about a 5% drop in brightness for the plasma, but a 15% or more drop in light output for the LCD RP. They also said that brightness uniformity across the display for the RP was a lot worse than the plasma.

I say, go look at both of them for yourself. Make sure each of them is half decently calibrated. Look at the blacks. Look at the contrast. Look for motion lag. Look for off-axis viewing quality. I did. I satisfied myself that I wanted better picture quality than the Sony could provide. Outside of about 8 to 10 ft, the difference in resolution becomes meaningless. One thing I also noticed by going to look at them: I have a 32" CRT now. 24" deep. The Sony is 20" deep! The Panny plasma is maybe 1/2 that. That could also be a limiting factor for some people's setups.

Personally, I would take an LCD RP over a DLP set due to the rainbow effect, but personally I would get the ED Panny plasma or spring for the more expensive 42px50u over the E42A10.

I will say, I keep hoping that Sony will offer a 42" SXRD set. I heavily looked at last years 42we655 too.
 

Sean Laughter

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I don't know what it is about Plasmas, but I personally can't stand the "look" of them. They look very "digital" to me for some reason (much moreso than even a direct-view LCD), and I see screendoor very prevalently on plasmas, I just don't see the appeal of them at all - maybe it's just me though or maybe I'm just seeing awful examples of them.
 

Kevin C Brown

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Ahhh, I learned something new the other day that might explain what you see. :)

Think of a plasma pixel. The entire rectangle (or square) is filled with light and color all the way out to the edges.

Now think of a "pixel" on a CRT. It is brightest at the center, but dims as you move out from the center, softening at the edges.

For an RP, it's probably somewhere in between, simply because the discrete pixel on the chip is projected onto to a screen, so the edges are more diffuse like for a CRT.

This is not a bad thing, but I find that an RP picture is "softer" than a plasma. In terms of the individual pixels. Makes the transitions between pixels not so sharp, and can actually help with rendering diagonal lines, circles, etc.

But by the same token, if you are seeing the screen door effect on a plasma, then usually it's the case that you're too close for the resolution of the plasma, or you need to go from ED to HD, for example. (But by a different token, I've seen a lot of comments about SDE on RP's too, just that since most RPs are HD to begin with, you have to be closer to see it. Or something.)
 

Kirk Patrick

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i'm with sean..to my eyes, even the hd plasmas look "pixelated"....the sony is the best choice

but aren't we talking about a $500 difference here which doesn't put them in the same category?

ie. panny ed plasma =/- 1350
ie. sony a10 42 = +/- 1850

good luck!
 

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