I'm dead pleased with my Pan, which is some sort of 100hz refresh jobby... TX-28PM12, so probably last year's version of that one you're looking at. Picture is fantastic, sound's... Well, alright, I suppose. Nothing like as good as the sound in my brother's big JVC, but then the picture's far, far better. It was, I think, £250.

I think you mean "Why Don't You"
just switch off your television set and go out and do something less boring instead. :oops:

A mate's just bought a Sony Bravia, great picture, but he reckons there's not enough connections on it :roll:
Like 3 scarts, 1 HD-gizmo and a PC connection aren't enough :wink: :lol:

Blimey, I remember that, 70's wasn't it?

If you still have the room, then buy a normal widescreen TV with built in DVB. Its still the best picture you will have for a good few years to come, and by the time that one goes south, they would have sorted the picture quality on LCD and Plasma, also the prices would have dropped a lot. A good CRT 32" widescreen with 100hz picture would set you back about £500 nowadays.

If you really must get an LCD, then the Sony Bravia (£1600ish) adnt the panasonic you mentioned, both rate high in tests.

i remember that too :? :oops:

Indeed this is fairly true... Not many decent manufacturers are still making CRT tubes any more though as the market for them has pretty much disappeared! The quality of them has also gone downhill dramatically in the last year or so (funny, that!?).

Plasma and LCD are now the most popular television and dominate over 90% of the market (this was the last figure I read in a trade magazine a few months ago).
They are however not technologically as good as CRT in terms of creating the best picture!

Plasma is better in general than LCD for picture quality and has a better picture off-axis (viewing from an odd angle).

The market has become split down the middle though and it's governed by one thing! SIZE!

If you want a big picture (over 36") You want a Plasma. Anything under that, it's an LCD! Simple as!

LCD is very good and Plasma is better but only starts at the 42" kind of size.

The same as always has been before with CRT screens is still true though... You get what you pay for!
Don't expect a £700 42" Plasma made by some bunch you've never heard of to be any good - it really won't be. The same goes for LCD.

Good LCDs are made by Sharp (who are the world's largest manufacturer of LCD screens), Panasonic now becoming quite good too (although still rather over-priced).
For Plasma, look at this years & last year's NEC and the latest Fujitsu.

Really don't rate the Sony panels nor do I much care for Pioneer Plasmas (although they are getting better since they've bought NEC's factory!!!).

Don't believe what you read in the press - all the manufacturers that do lots of advertising get good reviews (funny, eh!?) and some manufacturers have been known to fly journaists out to The Bahamas or similar to look at their new Plasma!!!!! :roll:

Most importantly of all, turn off all the 'digital picture enhancement' ****e (it makes it much worse), crank the Contrast way down (it should NOT be at full if you want any definition in your picture!!!), turn the Sharpness down as low as you can before the picture starts to break up (Off is best but is generally not possible). You'll then need to adjust Colour & Brightness - this varies from set to set but normally the colour wants to go down and the brightness somewhere areound it's factory setting.

The factory settings are not intended for you to use at home - they're so that they can shift boxes in sheds like Comet & Currys where the cretins don't know which button is the On button, let alone how to make it look good in a bright environment! Your living room is NOT as bright & open as an electrical mega store!

If you leave the settings as standard, you can kiss goodbye to your nice new screen in a couple of years!
Screen-burn will set in within weeks and the colour and contrast will deteriorate so fast you may as well have left it in the box!


I'm bound to get flamed for saying all this (I normally do) but what would I know, I only sell, install and set them up... And I'm self-employed so I have to do it well or I starve!

You are pretty thin!! ;)

Nope - I pretty much agree with everything you say. I thought LG were top of the pile for producing the 'raw' screens, not Sharp, but I'm years out of the loop these days.
Another rant - why do people hang these things on the wall at such a height? The body is designed to look down at things, looking up is uncomfortable.
Another thing - this surround sound nonesence. Big subs to muffle the sound, and sound that does nothing like 'surround' you, morelike distract you. Nothing worse than a car that starts left over by the curtains, goes quieter, then louder and a different timbre centre stage, then fades, reappears over by the bookcase!

I keep suggesting that, but currently Big Brother is winning over my ideas. :(