TV's

[sgwrx]

of the three, lcd, dlp and plasma, it seems to me that plasma gives the biggest color.

[Box Brownie]

Yes, if my wallet was big and we had space I would get the very best.  FWIW we just had our Hitachi 24inch (semi flat screen) repaired for £64 - it had a power supply fault, it dropping into standby.

Technology is changing quite rapidly at the moment and providing this old set lasts another 2 years then I will jump for the newer ones but hopefully by then the prices will be more mainstream.

In resepect of my view of image quality, I am very picky and always have been.  many moons ago when I was very young (oh dear a fairy tale  ) our neighbours were the first to get a colour telly and the whites were very green tinted and I got told off by my mother for saying something about how bad it looked but they were delighted with it.  About a year later my father bought one (must have picked up my normally early adoptor habits from him) and ours had pure whites and was IMHO a delight to watch but the neighbours were still watching their green tint, though I am sure it could have been adjusted  

PS I would get a new one now but my SO would give me hell, bless her  

[sgwrx]

when i think about the fact that i could have gotten a 5d i'm bummed.

[Jonathan Wienke]

i wish america would get their heads on strait and at least transition to 16:9 low def tv so at least we wouldn't have to watch low def pictures that are short and very wide. such is the colonies

We're not as uncivilized as you might think. If you RTFM for your TV, you'll find that there are settings to make standard definition 4:3 aspect video display properly, with black bars on either side. It's not our problem anyway, as your TV was likely manufactured in Japan or Korea...

[sgwrx]

yeah, i shouldn't single out the market.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Forcing low-def to go 16:9, then implementing hi-def 16:9 doesn't make a lot of sense. It's simpler to just make the switch to 16:9 HDTV than go through a bunch of bastardized intermediate evolutionary forms, all of which would have to be supported by the broadcasing networks at great expense. If you set your TV properly, nothing is stretched anyway. The picture merely occupies the center 4:3 of the screen.

[GregW]

Other than price (Plasma being cheaper in larger sizes) I don't think there is much in it these days when comparing top end panels regarding picture quality.  I have a 50" Pioneer plasma and a top end Philips  32" LCD with Ambilight.  If I had to choose I'd say the LCD was a tad better over a range of sources like digital tv and DVD but there is not much in it at all.  

Regarding calibration.  My TV's were calibrated when they were delivered, but just like an LCD monitor I guess they need regular calibration as the panels age.  I'm toying with the idea of using my Eye-one to take screen measurements and then using the TV controls make the adjustments needed to set the white point etc.  I know that dedicated TV devices exist but the measurement system must be similar as they either use a computer or DVD with test targets.  I just need to figure out a way of minimising the impact of the video card and profile element of the software.

[sgwrx]