Upgrading to HD for a Definitive PS3 Experience

[Phantomaniac]

Recently I needed a 2nd TV for my basement to replace an ancient projection TV that was dying. I went with this and despite its cheap price its an awesome TV: http://www.target.com/p/element-50-...-0-sound-bar-and-subwoofer-black/-/A-14044647

You absolutely cannot get more for the money. I have a smaller, more expensive LG LCD upstairs and the Element TV looks just as good. A Samsung or Sharp TV will probably look better but you will have a hard time fitting those into your budget, even at 40".

For anyone recommending Plasma, don't those still have worse input lag than LCDs? Even if the refresh rate is good, input lag is a death wish if you are playing fast paced video games. My parents have a plasma TV and playing any sort of FPS on it is unbearable.

 

[Matt1970]

Sony support isn't bad. We have a 40" Bravia well out of warranty and they sent us a flash drive with an updated firmware for free. Thier quality is much better than most manufacturers out there.

 

[Paul98]

whatever you do, do not make the mistake I did in buying a 720p tv

720p tv's use a 1366 x 768 panel

you will never run any ps3 game in its native resolution

what happens on a 1366 x 768 panel is every single detail in the image, every hard edge line gets stretched out to 2 pixels because that's all the scaler knows how to do when going from 1280 x 720 to 1366 x 768

so 1366 x 768 effectively have a less sharp image than a native 1280 x 720 panel would (if they existed, which they dont, except on old dlp sets)

you are better off buying a 1080p and scaling everything to 1920 x 1080 because its a cleaner scale than the incredibly odd scaling of 1280 x 720 to 1366 x 768 which ruins all single-pixel edges

1366 x 768 is not 720p.

Just like any tv, make sure it's native resolution is actually 720p, 1080p, or can display them pixel for pixel. Such as a 1366x768 which would display a 720p image using only 1280x720 pixels.

But really now days you might as well go with 1080p prices are cheap enough to not bother with 720p.

 

[qwertyaas]

Edit: Delete

 

[dookulooku]

Recently I needed a 2nd TV for my basement to replace an ancient projection TV that was dying. I went with this and despite its cheap price its an awesome TV: http://www.target.com/p/element-50-...-0-sound-bar-and-subwoofer-black/-/A-14044647

You absolutely cannot get more for the money. I have a smaller, more expensive LG LCD upstairs and the Element TV looks just as good. A Samsung or Sharp TV will probably look better but you will have a hard time fitting those into your budget, even at 40".

For anyone recommending Plasma, don't those still have worse input lag than LCDs? Even if the refresh rate is good, input lag is a death wish if you are playing fast paced video games. My parents have a plasma TV and playing any sort of FPS on it is unbearable.

Input lag has little to do with the type of display technology (LCD or plasma) and more to do with the amount of video processing done on the inputs. A lot of flat screen TVs now have a "Game" mode that minimizes video processing.

For actual pixel response time, plasma is faster and exhibits less ghosting or blurring than LCDs. However, for console games, which often don't maintain 60 fps, the blurring that LCDs may actually help the game appear smoother to the user.

 

[JackBurton]

Just from my experience, don't go sony. You pay a good few dollars for the brand name. My Dad swears by sony but I really don't see what's so great with their picture quality. I've seen a lot cheaper samsungs and panasonics with better colours and deeper blacks. Saying that, the sony is great for gaming because it's dynamic range is so high that I can see noobs who hide in the shadows

The 3 top displays are from Sony (HX929), Sharp (Elite X5FD), and Panasonic (VT50). Not saying ALL of the Sony TV models are stellar performers, but they do have one of the best LCD's available today. I wouldn't even be looking at Samsung if I wanted a high end TV. It would be between the 3 I mentioned above.

 

[futurefields]

1366 x 768 is not 720p.

That's exactly my point. They sell "720p" TV's that aren't actually native res 720p, they have a native resolution of 1366x768.

So all 720p content is going to be upscaled to 1366x768. So what you end up with is actually a screen with less effective resolution than a native 1280x720 panel would have.

Because a single pixel line on the 1280x720 screen gets stretched to 2 pixels on the 1366x768 screen. That is the only thing the scaler knows how to do with that information. You cannot increase resolution of the source, so what was a single pixel on the source will be rendered as two pixels on the display.

When I play Xbox 360 games on my Panasonic 32" IPS 720p, which is a good tv for gaming because it has no input lag (IPS alpha panel), I see so much moire artifact.

The moire is so distracting, like all leaves, fences, anything that was single pixel details on the original 720p source render becomes a horrid moire mess on the 720p (1366x768) TV

And if you want to argue about whether 720p TV's are 1366x768, just go to any electronic store or go on Amazon or Newegg and look at the LCD panels and tell me what native resolution they are running at. You will not find a 1280x720 LCD tv.

TLR

Buy a 1080p panel. Atleast then 1080p material will be displayed at native res (so long as you can disable overscan, another can of worms) whereas with a 720p LCD TV you will never be seeing *anything* in native resolution.

 

[TheDev]

Based on the info supplied here, I will definitely be getting an LED HDTV with 1080p. Still narrowing down my search. Haven't decided on a specific TV yet.

Let's talk about warranties and customer support. What are the best options?

 

[TheDev]

I think I am going to buy this TV from Walmart: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Samsung-40...H5000/20554022