42" HD Pana Viera - Any better recommendations?

[Ext User(Secret Squirrel)]

After a quick confirmation from the experts here - I'm about to march
into Dick Smith Powerhouse and pick up a 42" HD Pana Viera for $2999.
Does anyone here have a recommendation for something better at that
price?

I've done a fair bit of research and the Viera seems to have a very
good reputation and as it's a reasonably bright room during the day the
10,000:1 contract ratio is a big factor to me. Most others are around
3,000:1 at the most. The 2 HDMI inputs are attractive as well.

So, what do you think? Can I do better? 3K is pretty much the most I
can spend although I might be able to stretch it to 3.5K for a better
deal. I know some will say that LCD would be a better option, but the
blacks (or should I say dark greys) on LCD just turn me off too much.

Appreciate any feedback - thanks.

Justin

[Ext User(georgiarose)]

"Secret Squirrel" <juthan@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message
news:1153733711.831296.135600@p79g2000cwp.googlegr oups.com...
> After a quick confirmation from the experts here - I'm about to march
> into Dick Smith Powerhouse and pick up a 42" HD Pana Viera for $2999.
> Does anyone here have a recommendation for something better at that
> price?
>
> I've done a fair bit of research and the Viera seems to have a very
> good reputation and as it's a reasonably bright room during the day the
> 10,000:1 contract ratio is a big factor to me. Most others are around
> 3,000:1 at the most. The 2 HDMI inputs are attractive as well.
>
> So, what do you think? Can I do better? 3K is pretty much the most I
> can spend although I might be able to stretch it to 3.5K for a better
> deal. I know some will say that LCD would be a better option, but the
> blacks (or should I say dark greys) on LCD just turn me off too much.
>
> Appreciate any feedback - thanks.
>
> Justin
>

I agree. The Panasonic is an excellent selection. I boiled my choice down
to the Panasonic and the NEC (over 12 months ago now). At that time, the
Panasonic model did not have HDMI inputs (or DVI) whereas the NEC had DVI.
I ended up going for the NEC and have been very happy with that. I can't
imagine you would go wrong with the Panasonic though.

[The Guru]

I am a strong LCD man...if you calibrate your screen you'll get a superior picture on a LCD. Plasma's have poor chroma bitrate (meaning they don't have as many colours in them) so I find that pretty annoying to look at - more so than the grey on a LCD.

That being said, I saw that Panasonic plasma in the store and was pretty shocked at how good it looks ! That is the only plasma panel I've ever been impressed with so I'd say it is a great choice !

One thing I'd suggest is to go to a JB HiFi or Harvey Norman and buy a Calibration disc...they cost around $40-$60 but once you have set your colours and contrast up properly, you'll think you just bought a new TV. I use them for my installations and I feel they are easy enough for anybody to understand.

[Ext User(atec77)]

The Guru wrote:
> I am a strong LCD man...if you calibrate your screen you'll get a
> superior picture on a LCD. Plasma's have poor chroma bitrate (meaning
> they don't have as many colours in them) so I find that pretty annoying
> to look at - more so than the grey on a LCD.
>
> That being said, I saw that Panasonic plasma in the store and was
> pretty shocked at how good it looks ! That is the only plasma panel
> I've ever been impressed with so I'd say it is a great choice !
>
> One thing I'd suggest is to go to a JB HiFi or Harvey Norman and buy a
> Calibration disc...they cost around $40-$60 but once you have set your
> colours and contrast up properly, you'll think you just bought a new
> TV. I use them for my installations and I feel they are easy enough for
> anybody to understand.
>
>
Have a look at the later pioneer .. or have you ?

[scalpel]

I presume that you are aware that the Panasonics are (yet again) in the middle of a model change from the PV to PX series - the new model has an inbuilt tuner. The old model is selling for some pretty amazing prices.

For pricing look here : You should be able to do a bit better!

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=22471&pid=491961&st=1420&#entry491961

The Panasonics have fantastic contrast and blacks, and being plasmas, dont have the motion blur, poor contrast and poor blacks of the LCD's. Although some of the newer LCD's (such as the Sony Bravia X) have come a long way towards improving these problems, they tend to look fantastic on HD material, but only poor-good on SD material. The Panasonic offers a good comprimise between both.

Make sure you get an extended warranty - the Panasonic warranty is poor (1 year).

The Pioneer screens do not have quite the same black levels, and also have an annoying tendancy to temporary image retention (which makes one worry that this may become permanent if an image is displayed for longer periods). The new series is not out yet, so it is impossible to know if they are any better in either regard.

IMHO - Great buy.

J.

[Ext User(Ben Thomas)]

scalpel wrote:

> Make sure you get an extended warranty - the Panasonic warranty is poor
> (1 year).
>

Interesting comment. How many people have bought an extended warranty
and not needed it, or vice-versa.


--
Ben
Lyric of the week: "This the eighties and I'm down with the ladies"

[The Guru]

oh yeah, about the warranty ....I used to be a manager at Dick Smiths and I can tell you that I was shocked at their warranty policy....don't bother with it !

Their warranty is like this: if you spend $200 on a 5 year extended warranty (which is actually like buying 4 years + manufacturers 1 year). They will give you $200 worth of repairs over that 5 year period.
Generally it will cost you $60 to even have something sit on a desk to be looked at (after you accept the work to be done). $200 won't go very far at all. A plasma is a bastard of a thing to fix and is quite expensive, you are basically throwing money down the toilet-It's probably the worst warranty I've seen.

JB HiFi has a far better system where you are actually given 5 years with the machine. If the unit has the same fault 3 times, it gets replaced automatically.

both stores use warranty sales to make up for the profit margin they lost on the deal with the panel.
I would just buy one of those Belkin power boards with the lifetime warranty, a lot of repairs I saw at either store I worked at were power related (or dickheads playing with their stereos in the bathtub). I had a customer bring panal back with a fault but it was plugged into the Belkin powerboard and they replaced it. Of course the problem was because of a power surge.

another interesting thing...if your TV gets a power surge NONE of any stores warranty policies will cover that.

go for a good surge board instead of wasting money on a useless extended warranty

[Ext User(bassett)]

"
> The Guru wrote:
>> I am a strong LCD man...if you calibrate your screen you'll get a
>> superior picture on a LCD. Plasma's have poor chroma bitrate (meaning
>> they don't have as many colours in them) so I find that pretty annoying
>> to look at - more so than the grey on a LCD. That being said, I saw that
>> Panasonic plasma in the store and was
>> pretty shocked at how good it looks ! That is the only plasma panel
>> I've ever been impressed with so I'd say it is a great choice !
>>
>> One thing I'd suggest is to go to a JB HiFi or Harvey Norman and buy a
>> Calibration disc...they cost around $40-$60 but once you have set your
>> colours and contrast up properly, you'll think you just bought a new
>> TV. I use them for my installations and I feel they are easy enough for
>> anybody to understand.
>>
>>
I take it you have never heard of Fujitsu, when it comes to plasma screens.
But when it comes to picture quality, the old CRT still pisses over
everything.
bassett

[scalpel]

I take it you have never heard of Fujitsu, when it comes to plasma screens.
But when it comes to picture quality, the old CRT still p*sses over
everything.
bassett[/QUOTE]

Interesting that the Fujitsu 50" plasma used panasonic glass! (I haven't bothered to read up more recently to see if they still do). Although the AVM II internal software obviously does a fantastic job of processing the signal such that the fujitsu screens are (IMHO) better than the panasonics. They just cost too much ....

The Panasonic is the poor mans fujitsuu.

..............................

With regards to the extended warranty comments by other posters.

Obviously the most important part of the warranty is to have a good read of the terms and conditions - it is quite possible to buy one that is not worth the paper it is written on. However, the failure rate of plasmas (? not as much with LCD) seems to be (annecdotally) disturbingly high.

DBA has a lot of threads on this - the views are just as polarised there as well. Personally, I would always buy one, despite the fact that I have the legal background to fight with a manufacturer over the "fit for purpose" provisions of the TPA should an item fail.

(I have written this elsewhere)

Some warranties use the original manufacturer.
Some use 3rd party repairer but original conditions
Some use new conditions and 3rd party repairer

Things to watch for

Lemon clause - repeated similar faults -> replacement
Repair onsite?, if not, who pays for shipment to repairer, and shipment back.
Where is the repairer.
Does this repairer have any idea of how to repair your model (This is VERY important) - there are plenty of horror stories ("nah mate, never seen one of these before, I'll give xxx a ring and try to find out how to fix it")
Is shipment insured or at your risk.
Is there a limit to the $ value of the repairs (ie the original purchase cost).
Is replacement new for old, reconditioned for old, or $ value.
Are repairs new for old, or are 2nd hand parts ok.
Are costs of (failed) repairs deducted from replacement value?
Who decides on repair / replacement.
Dead pixel warranty - how many pixels, and where are they.
What exclusions are there.
What constitutes normal wear and tear.
What voids the warranty (especially wall mounting)


and so on.

that is why the details of the warranty are so important


J.

[The Guru]

Fujitsu have had such a great reputation, for what ? god knows ! What noticable difference would one see apart from the price being 3 times as much ? The whole screen burning thing is a big turn-off and also the life expectancy of a plasma panel(20000hrs) verses and LCD panel(60000hrs)...though the electronics may not endure that. I DO agree with the CRT still being better overall - too bad they only made 1m screens.

.............................

good advice about the warranty side of things, I wouldn't think to ask all that.

Question ? is the method of refunding at the stores discression, let's say on the same day of purchase. Given the product is not fit for the purpose ?

my friend was offered an instore credit when he paid cash for a unit that didn't suit the job he described to the salesperson and returned it that day.

[Ext User(Ben Thomas)]

The Guru wrote:
> Fujitsu have had such a great reputation, for what ? god knows ! What
> noticable difference would one see apart from the price being 3 times
> as much ? The whole screen burning thing is a big turn-off and also the
> life expectancy of a plasma panel(20000hrs) verses and LCD
> panel(60000hrs)...though the electronics may not endure that. I DO
> agree with the CRT still being better overall - too bad they only made
> 1m screens.

20000 hours is many many years. And after 20000 hours the screen will be
at half brightness, so you just increase the brightness and contrast.
JUST LIKE A CRT, BTW.

Modern plasmas do not burn in permanently.
--
Ben
Lyric of the week: "This the eighties and I'm down with the ladies"

[Ext User(atec77)]

Ben Thomas wrote:
> The Guru wrote:
>> Fujitsu have had such a great reputation, for what ? god knows ! What
>> noticable difference would one see apart from the price being 3 times
>> as much ? The whole screen burning thing is a big turn-off and also the
>> life expectancy of a plasma panel(20000hrs) verses and LCD
>> panel(60000hrs)...though the electronics may not endure that. I DO
>> agree with the CRT still being better overall - too bad they only made
>> 1m screens.
>
> 20000 hours is many many years. And after 20000 hours the screen will be
> at half brightness, so you just increase the brightness and contrast.
> JUST LIKE A CRT, BTW.
>
> Modern plasmas do not burn in permanently.

It is still possible but it takes a real try at abuse now .

[scalpel]

Whilst I have not personally come across anyone who has had 'permanent' image retention on a plasma, I certainly have a few colleagues at work who have had long lasting (several days to two weeks) of image retention on current model (506) Pioneer plasmas.

Two had it from watching tennis on channel 7 (I cant recall if it was the score logo or a channel watermark). The worrying thing was that this is on a commercial channel that was having regular ad breaks.

Both screens were in their early use phase (I keep hearing that it is sensible to turn down the contrast and colour in the 1st 200 hours). Eventually the images faded with ongoing use.


If you do a bit of googling (?googleing) it is not hard to find quite a bit of evidence that the Pioneer screens have more than their fair share of image retention issues (usually temporary) under 'normal' useage. Even the 5000ex True HD screen that they have just released is reported to have similar issues.

There was a (very non-scientific) survey done on the DBA forum about this issue and the Pioneer screens also showed up there as a problem as well.


Hence

Temporary image retention can happen.
I suspect that in the right conditions (eg PC use) it can be permanent.
Pioneer screens previously have had a bit of a problem with this.

[scalpel]

It seems a bit ironic that people actually care about the claimed half life of the screens (well perhaps the half life of the blue OLED 'phosphours' (for want of a better term) being only 2000-4000 hours is relevent for that sort of screen).

Most manufacturers claim that their plasma screens at 60,000 to 1/2 brightness. I suspect that not many of the plasmas will get anywhere near this use before some component fails, rendering the plasma and expensive wall accessory.

Pity they are not warrantied for 60,000 hours!

J.

[Ext User(bassett)]

"The Guru" <The.Guru.2ermxx@no-mx.phorums.com.au> wrote in message
news:The.Guru.2ermxx@no-mx.phorums.com.au...
>
> oh yeah, about the warranty ....I used to be a manager at Dick Smiths
> and I can tell you that I was shocked at their warranty policy....don't
> bother with it !
>
> Their warranty is like this: if you spend $200 on a 5 year extended
> warranty (which is actually like buying 4 years + manufacturers 1
> year). They will give you $200 worth of repairs over that 5 year
> period.
> Generally it will cost you $60 to even have something sit on a desk to
> be looked at (after you accept the work to be done). $200 won't go very
> far at all. A plasma is a bastard of a thing to fix and is quite
> expensive, you are basically throwing money down the toilet-It's
> probably the worst warranty I've seen.
>
> JB HiFi has a far better system where you are actually given 5 years
> with the machine. If the unit has the same fault 3 times, it gets
> replaced automatically.
>
> both stores use warranty sales to make up for the profit margin they
> lost on the deal with the panel.
> I would just buy one of those Belkin power boards with the lifetime
> warranty, a lot of repairs I saw at either store I worked at were power
> related (or dickheads playing with their stereos in the bathtub). I had
> a customer bring panal back with a fault but it was plugged into the
> Belkin powerboard and they replaced it. Of course the problem was
> because of a power surge.
>
> another interesting thing...if your TV gets a power surge NONE of any
> stores warranty policies will cover that.
>
> go for a good surge board instead of wasting money on a useless
> extended warranty
>
> The Guru

And according to your very limited knowledge you consider " Belkin "
to be the answer to power surge problems.. Sunshine, your deluding
yourself,, Belkin are about as useful as "monster cables" and everyone on
here, knows have wonderful there NOT.

The problem with repairing Plasma screens, is not the cost, but the
non-existent knowledge of the so-called repairers, Places like Consumer
Affairs are always getting complaints about dodgy so called repairers, who
have no idea what there trying to fix.

bassett

[The Guru]

A lightning strike would blow the crap out of any surge equipment, yes. They would be as useless as Monster cables in that case. You would not find much that could take that - if anything exists. Did I ever tell you the story about Monster cables....? ha ha. What about JB HiFi ..... I'm sure you'd love a story about them !
The guarantee is the nice thing about them, that's about all I buy the Belkin bad boy for. Plus I get them at wharehouse cost so It doesn't bother me.

Thanks, everybody calls me sunshine

[Ext User(Rod)]

"The Guru" <The.Guru.2ew884@no-mx.phorums.com.au> wrote in message
news:The.Guru.2ew884@no-mx.phorums.com.au...
>
> A lightning strike would blow the crap out of any surge equipment, yes.
> They would be as useless as Monster cables in that case. You would not
> find much that could take that - if anything exists. Did I ever tell
> you the story about Monster cables....? ha ha. What about JB HiFi .....
> I'm sure you'd love a story about them !
> The guarantee is the nice thing about them, that's about all I buy the
> Belkin bad boy for. Plus I get them at wharehouse cost so It doesn't
> bother me.
>
> Thanks, everybody calls me sunshine

Guru,

If you were so good at what you do, and concerned about giving decent advice
you would have pointed out that any surge board that can be purchased for a
few dollars will not save your equipment. The sunshine doesn't come from
your arse, only sh*t ...

>
>
> --
> The Guru

[Ext User(bassett)]

"scalpel" <scalpel.2eslnn@no-mx.phorums.com.au> wrote in message
news:scalpel.2eslnn@no-mx.phorums.com.au...
>
> I take it you have never heard of Fujitsu, when it comes to plasma
> screens.
> But when it comes to picture quality, the old CRT still pisses over
> everything.
> bassett
>
> Interesting that the Fujitsu 50" plasma used panasonic glass! (I haven't
> bothered to read up more recently to see if they still do). Although the
> AVM II internal software obviously does a fantastic job of processing >the
> signal such that the fujitsu screens are (IMHO) better than the
> panasonics. They just cost too much ....
>
> The Panasonic is the poor mans fujitsu.
>
Well said, in fact Fujitsu, hold more world patents on the technologies of
there screens that any other manufacturer.
And yes they are expencive, but I,m told, by people in the trade, that they
rarely develope faults, and at the end of the day, you only get what you
pay for.
bassett

[Ext User(bassett)]

"The Guru" <The.Guru.2esqrb@no-mx.phorums.com.au> wrote in message
news:The.Guru.2esqrb@no-mx.phorums.com.au...
>
> Fujitsu have had such a great reputation, for what ? god knows ! What
> noticable difference would one see apart from the price being 3 times
> as much ? The whole screen burning thing is a big turn-off and also the
> life expectancy of a plasma panel(20000hrs) verses and LCD
> panel(60000hrs)...though the electronics may not endure that. I DO
> agree with the CRT still being better overall - too bad they only made
> 1m screens.
>
They have a good reputation, because there simply the best, and yes they
are more expencive, but in this world , You only get what you pay for..
Some would consider them Hi-end, and in a way they are. But you really
can't compair one of there screens with a special chinese screen worth
$1200.
It would be like compairing a fifty dollar DVD player, with a $8000
"Try-Vista" Musical Fidelity CD Player.



>
> good advice about the warranty side of things, I wouldn't think to ask
> all that.
>
> Question ? is the method of refunding at the stores discression, let's
> say on the same day of purchase. Given the product is not fit for the
> purpose ?

Any reputable Hi Fi store will give a complete refund or exchange for a
new model , for up to 3 months. Then the product warrenty kicks in
The products are repaired and reinstalled.

>
> my friend was offered an instore credit when he paid cash for a unit
> that didn't suit the job he described to the salesperson and returned
> it that day.

> The Guru

If your friend had gone to a reputable outlet, he would have got a full
CASH refund.. Store credit refunds are not considered legal.
bassett

[The Guru]

I would half agree with that, you DO get what you pay for BUT the most expensive unit is not always better.

I have seen a $5000 Onkyo DVD player get the shit kicked out of it by a $300 Sony DVD player. Better D.A.C.s in the Sony. Onkyo is by no means top of the range, but a great example of money poorly spent on wank features. The end result is what mattered.
Expense also has factors like 'quantity produced' that effect it - so I wouldn't completely buy that theory of you get what you pay for.

Using a Fujitsu panel to compare is hard because they really don't have much competition...the other 5 or so manufacturers make utter crap. Either way, a properly calibrated plasma versus a properly calibrated LCD of the same size will not come close in picture quality....well....untill it refreshes....okay and the balck (er grey) levels might not be so crash hot. But overall, nicer to look at and they are getting better. Plasma doesn't seem to be going anywhere really and I predict the technology will be abandoned in the not so distant future with the slow release of the larger LCD TV's and SED TV's.

ha ha ...yeah, he went to DEC the idiot, and bought a LCD TV...he got an in-store credit.