I’m very confused with your argument about a 65″ tv showing no dimming of quality but a 46″ in the same position will show dimming.
My question to you is: If you cover the edge of your 65″ set so it would look like a 46″ then magically it would show dimming of quality?

Merry Christmas!

There is one thing I would like to ask, and that is image retention in plasmas, especially when playing videogames. I understand that ghost images in Plasmas are non-existent (or almost), but some pause images can burn the Plasma.

I know it’s gotten significantly better over time, but the question is: overall, is plasma the way to go for gaming HDTVs? Please consider, I have a Playstation 3 with many games that can run at 1080p resolution.

Thank you!!

How much of the technology in sets of this level will be wasted when viewing HD Cable box quality broadcast TV? Is it a total waste now and in the near future or are some benefits still going to be seen vs. a Blu-Ray or DVD which I know can let a display like this shine? Of course not sure of my viewing habits down the road but now, mostly broadcast TV.

Hope question makes sense?

Peter

There’s no link near “see related story here link”

I will eventually be replacing my family-room HDTV and would like plasma but am worried about burn-in.

I’d recommend a seating distance of between 1.5 and 2.5 times the diagonal measurement of the screen with 2X being the sweet spot for many.

But first – lets define seating distance! To my mind, this is certainly NOT just a simple measurement of room width. I would define seating distance as being measured from the viewer’s eye to the front of the screen. In most cases, the front of the screen is often a foot away from a wall and the viewer’s eye (even if they are sitting against an opposite wall) is at least 1.5 feet away from that wall.

Using that definiton of seating distance – I’d recommend someone purchase an HDTV whose diagonal measurement is about twice their seating distance. I’ve done a great deal of experimentation and the guideline of somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 seems about right with 2X being the sweet spot.

I’ve reviewed the HD Guru’s recommendations and they turned out to be approximately 1.6X for 1080 content and 2.4X for 720p. These charts seem to be based soley on visual acuity. However broadcasters transmit in both 720p and 1080i. So which recommendation do you choose? What is interesting is if you average the two recommendations it does work out to be 2x. However such charts ignore the fact that HDTV signals are not pixel perfect and employ lossy compression. While these charts may have some scientific appeal, they ignore compression, artifacts, and the variety of signals of differing quality/resolution which will be received.

I’d argue for a more subjective recommendation. For blu-ray viewers – I’d recommend between 1.6X and 2.0X. For more general viewing 2x seems near perfect (1.8 to 2.2). For a very casual viewer anything above 2.3X should fit the bill.

Of course, all of this is subjective. Questions that should be asked: How tolerant is a viewer of watching low resolution 4:3 material when viewed at a close distance. How sensitve is a viewer to the artifacts of MPEG compression, film noise, etc?

What is interesting is that whether you look at visual acuity charts or THX cinema recommendations, or SMPTE charts you will often find recommendations that fall between 1.5 and 2.0. However film has no compression and generally has better resolution than HDTV. That is why I’m arguing that sitting a bit farther away may be more suitable for most viewers.