Upcoming plasma 1080p tv's vs Sony SXRD LoCS?

Rsya4,
I whole-heartedly disagree with you about the only thing that is better than plasma's pq is the SED tv's.
CRT easily beats plasma in absolute black level and black quality, and smokes them in contrast ratio.
Plasma at its best has about 3:000 to 1 or 4:000 to 1 contrast ratio. CRT's EASILY have a 15,000 to 1 contrast ratio.
So plasmas are NOT the current best in picture quality.
My Sony KD-36XS955 36" crt tube tv beats the pq on any plasma that I have saw to date, and I have viewed them all.
Plasma still has a ways to go before they will surpass the best HD crt displays in absolute pq.
The new 1080p plasma sets due out this year may be better and may come closer to matching CRT's pq. We will see.
The ONLY disadvantages to crt's is the smallish screens and their bulk.

I've heard many people say that HD on a CRT is the best, but I've never seen it be so. To me, regardless of black levels and various digital artifacts that may occur, the color on a properly set-up plasma display has depth and the kind of warm, rich, natural and organic qualities of real life that drive so many audiophiles to tube amplification. Plasma is to video displays as tubes are to audio amplifiers. YMMV.

Of course, I've never seen an SXRD outside of a Circuit City or a Sony Style store, neither of which bother to set them up properly. (If the Sony Style stores would set their displays up correctly, I bet the stuff would fly out of the warehouse. What can they be thinking?)

Thanks for your reply Dalton. You are welcome to disagree. Black levels alone dont make for PQ as you are saying. But then you say that your CRT has a better PQ, basically saying that the better black levels on a CRT give it better PQ? I've seen all of the 1080P plasma displays including the Hitachi prototype. The 103 inch 1080P panasonic is so far beyond every FP out there that if it is ever released that will be the standard. Second place is truely not close!

The problem with LCDs and LCos is that they depend on light bulbs or light sources in order to display info, so details can be lost in darker scenes, referred to as a loss of shadow detail. Detail and no light simply arent a good fit!!

I think if you will pick up any issue, including the March issue, of Widescreen review magazine, you will see the consistent steps that are used to evaluate a display quality. This by no means implies or devalues someone liking a certain type of display. Its just that things such as grey scale accuracy, color accuracy, black levels and a host of other features are objectively measurable. In this sense, plasma is a better technology in general than most options for pure lifelike PQ in a way that other technologies, except for SED, cannot really reproduce.

Anyone can choose and like whatever they want. Its all good. I'm just sharing some info. No big deal.

By the way, contrast ratios are brand specific and reported ones cant be usefully crossshared to compare diffrent manufacturers. They use different forumlas.

I have to agree with Rysa4. As an owner of plasma (NEC) and RP LCD (Sony GW IV) and also very familiar with SXRD PQ, plasma is head and shoulder above any RP TV in skin tone or color balance. Not to mention if you watch movie in completely dark room, any RP will give you the feeling there is a light bulb behind the screen.

SXRD fixed the SDE problem, but SSE is only reduced and not eliminated. If you don't know what that means, I suggest you don't ever find out because it will bother you once you know just like rainbow effect.

SED can be the best technology if they ever make it affordable, but that day is still years away.

No, its not just black levels.
Again, the contrast ratio is better on CRT's, CRT's are not fixed resolution displays like plasmas, CRT's don't have video noise in dark scenes like most plasmas do, plasmas also have problems with dithering, gray scale dark artifacts, and some motion artifacts compared to most crt displays.
You say SED displays will be the best:
SED will be based on the same principles as CRT's but thinner and with individual emitters for each pixel, so CRT's pq cannot be that bad.
The main goals of SED's, from what I have read, "will be to combine the slimness of plasma and LCD displays, with the black levels and contrast ratio of CRT's that the plasma and LCD's currently are ultimately lacking in".