Help me choose my next TV

[Niode]

Don't get a plasma TV. They are notorious for burn-in, and they do it fairly easily. I'm not sure if the burn-in is permanent, or if it just replaced by other burn-in but it seems to fade over time.

Its not just a matter of leaving the game paused for a long period of time either. Rather, things like HUDs will become your worst enemy. I used to play L4D a lot on my 360 and the HUD was burned in for months. Almost every game you play will have something that will easily burn into the screen and it gets kind of annoying. While watching TV I often see little outlines of health bars, guns, Peggle borders, and so on.

My plasma TV is a 50 inch Samsung, and it is about three or four years old so I don't know if they have improved on them since then but from my personal experience I would stay the hell away from plasma. As far as I knew, I thought Plasma was outdated already though and replaced by LED or something newer like that.

Also get a decent name brand TV. There are a lot of obvious name brand choices, but don't get some no-name piece of crap. I have bought a lot of random brands over the years and you really get what you pay for. I have gone through several "Zenith" and other shitty brand TVs, but my old ass Sony TV thats 25 years old still looks and sounds amazing.

I've left my 42" Viera on pause so many times It's not even funny. I get distracted looking up FAQs for games, or just end up chatting to somebody and end up leaving a game on pause for a couple of hours. I've never had burn in. I once fell asleep watching TV and after 4am it displays the TV channel logo in black on a red background. It was stuck on that image for maybe 6 hours? It had image retention for about 30 seconds before disappearing after watching normal TV. Plasmas don't get burn in anymore, well at least not quality brands like Panasonic anyway.

[emwearz]

Burn in is old news that is not relevant (unless you are buying a cheap tv) much like ghosting in LCD's is not releveant anymore. The technology evovled, I wish people would stop bringin it up.

[Mendoza]

Burn in is old news that is not relevant (unless you are buying a cheap tv) much like ghosting in LCD's is not releveant anymore. The technology evovled, I wish people would stop bringin it up.

I'd second that.

One of the discouraging things about buying a tv now is that much of the industry is deceptive.

Contrast ratios on the box are basically worthless because the companies get to decide how they test them. None of them use a standardized set up so they mean jack all nothing for the most part.

Response time is about the same thing. No set standard so cant really be trusted all that much.

LED is marketed as a new style of tv when it isnt.

People have been saying Plasma is dead for years now when it isn't.

On a side note, has anyone else noticed how old titans like RCA and Philips/Magnovox have fallen off the deep end.

Their LCDs look like garbage. Id sooner buy a vizio or a dynex at that point.

[Para]

MENDOZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

[Niode]

Burn in is old news that is not relevant (unless you are buying a cheap tv) much like ghosting in LCD's is not releveant anymore. The technology evovled, I wish people would stop bringin it up.

Burn in doesn't really exist in high quality plasmas anymore. However ghosting is still a very real problem in LCD. There is no way to avoid it. LCD simply cannot change state fast enough to avoid it. You can overdrive the display to lessen the effect however that increases colour inaccuracy at the same time. So instead of the colour not changing fast enough now it has a tendency to over shoot the colour and cause inversion/artefacts.

If you can deal with it, or you just can't see it then LCD will most likely be fine for you, bang for buck wise LCD is the way to go in most cases. It doesn't mean that the problem isn't there though, either you can't see it physically or you just haven't experienced a superior display technology (Plasma, OLED or even HDCRT) to know the difference.

[Mendoza]

I told my friend about that 50 inch samsung at best buy.

I asked him to look at it for me before i came to town.

Well he did one better, he bought it. I guess it impressed him enough to pick it up.

That's a vote of confidence if I've ever saw one.

[Niode]

I told my friend about that 50 inch samsung at best buy.

I asked him to look at it for me before i came to town.

Well he did one better, he bought it. I guess it impressed him enough to pick it up.

That's a vote of confidence if I've ever saw one.

Or somebody with way more money than sense...

[Mendoza]

Decided to go with this one


Samsung PN50C550G1F

It was on sale for 849.99 and came with a free 50 dollar giftcard for purchase.

The panasonic at 42 and 50 was my other option, but i thought the samsung was the bigger value.