42" Plasma for $2K at Costco

[Axon]

Mmmmm Plasma

 

[breweyez]

i have been told that plasma's die before other types of TV's...the lifetime is less..is that true??

 

[Apex]

Originally posted by: breweyez
i have been told that plasma's die before other types of TV's...the lifetime is less..is that true??

It depends. Current generation panels last from 30k to 60k hours. For instance, the current gen Panasonics are rated for 60,000 hours of usage, which is approximately what the current gen LCD's are rated for. This is a SERIOUSLY long time. This is a big departure from just a generation or few generations ago. You'll probably hear a lot of people chime in on how they went to a store, mall, business, etc and saw an older faded and or burnt in plasma.

Imagine if you watch 8 hours of TV a day (basically a full time job). And, you do so 7 days a week, every week of the month, every month of the year, year after year. This means you're watching 2912 hours of TV in a year. In just over 20 years, you'll reach the 60k hour mark.

Plasmas are rated for what they call "half life". That 60k hour mark is the average time it takes to reach half brightness. Keep in mind that plasmas are very very bright, especially for video applications (whereas LCD's are brighter for computer type or fullscreen applications). At 1/2 brightness, chances are, a plasma will still be much brighter than your average high-end tube TV.

Of course, if you abuse it, you can still screw it up faster. Burn in is still possible, though it's much harder with this generation of panel. Burn in relates closely with plasma half-life, so these new longer lasting panels are also more burn in resistant. Be stupid, and you can still thrash a good panel though.

 

[T-man]

Until you play a DVD on a Plasma using the DVi input w/ a Dvi cable
you don't know what watching TV is

I know....

 

[ArchAngel777]

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Originally posted by: JImmyK

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Originally posted by: SgtZulu
2K for a TV you must be high on glue
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smartest man on earth, I swear we get so caught up in how much we are saving we dont realize we are spending $2,000.00 dollars on a TV.
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Whoa, slow down on the kettle there pot. Looking at your sig, it seems that you spent all that money on tv's, rims, and a stereo system for a truck...

To each his own, but $2k for a plasma? You get what you pay for, and a $2k plasma is most likely a waste of money.

OMG! this is in the funniest thing I have read in a LONG time... Nice one Zoh6

 

[gr8tango]

Costco's return policy is awesome. I've bought off-brands there before and quality is pretty good. If not, I return them, and I've done so after 3 months w/o a problem.

 

[bdunosk]

Originally posted by: Lyfer
$2k for a NON HD TV, no thanx.

Thank goodness someone else is thinking this too... I guess if you want it just to say "I have a plasma TV," it's a good deal. But it's a poor "investment" for the future of TV. You won't get HD resolution, and you're paying twice what it would cost to get a solid HDTV.

edit - forgot to rag on burn-in. I've read a few reviews by people who bought a plasma and were heartbroken to find a stock ticker / news bar / etc burned into the image of their new multi-thousand dollar TV.

 

[Apex]

Originally posted by: bdunosk

Originally posted by: Lyfer
$2k for a NON HD TV, no thanx.

Thank goodness someone else is thinking this too... I guess if you want it just to say "I have a plasma TV," it's a good deal. But it's a poor "investment" for the future of TV. You won't get HD resolution, and you're paying twice what it would cost to get a solid HDTV.

edit - forgot to rag on burn-in. I've read a few reviews by people who bought a plasma and were heartbroken to find a stock ticker / news bar / etc burned into the image of their new multi-thousand dollar TV.

Burn in, as explained above, is rare on the current gen panels. Only takes a bit of common sense to avoid. Those without common sense need not apply.

BTW, for the majority of people who buy tube TV's thinking they're getting HDTV's. Think again. The vast majority have a hard time doing more than the 852x480 of an EDTV plasma.

 

[Luthien]

Plasma screens are a dead technology in a few years. Buy a projector and forget about big screen tv's forever. Use an LCD tv for your general viewing. To those who agree to disagree you will be eating your words sooner or later when you figure it out for yourself. Another option with even better picture than LCD or plasma and better than any publically available TV you can buy is to get something like a nextvision N6 or nextvision HD10 by viewsonic and convert a 21" monitor (capable of 1080i or 1080p btw) or LCD into a TV married with a combo DVD/VCR progressive scan SVHS player from JVC Model HR-XVS44U. CRT monitors although fat will give you the best movie and TV viewing because they put out BLACK blacks for one. Good luck.

 

[Crucial]

You sir are a moron.


As for those trying to tear down ED plasmas, I can only assume you have never seen a properly setup unit. I can easily display HD content and it looks breathtaking. Add to that the fact that I get great looking SD viewing and you have a clear winner in that price range.

You would be hard pressed to see a difference between a 42" ED set and the HD equivilent in a side by side comparison at normal veiwing distance. At 2 feet from the panel you may see a bigger difference but thats not where you should be sitting with these big screens.

 

[Apex]

Originally posted by: csaddict
You sir are a moron.


As for those trying to tear down ED plasmas, I can only assume you have never seen a properly setup unit. I can easily display HD content and it looks breathtaking. Add to that the fact that I get great looking SD viewing and you have a clear winner in that price range.

You would be hard pressed to see a difference between a 42" ED set and the HD equivilent in a side by side comparison at normal veiwing distance. At 2 feet from the panel you may see a bigger difference but thats not where you should be sitting with these big screens.

Well, perhaps not quite moron. Most of the people who complain merely haven't seen a good model, properly set up ED plasma. Coming from (I would guess) mostly computer type backgrounds, they're probably merely carrying over that information to video. Inexperienced, perhaps.

Resolution simply isn't as critical in video type applications as computer. From 8-9' back, the difference between ED and "HD" type 42 inch plasmas are indistinguishable to the vast majority of viewers, with HD feed (either 720p or 1080i).

What most people don't realize is that tube TV's have a hard time doing high resolutions too. You take very coarse dot or stripe pitches (most are between .51mm and .90mm), low bandwidth video amplifiers (10mhz to 40mhz), and small, poor quality CRT's (7" or so), and you're really not going to do more than 800x600 or so, especially if you don't pony up for an ISF calibration.

 

[wabbiter]

I have to say that I compared the difference between my 42" HD panasonic from Dell and the 42" EDTV panasonic from Circuit City. You can definitely tell the difference in terms of the resolution when running a high-res DVD, but for normal TV there is really no difference. HDTV would probably look nearly the same on both because high res HDTV is not commonplace here on the west coast.

I would STAY AWAY from no-brand and bad-brand plasma because the half-life is actually really short.

 

[RaiseUp]

Get a Pioneer Elite, no problems at all.

 

[degeester]

Also at Costco B&M, is the Samsung 61" DLP, model HLN617W, price $3,999.

 

[rile0161]

Thank goodness someone else is thinking this too... I guess if you want it just to say "I have a plasma TV," it's a good deal. But it's a poor "investment" for the future of TV. You won't get HD resolution, and you're paying twice what it would cost to get a solid HDTV.

edit - forgot to rag on burn-in. I've read a few reviews by people who bought a plasma and were heartbroken to find a stock ticker / news bar / etc burned into the image of their new multi-thousand dollar TV.

Burn in, as explained above, is rare on the current gen panels. Only takes a bit of common sense to avoid. Those without common sense need not apply.

[/quote]

I'd have to think that as this is EDTV rather than HDTV, combined with the fact that this is a no-name brand, that it is not current generation.

 

[Vcize]

I'm in the market for a nice TV, but I must admit I'm a complete n00b to all the terminology.

Is there a site out there good for reading up on what I need to know about TV's before making a purchase? For instance, I'd like to figure out what the difference between HD "compatable" and HD "ready" is, what exactly DVI is, what resolution I should be looking for, etc.

 

[lundog22]

I just made my move on the 42 ED Panasonic Plasma from VisualApex. For $2500ish thats a great deal for what I get from it. If I wasn't going to buy a new car (G35 Coupe stick) this week I would of buy the 50 HD instead ($5200)...

 

[porciniman]

Originally posted by: Vcize
I'm in the market for a nice TV, but I must admit I'm a complete n00b to all the terminology.



Is there a site out there good for reading up on what I need to know about TV's before making a purchase? For instance, I'd like to figure out what the difference between HD "compatable" and HD "ready" is, what exactly DVI is, what resolution I should be looking for, etc.

For some great info on the latest technology, try avsforum.com.
There are some great people there who know almost everything you could need to make an informed decision.
I decided on the ED model, because when I viewed the HD & ED model side by side using an HD signal, the difference was minimal, and certainly not worth the the almost $1500 more.
Now, when viewing an SD signal on the HD set, the ED set was far superior. The downresing of the SD signal on an HD set made it unwatchable,
Of course, YMMV
cheers, vb

 

[Crucial]

Originally posted by: wabbiter
I have to say that I compared the difference between my 42" HD panasonic from Dell and the 42" EDTV panasonic from Circuit City. You can definitely tell the difference in terms of the resolution when running a high-res DVD, but for normal TV there is really no difference. HDTV would probably look nearly the same on both because high res HDTV is not commonplace here on the west coast.

I would STAY AWAY from no-brand and bad-brand plasma because the half-life is actually really short.

I don't understand this statement. There are no "high-res" DVDs. The Panny ED plasma is a perfect match to the DVD resolution. Some will argue that you get a superior DVD picture on the ED Panny because of this. There is no scaling done because it is a perfect match to the DVD resolution. Normal TV looks worse on the HD panels because the image has to be upconverted to the resolution of the HD panel. The ED panel has to e converted as well but it looks better because of the smaller pixel count.

 

[Crucial]

Originally posted by: porciniman

Originally posted by: Vcize

I'm in the market for a nice TV, but I must admit I'm a complete n00b to all the terminology.







Is there a site out there good for reading up on what I need to know about TV's before making a purchase? For instance, I'd like to figure out what the difference between HD "compatable" and HD "ready" is, what exactly DVI is, what resolution I should be looking for, etc.

For some great info on the latest technology, try avsforum.com.

There are some great people there who know almost everything you could need to make an informed decision.

I decided on the ED model, because when I viewed the HD & ED model side by side using an HD signal, the difference was minimal, and certainly not worth the the almost $1500 more.

Now, when viewing an SD signal on the HD set, the ED set was far superior. The downresing of the SD signal on an HD set made it unwatchable,

Of course, YMMV

cheers, vb

Well said. This is exactly why I bought my 42" Panasonic ED plasma.