Best 42" Plasma and/or Active TFT?

This is one of those friend-of-a-friend things, and to satisfy my own morbid, cheap curiosity because I don't have $5k to blow on a TV anyway. We're looking for a 42" flat ("flat" meaning, space-saving. I don't particularly care on which technology is used) television, and we want to know which offers the best in terms of a price/quality/longevity/value ratio. I was thinking of a Fujitsu plasmavision screen, but those are pretty old and i've been disinterested in that technology for a while, so I'm somewhat out of the loop. If you could bring me up to speed on this stuff, I'd really appreciate it.

http://www.samsung.ca/cgi-bin/naseca...od_id=CK40PSNB ?

Looks pretty good.

I have a friend who got a JVC plasma TV and hooked it up to his PC, he was unable to get 16x9 Format at 1024x768. He ended up with black bars at the side (perhaps it was an older model that does not support 16x9 for PC :( ). When I was out looking for a plasma TV, I made some enquieries and ended up with a 50" Pioneer plasma TV (there is a 43" model btw), I have it hooked up to my P4 rig @1024x768 at 16x9 format @ 72hz. Visually, it's stunning!;) UT2k3 and Unreal II never looked better.:D

What are the dimensions you are looking for?

If possible I recommend LCD over plasma because it has about twice the life expectancy as far as I know.

also the picture quality on plasma screens is really not that special
a good lcd or overhead crt overhead is much better

the deal with the plasma rage is that they look cool on the wall
don't get me wrong the picture is not bad but it isn't the end all be all of picture quality

Get a projector.

Not to be an ***, but Plasma is definietly not the way to go. If you need small and flat, get an LCD, it will last much longer. Plasma's are old technology and they were originally meant to be a stop gap in order for the LCD technology to mature - which it has. They are warm (very warm, many require cooling fans), have poor backlights, poor redraw times, and are generally old.

Your best bet cost/performance would be a good HD compatible DLP projector. Even in a small room you can get a decent 60"+ image that is sharp and clear. Also for prime performance, and less than a panel, look at the Samsung DLP RPTVs. For under $5000, they are by far the sharpest TV sets on the 'normal' market. For $8000 you can get a 1920x1080p Toshiba LCOS set that will blow anything away. However, the DLP at 16" think should fit in almost any room.

Whatever you do stay clear of the EDTV panels that are getting pretty cheap now. If you buy one you will forever be stuck at 848x480p. The HD panels run at 1280x728 (or should if they are 16:9). This at least allows close to native 720p display, perfect for HDTV until 1080p becomes more popular.

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Originally posted by irwincur
Not to be an ***, but Plasma is definietly not the way to go. If you need small and flat, get an LCD, it will last much longer. Plasma's are old technology and they were originally meant to be a stop gap in order for the LCD technology to mature - which it has. They are warm (very warm, many require cooling fans), have poor backlights, poor redraw times, and are generally old.

Your best bet cost/performance would be a good HD compatible DLP projector. Even in a small room you can get a decent 60"+ image that is sharp and clear. Also for prime performance, and less than a panel, look at the Samsung DLP RPTVs. For under $5000, they are by far the sharpest TV sets on the 'normal' market. For $8000 you can get a 1920x1080p Toshiba LCOS set that will blow anything away. However, the DLP at 16" think should fit in almost any room.

Whatever you do stay clear of the EDTV panels that are getting pretty cheap now. If you buy one you will forever be stuck at 848x480p. The HD panels run at 1280x728 (or should if they are 16:9). This at least allows close to native 720p display, perfect for HDTV until 1080p becomes more popular.

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I wasn't really recommending the plasma too, merely stating that it looks awesome.;) In terms of IQ, IMHO, LCD is still abit off, I was looking at a 37" LCD widescreen TV (IF Iremeber correctly, and it was at about half the price of the plasma TV) but decided against it as the picture on the LCD w/s TV sucks big time.:mad: Talk about ghosting and, what's up with the text blurring when youu scoll up :mad: . I tried gaming with it for a couple of days (the retailer is a friend of mine and was willingto let me try it out for a week actually ;) ) and I found the gaming experience to be completely dissatisfying.:p IQ is quite subjective so it's hard to say what's good and what's not BUT I'm really happy with the TV I've got, and NO, I would not recommend it unless you've got the budget and you're willing to experiment a little.;) I'm speaking thru personal experience here as I've tried both LCD and plasma TVs (I did, however, get a 15" LCD TV for my study/gym room, still I notice a ghosting effect whenever I use it.;) :)