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OK time for the keeper & I to upgrade from the 80cm heffer TV I bought as a wedding pressy many years ago & bring us into the 21st century.
The big question is what to get in a 42" (rough size) for viewing standard TV & fox, some sports etc..... no home theatre no movies etc.
Viewing distance will range from 6 mtr to 3-4 mtr.
Looks like we are going shopping tomorrow so any help will be appreciated

When I got mine, I was advised if you have light comming in the windows towards the screen, then you have to get an LCD to avoid the reflection...

You get a reflection of the windows, blinds and curtains etc... on the screen with a plasma.........

Mate, just went through the same dilemma, took us about 2 months to decide

We ended up with the Panasonic 42 Viera Plasma HD


I deliver to Harvey Norman, JB and Wow stores, and I always asked the store guys what comes back, and what do they recommend. They always said Panasonic or Samsung. They said other things too about other brands but being a public forum I won't repeat

We went to a store who had a Panasonic and Samsung right next to each other, and the Panasonic had a lot more definition in the picture, so we walked out with a Panasonic, and it's awesome.
Our TV usage seems to be about the same as yours, and we asked the salesguy a lot of questions vs the LCD vs Plasma, and he said the Plasma will do fine (and yes we can use the wii with it)

Happy Shopping, my last tv was a 68cm box, we love our new tellie

(On a personal note - please don't buy LG, my cd burner doesn't work, my airconditioner rattles, the washing machine leaks, the video player won't work and the mobile phone screen broke - they don't like to honour warrantys)

General wisdom seems to be screen size should be 1/3 viewing distance. From what I have learnt from a recent purchase is that there is little difference between the two in terms of power consumption. Plasma does have a quicker refresh rate than LCD (600Hz v 100-200Hz) so better for fast action.

I eventually bought a Sony 42" LCD 100Hz with inbuilt HD tuner. Some sets now come with inbuilt time delay - the ability to rewind similar to what you can do with a PVR and also some have a PVR included.

That's about it from me...Good luck and remember you get what you pay for...

awesome guys thanks for the feedback, we are doing lots of googling tonight

Rob I got a 42" plasma (thank's to RD) and a 42" LCD the LCD is a lot clearer than the plasma.Plus you'll find you get a 3year warranty standard with LCD and 1year with a plasma .Plus if your using and gaming devices they are more forgiving....

Also a little tip I got when our LCD got delivered (which is a samsung)....Plug the ariel in before you turn it on if you dont you have to tune all channel's manually....

Mate, Panasonic Viera Plasma, way to go!

We bought a 50" 80x model 720 hd at Xmas and it has been the nuts $1500 Bing Lee. Not full HD but mate you would be hard pressed to pick it once away from shop comparing one against another.

I did all the forum surfing and checked all the reviews and they rated Pana up there with Pioneer, bided my time and got run out price on the 80x model for cash.

If you want to see what a decent Plas looks like in a home come and have a sticky beak after club next week or just drop by the weekend, you won't regret.

Damo

rob, 3 words mate, google will tell you the rest. Series 9 samsung.
:Kuda:

my and my dad have got a 42" Samsung LCD, its about 15 months old and were happy with it pictures good, and viewing angles are good. its a bit old tech now i think but still keeps up
stay with a good brand would be my word of advice

We did the research about 6 mths ago and Samsung Series (something) LCD beat everything. Plasma's are old hat now, although they're cheap. I know a guy who is a techo with teles and his view was Samsung LCD is the way to go. We bought one and it's pretty good.

I got the 42" Panasonic Viera(plasma) aswell... its a bit older now (not 1080i) but still at work about 4 of us ended up with the Viera and are all extremely happy with them.

I think though, now-a-days there is very little difference between LCD and Plasma. I haven't looked for a while, but the only problem with LCD is it tends to have more of a shadow effect, so watching something move fast across the screen... say like a motorbike, you will see a blurr behind the bike. As long as you get a good enough LCD that wont be a problem.

Rob - the viewing we do down here is basically *exactly* the same as you have described....except we also do a fair bit of gaming on the PS3 (which also doubles as the Bluray player...)

There is only 1 TV you need to look at mate - the new Samsung LCD, 46" (116cm), in 1920 x 1080p high definition. Forget anything with a smaller pixel count. Note - this is NOT the brand-spankers LED Samsung, just their current-model LCD number.

Analogue TV is being turned OFF in the US on February 18 next year - not phased out - OFF goodnight Irene. So that means that just about every TV show and movie made from here on in, in the US - will be in HD format. The Oz market will just follow whatever standards the Yanks set, as they always do - so before too long, all our shows here will also be filmed and broadcast in HD. Standard definition LCD's and plasma's will be out of date in Oz within 3 years - 2013 is when analogue signals are finally dropped from the airways here......and SD signals will slowly go the way of the dinosaur as well. You will still be able to 'watch' SD televisions.....as long as you have a HD top-box.....if the tuner in the TV is only SD though - your choices of signals will start being limited pretty well *immediately* from 2013 onwards....

So future-proof yourself now, and get HD 1920 x 1080p - consider nothing under that.

We picked up an F-series 46" late in 2007, it came with a free 26" HD TV for the bedroom....

That series has only been updated once - all the good oil is on the Samsung website. They have just released a new LED TV, its meant to be the ducks guts, but a big'un is up over 6k !!!

That F-series Samsung is a great TV for everything - sports, HD broadcasts - its *fantastic* for Bluray viewing and the new generation PS3 games.....

Good luck with your search mate. But go LCD, whatever brand you get, not plasma.

and yeh, stay the hell away from LG. ( For those with long memories - LG stands for Lucky Goldstar - people may remember 'Goldstar' brand rubbish from the 70's and 80's - well they changed the brand-name and kept the crappy internals !!! Its rubbish...)

We don't always follow the yanks! Yanks use NTSC, we use PAL... we waited to see what the best technology was.

I bought a Panasonic Viera 42" 3 weeks ago and couldn't be happier. Unless you've got a BluRay player the Full HD is not worth the extra expense as you'll get no benefit from it. I've been watching the Tour de France in SD and the picture has been brilliant.
The picture will look different in your home compared to the shop also as the lighting is different. In the shop they set them all to dynamic to allow for the brighter light.

So , whatcha buy Rob ????
Interesting thread for someone with a CRT TV and its an LG Better take Dino for a walk now .