fuggin 1080i or 720p?!

If you can afford the extra few bones, 1080i. Blu-Ray looks amazing and eventually that technology will be cheaper and more accessible. You won't see a huge differance between 720 & 1080 without the blu-ray player, but eventually (most likely) everyone will have blu-ray players and it will pay off then. It's always best to try to stay one step ahead of technology so you don't kick yourself after you buy that 720 and blu-ray drops to $15-20/DVD lol.

So I got an LG 720p 40 inch. The dude was trying to sell me a "calibration" where apparently after 100 hours of use, they come in with their "$10,000 piece of equipment" and calibrate my tv. What's the deal with this?

The calibration they do is nothing more than adjusting all the settings for the room that you're in. If you go on the AVS forums, you can usually find settings for your type and model of tv for the specific lighting conditions you have. That's what I did for mine and it actually makes a difference.

As for the 100 hours thing, the only reason they do it after 100 hours is since you're already used to it with factory settings, you can tell they did something. It's not worth it IMO. Just get it close with the settings from the forums and tinker with it from there to get it where you like it.

Great advice, i did that with each of my plasma's and got excellent results.

i certainly wouldnt pay for caliberation.. there are calibration DVD's you can buy that do just as good, plenty of good calibration links out there as well

all in all the calibration never really produces spectacular "HOLY SHIT I CANT BELIEVE HOW MUCH BETTER IT LOOKS" style results, but it will produce a slightly better result.

google your TV model number and "Calibration" and you will probably find somone who has had thier TV calibrated and posts up the contast, color, etc

Yeah i looked on AVS forums but couldn't find anything about calibrating my 32" plasma vizio.

Hook it up!

yup.

plasma is awful! it burns images much easier and dies over time.. Rear Projection (DLP) anyday

you have to watch so much TV for one to die... by the time it dies chances are you will have already bought newer technology. Burn-in's are extremely uncommon for a typical user

my friend left his ps3 on his plasma tv for like 30 hours or so.. becuase he left real quick to go to the hospital and when he came back the main menu of the ps3 had burned into his tv.. it took like 2 months for the burn to go away and not be noticable anymore but it was still there.. and ppl have countless burns of lines from widescreen to standard

yup, and that why i didnt spend the extra $3000 for a plasma. I have a Samsung 46'' DLP 1080p and love it.

Im looking for a dlp or LCD....big...46+...must be 1080p...how is the dlp viewing angle?? cause on my current 26" lcd is 178 degrees. anything less than 150 degrees i wont take. and also, do you have to be eye level to the dlp to view a great picture?

are you high?

i have 2 plasmas, ive played hundreds and hundreds of hours of video games on both, and neither of them have burn in. In fact, i have never heared of a consumer having burn in issus with a plasma.

they are in no way "Prone" to burn in, it is a very very slight possibility if you have a static image on the screen for a rediculous amount of time.

Any plasma woth half a shit will never encounter Burn in issues.

DLP sucks, it has a crapy viewing angle, off axis on the horizontal is bad enough, but off axis on vertical destroys the pic.

and any plasma will run you 8 hours a day for 20 years before hitting half-life

that is why you tell somone to go turn off your damn tv.

My parents have a samsung DLP and the off axis viewing is pure dogshit. especially on the vertical plane, unless you are on a couch looking right at the tv the pic blows

dont know how old the TV is but i have done the same with my plasma TV and the burned in image went away pretty quick. I usually run the burn-in eraser for about a hour and its all gone or i just watch a movie that is bright. plus, the TV auto dims when its been sitting with the same image for 5 minutes to reduce the chance of burn-in. i spent 1200 for a 42" hitachi 1080p last november it was rated a 9 out of 10 for the asian c-net market for the price i couldnt pass it up. 40+" LCD's in 1080p were selling for nearly double that last year.

i had the same experience with my buddies samsung 46" DLP. not knocking it i guess you just have to be at the perfect spot to see the best picture.

There are also 'sleep' settings on all TVs, you can tell it to shut off after a certain amount of time of inactivity. That and systems like the 360 dim significantly after inactivity to help reduce burn in.

thats bullshit we have the Samsung 46in DLP The one that says Slim DLP or what ever on it... I can see it from near perpandicular... and plasma is bullshit jack... if it was the same price it might be worth it.. but the price difference is not worth it...

it is more expencive because it is a far better TV

:D

my plasma is fucking awesome!!! I love this thing. I'm using my 42 inch hd tv as my computer monitor LOL. Necessary? no. bad ass? yes.


HD PORN FTMFW!!!!!

Wow badfish. Fail. Lol

Jack is right. In theory, plasmas offer twice the picture of what an LCD does. The color quality and vividness of the picture is stunning at the least. The only reason more LCD's are produced is because manufacturers make more money off of them with the bulbs and parts, whereas like Jack stated, plasmas take over ten years to go through half-life, and even then can still be used.

A projection tv will never beat a flat-screen, even an off brand LCD or plasma looks ten times better than a projection does. It's just the way projections are, the space that they have to travel over will always distort the image to some extent its just logic.

DLP's are also harder to take care of. If you watch tv or play 360/ps3 for about 8 hours a day on a DLP you'll be replacing the bulb every couple of years. Or, like in my experience, the color wheel will go out after only three years and replacing the bulb a month before...

Xbox 8 hours a day? lol.

lol, I was in saturday night matinee (same company as FYE) with my lil bro, looking for a blu ray disc for my mom, and we saw blu ray girls gone wild. I thought it was hilarious. Good story ghosty, I know.

If you could actually read you can see it says TV or xbox...I generally leave it on for the most part of the day unless I leave my house, whether I'm watching it or not.

I treat my plasma the same, and have yet to see any type of burn-in or static image. They want you to believe plasmas have burn-in so you'll buy a more expensive LCD or DLP instead and then they can rip you on parts. Trust me, I've had Sony reps come to me at work asking me why we are still selling plasmas, because they don't give us as much profit....

The plasma burn-in isn't a myth. When they first came out, plasmas DID have bad burn in problems. But for the last few years now, they've pretty well fixed the problems. As for the lifespan of the tvs, Most new plasmas and LCD's are rated at something like 60000 to 100000 hours of life. Which means you're NOT going to run them out.

DLP's viewing angles aren't as good as either of the others, but they're not that bad. My mom recently bought a 58" Samsung DLP and the viewing angle on it isn't bad at all.

a DLP TV is still a flat screen

Idk i look at it like this the people who say plasmas suck and they had burn in problems are the people who went out and bought some pos cheapo plasma that was absolute shit to begin with. I have seen many people with plasma tvs that literally play video games all day...literally my friend is a video graphics major lol... and have not had any problems. I think you just get what you pay for, If you buy a quality tv then you should have no worrys. Like my self for istance i Wish i went out and bought me one hell of an expensive plasma but i got my 46'' lcd 1080p im not complaining it will hold me over for the time being ;)

flat panel is what he meant..use common sense buddy. then you can say that a movie projector is a flat screen....its just a front projection.