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Help with plasma TV choice

Greetings,

I would appreciate comments/suggestions to help me with my choice of plasma TV. This TV will be our first HT set-up, and will be used in a weekend home. It will be used for DVD playback, movie downloads, and the kids' video games (Wii). NO cable or satellite. Video signal will be supplied by an Oppo DVD player, and/or the TV's (or Oppo's) internal Wifi connectivity for movie downloads. As such, I would strongly consider a dedicated display, but don't seem to be able to find one in my price range.

Size-wise I would like something in the 55-60 inches diag range, and I
would like to spend $1300-2000 (street price), or so. After some research at a local dealer, I am pretty sure my choice can be narrowed to either
Panasonic or Samsung. The Samsungs' picture quality looks somewhat better to my eye, but I have concerns about screen reflectivity given reported issues with the Samsungs and the fact that there are many windows in the room where it will be used. The Panasonics in general look very good but somewhat subdued and less bright and defined than the Samsungs.

Rest of the system will be a Totem Dreamcatcher 5.1 setup driven by a B&K 307 receiver.

Thoughts? Thanks.
frogman
bojack
646 posts
 
LOVE my Samsung Plasma. It has made concert DVDs a revelation. I have heard the Pannys are good as well, but I remember reading that the Samsung has a better rep among the hard core videophiles for naturalness of skin tones (if that matters to you) and picture adjustment options. I never thought I would like watching DVDs as much until I got mine.
willland's avatar
willland
846 posts
 
Another thumbs up for Samsung plasma. I just bought an open box Samsung PN59D6500 59" Smart plasma at BB for $1199.00($2200.00 msrp) and could not be happier. Very rich and natural colors and very black blacks.

I owned a Mitsubishi 57731 57" dlp for five trouble free years and was very pleased with its performance with the exception of dark scenes, where the images were washed out in darkness. Black level performance was less than mediocre but the whites and bright scenes were about as good as any. Native contrast ratio was tested very low because of the not so good blacks.

This Samsung plasma has taken my viewing experience to a totally new level, especially BD and some of the better broadcast HD channels like Natural Geographic.

Bill
learsfool
1,215 posts
 
Hi Frogman - if you know anything about it, you could probably do it yourself. I knew absolutely nothing about it. The guy did have a piece of equipment, but I believe all he was doing was confirming what he was doing with the remote. So no, I don't think the test equipment is necessary. You can also, by the way, calibrate it for a few different settings - he did two different TV settings for me, one daytime, and one nighttime, and also did a third setting specifically for my DVD player.
savjam
48 posts
 
Buy the largest screen size ST50 Panasonic and have it professionally calibrated by an ISF technician. The Samsung while good cannot match the picture quality of a properly caibrated Panasonic especially for black levels. The GT series offers the same picture quality as the ST series with the TOL VT series being only slightly better. Good luck!
frogman OP
7,409 posts
 
Thanks everyone. I appreciate the suggestions. A related question:

The dimensions of the wall that the display will be mounted on is very narrow, and JUST wide enough for a 55" display. The L/R speakers and stands will be positioned just below the lower edge of the display. I bought the stands that the seller of the Totems had; they are 28" tall. Add to that the Totems' 11" and I am looking at a height of 39". The center channel will be positioned above the equipment rack positioned between the L/R speakers, also at 39". So, I am looking at a mounting height for the plasma where the lower edge of the display is 39" from the floor. Given a viewing distance of 12', the center of the display will be about 6" or 7" above the recommended eye level position.

Is it worth it to buy shorter speaker stands in order to get the center of the display exactly at eye level, or is 7" above eye level acceptable and a negligible deviation from the ideal? Is a downward tilting mount the solution? Thanks for your thoughts.
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