RE: Dome Auction

["Keith Doxey" <ukha.diyha@xxxxxxx>]

We looked at the 50" plasma and ruled it out.

The manufacturers claim "True XGA" but that is not the case
Panel is 16:9 and is 1280x768 pixels.
If you run XGA (1024x768) you get black bars at the sides unless you
stretch
to fill which distorts the image. If you run at 1280x1024 then it
compressed
the vertical resolution down to 768 again distorting the image.

What I wanted to find and no-one made was a 50" 4:3 plasma @1024x768.

Widescreen is great for Movies but no good for PC's at the moment because
everything is designed for a 4:3 ratio PC monitor.

One further point of worry about plasma is that many DVD's are 18:9 or 21:9
and show black bars even on a widescreen TV. with plasma this means that
the
area covered by black bars would be worked less than the centre area of the
screen and after time full screen material would have brighter stripes top
and bottom.

I got called out to a local pub beause their projector had a bright green
band at the top of the picture. I looked at it and thought that something
really dire had happened to the CRT projector as it was the same on all
channels with the top 6 inches of the picture looking bright and the rest
being dull and generally "yucky". It was then that I realised the
bottom of
the picture was 6 inches above the bottom of the screen.

The screen was a pull down type and someone had pulled it down another 6
inches. The "normal" viewing area of the screen was stained brown
from all
the nicotine but the top 6" was still white where it had been rolled
up in
the housing. That is the effect you would get on a plasma after the centre
was more heavily used.

We have also just replaced a Barco 808 CRT data projector after 20,000
hours
with a brand new Barco Cine CRT. That is the beast I would love but it was
13500 + vat !!!

The guns on the old Barco had weakened after all that time which is not
surprising. The area of the tubes used to show the picture was grey
compared
to the unused area of phospor. You still cant beat a CRT in my opinion.

As you said initial impact is something you have to overcome. LCD looks
brilliant when you see it briefly but you soon spot all the faults with the
picture and the running costs are horrendous. That Barco may seem expensive
but 16K to watch at least 10000 movies its under £1 per hour. Other CRT's
start at aroung 3 grand and are even better value for money but I was
talking about the Rolls Royce of projectors :-)

Also LCD projectors are noisy because of high speed fans to get rid of all
the heat.

Keith



-----Original Message-----
From: Phillip Harris [mailto:phillip.harris1@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 24 February 2001 14:42
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Dome Auction


Cheers Keith.

I've actually been *VERY* disappointed with plasma screens to date ... they
really do seem to be the perfect solution to the old problem of big screen
TV in a typical UK sized house.

However, I looked into the plasma screen market fairly carefully about 18
months ago when my employer was looking for something to give a bit of wow
factor to the boardroom and the only one that was in any way suitable for
what we needed (video plus graphics) was the 50" Pioneer. When I
looked
about 6 - 8 months ago for myself I started at the 50" Pioneer (then
£10.5k)
but even that wasn't up to what I considered to be a good enough standard.
The contrast wasn't great, it leaked charge between pixels giving a glowing
edge to film credits and - well, there was a whole list at the time which
I've forgotten by now.

It's like anything that you see ... you have to get past the immediate
impressiveness of a 50" screen in a package that you can hang on the
wall
and actually look at the resultant performance.

I would say that we're still a few years away from the ideal plasma screen.

Oh yeah ... one other thing about the plasmas that I disliked. THE FAN
NOISE! If anyone has left the 40" plasma running in the boardroom then
I can
hear it as I pass the boardroom door.

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Doxey [mailto:ukha.diyha@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 24 February 2001 13:13
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Dome Auction
>
>
> Thanks for the confirmation Phil.
>
> One other thing I forgot to mention.... the screens we were
> offered had been
> fitted with high contrast anti glare screens to improve the visibility
> (smoked glass screen) and if you have ever tried an anti glare screen
on
> your PC monitor you will realise just how much light gets absorbed by
the
> anti-glare screen meaning you have to drive the monitor/plasma even
harder
> :-(
>
> Keith
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phillip Harris [mailto:phillip.harris1@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 24 February 2001 12:00
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Dome Auction
>
>
>
> Just to confirm what Keith's saying...
>
> At the moment we have a Pioneer 40" 4:3 plasma at work and we've
probably
> had it no more than 18 months. It doesn't show the same things
> all day, it's
> not even showing things all day but it does usually get left on
> all day (9 -
> 6) - even though people are told to power it down after use. It is
> *definitely* getting greyer as time goes on ... it's certainly
> not as bright
> or contrasty as it used to be.
>
> I'd be very wary of buying a plasma at the moment - especially a
> second hand
> one. I've been and looked at several that were current six months ago
> (including the Pioneer 50" XGA) and I really didn't think that
> they were at
> a point where they were suitable for long term domestic use.
>
> Phil
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>





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