"Commercial" plasma screens the real deal for HT?

The way a television deals with movement involves the scaler not the glass. If all of the rest of the specs on a set look impresive but the scaler is not up to par the image is going to look bad or atleast not as good as that of other displays with better scalers.

The Imaging Science Foundation (while not completely unaffiliated with manufacturers) is into R&D for measureing and calibrating video displays. Chances are there is a local dealer who has a resident geek who happens to be ISF certified. These guys can calibrate a display to output an even temerature throughout the reproduceable color spectrum. THey can show you what a displays performance is before and after calibration on a printed graph. Also the subjective aspect; you should see an improvement in the picture of any given set after calibration. At around $350 per input (usually only one input calibration is needed) it is a small investment in comparison to line conditioners, set-up discs, fancy cables, and any tweeks available. There are adjustments that are only available via the service menues of these displays. ISF guys are able to get into these, make changes to get the best performance out of a given set, and all without messing things up (as ambitious videophiles often do).

Check out the ISF website. It's not great but it can put you in touch with a guy in your area who knows how to explain the pros and cons of the different options.

http://www.imagingscience.com/about.htm

Hope this helps.

1. ISF calibration does not always produce the "best" results. The above post is correct in that a set can be tweaked to "ISF School" perfection, which an individual isnt going to hit exactly. One of the threads on avsforum discusses this in detail, and offers "The steaming rat method" with comments about that vs ISF calibration with someone who has gone in both directions. Sometimes tuned perfection just isnt as appealing as adjusting the set to get a looking through the window real life skin texture type orientation, guided by steps, set up disks etc. Individual mileage may vary, so to speak. The concept that everyone agrees on what looks best obviously isnt true.

2. I have never seen a plasma with motion artifact and there are no differences in the scalers or glass used in commercial vs consumer plasmas with the exception of the coating I mentioned due to FCC classification. Motion artifact has been an inherent problem with Flat Panel LCD displays and is most obvious in sporting events to me. BUT- LCDs have gotten better on this.

I have a plasma display from NEC. It is a non-consumer model as it does not have a tuner or speakers..a true display only. Excellent product, and I saved a ton of CAN$ by avoiding the retail, consumer marketplace and sourcing it elsewhere. In addition to on-line sales, one can typically get a "commercial display" from vendors of audiovisual equipment.

WOW, thanks for all the info. One last question: a salesguy told me that plasma screens really burn fast because of the two large black stripes that are indeed still images top-bottom of movies on DVD format....bullshit or truth? he then tried to sell me an LCD for over $7,000.....but I tend to listen to people whose job is to be profesionnal.
Thanks

That salesguy needs to back to diplay school. What a load o' BS. Plasmas can suffer from burn-in, but with normal use (like not leaving a still-image on the screen for hours) you shouldn't have any problems.