32" HD ready LCD - $550 shipped

[ChadTower]

Just noticed this - figured I'd throw it out there for you guys.  I bought one of these in the run up to Xmas last year.  It's a great TV at that price - good picture, decent speakers, makes a good monitor.  GREAT for gaming.  Not as good as a plasma, of course, but it's $550 shipped... I love mine, I use it for regular TV viewing and an XBMC station, looks and works great for that.

[HaRuMaN]

Just noticed this - figured I'd throw it out there for you guys.  I bought one of these in the run up to Xmas last year.  It's a great TV at that price - good picture, decent speakers, makes a good monitor.  GREAT for gaming.  Not as good as a plasma, of course, but it's $550 shipped... I love mine, I use it for regular TV viewing and an XBMC station, looks and works great for that.

Gahhh....  my Xbox 360 would sweet hooked up to that....

[Nannuu]

No coax input sucks though.  We have Dish Network which does room #2 through the house coax.  Running it through a VCR or similar does not appeal to me 

[shmokes]

Don't you need a box anyway?  I'm under the impression that you can't just hook a Dish Network feed directly to a TV to get channels.  If you've got it hooked to a set top box (equivalent of a cable box), that will then have all the outputs you need, so you're' not married to coax.

Here's something, though.  Chad, I've seen you talk about Plasma being better than LCD on a couple of different occasions.  I disagree, but wonder what makes you think this.  I feel like Plasma has certain strengths over LCD, but that LCD has just as many over Plasma.  Certainly at this size LCD is the clear winner (I actually don't think it's even possible to get an HD plasma below 40" because they can't get the pixels small enough using plasma technology for panels this small).

Anyway, at any size, even if price were no object, I would seriously be considering a variety of options before deciding which technology to go with (assuming both were available in the size I was in the market for).  I think that while Plasma may have started out as the king of large flat-panel displays, LCD has totally caught up and in some ways surpassed Plasma, thanks in large part to the PC monitor market which LCD owns due to plasma's inability to make smaller panels with high resolutions.  LCD technology has just been moving at lightspeed over the past few years.

. . . And so on. 

[ChadTower]

I look at it this way:  my brother in law has a 37" plasma.  For picture quality it beats the ever loving crap out of my 32" LCD.  That's my rationale, taking price/etc out of the equation.

With most things being relatively equal, in the smaller range, LCD is what to go with.  Once you get into larger panels, disregarding price for this comparison, I haven't seen an LCD that is as good as most plasmas.  Not yet.

[shardian]

My brother-in-law bought a 60" plasma off of ebay. He kept talking about how bad-ass it was. I finally came over to see it, and the tard was feeding a 60" PLASMA HDTV with a CHEAP COMPOSITE VIDEO CABLE from the satellite. To top it off, he actually thought he was watching HD content. Omg it looked like total crap. I tried to educate him, but he doesn't like being told what to do. 

[KenToad]

Are you still reading Spider-Man on there, Chad?  I bet it looks great.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, lots of other comics too.  Haven't had the chance much lately now that the kids are in baseball season.  It's awesome, with the upconverting capability of the Xbox you can get a really crisp 24" image of an individual panel if it's a quality scan.  Even really hard to scan stuff like the original TMNT looks really good.

[KenToad]

I'm envious.  And the original TMNT definitely rocks, especially up until they "kill" the Shredder.

[boykster]

Here's something, though.  Chad, I've seen you talk about Plasma being better than LCD on a couple of different occasions.  I disagree, but wonder what makes you think this.  I feel like Plasma has certain strengths over LCD, but that LCD has just as many over Plasma.  Certainly at this size LCD is the clear winner (I actually don't think it's even possible to get an HD plasma below 40" because they can't get the pixels small enough using plasma technology for panels this small).

Anyway, at any size, even if price were no object, I would seriously be considering a variety of options before deciding which technology to go with (assuming both were available in the size I was in the market for).  I think that while Plasma may have started out as the king of large flat-panel displays, LCD has totally caught up and in some ways surpassed Plasma, thanks in large part to the PC monitor market which LCD owns due to plasma's inability to make smaller panels with high resolutions.  LCD technology has just been moving at lightspeed over the past few years.

. . . And so on. 

You have some very valid points, both plasma and LCD have their strengths and weaknesses.  the smallest consumer plasma that I'm aware of is 37", so if you want smaller than that, LCD is your only option.

Plasma strengths (over LCD): deeper black level, wider viewing angle, better refresh rates, more "vibrant" picture, more "even" light emission

LCD strengths (over plasma): less glare, higher resolution per screen area, lighter, less power consumption

Burn in is basically a non-issue, even though the LCD camp keeps touting that as an advantage over plasma, as is life expectancy.  Realistically, both technologies have the same life expectancy and if used properly shouldn't have issues with burnin.  And I realize that LCD viewing angles have gotten much better in the past few years, but they still can't hold a candle to plasmas on that respect.  LCD does have a leg up on plasma when glare is an issue, except for the LCD models that have a glass outer coating / bezel, then they are equal

I really prefer plasma over LCD for most applications, as I feel that plasma technology really delivers a more "CRT" like picture over LCD.  I DO like LCD's for their high resolution for use as pc monitors, and I do have 2 LCD tv's (17") that get regular usage at my house.  But I'd MUCH rather watch programming on one of my 42" plasmas than on pretty much any LCD tv I've seen.

That 32" Olevia for $550 is a great deal though, definately tempting.  I need to find a reasonably priced decent performing 27-37" flat panel for my gym, and that price is right.

[ChadTower]

One thing to keep in mind is that it's a monitor, not a TV, and as such as no tuners.  It does say that but many seem to miss it on these units.

[crashwg]

Burn in is basically a non-issue, even though the LCD camp keeps touting that as an advantage over plasma, as is life expectancy.  Realistically, both technologies have the same life expectancy and if used properly shouldn't have issues with burnin.

You are absolutely correct with the "if used properly" statement.  What you're not taking into consideration is that using a plasma "properly" requires you to not have static images on the screen which WILL cause burn in. 

It's a fact, that plasma screens are the MOST susceptible screen technology to burn in while LCD is immune to the ailment.  If you can live with not playing 99% of video games on your fancy screen for more than a few minutes then go ahead and get a plasma.  For my money I'll get an LCD any day.

[ChadTower]

IIRC, the Olevia units are actually made by LG - which is a very well known LCD maker.  It's just rebranded with an unfamiliar name.

[CCM]

IIRC, the Olevia units are actually made by LG - which is a very well known LCD maker.  It's just rebranded with an unfamiliar name.

My father-in-law bought a 37" Olevia LCD, that thing has an awesome picture.  If I was in the market for a TV I wouldn't hesitate to buy an Olevia.

[ChadTower]

I'd say the only annoying thing about it, for me, is that my Tivo remote turns it off sometimes.  Any button.  It's not all the time and seems mostly to happen in the first few minutes the TV is on.  Tivo is very remote heavy, though, so that gets really old fast when it does happen.

[boykster]

You are absolutely correct with the "if used properly" statement.  What you're not taking into consideration is that using a plasma "properly" requires you to not have static images on the screen which WILL cause burn in. 

It's a fact, that plasma screens are the MOST susceptible screen technology to burn in while LCD is immune to the ailment.  If you can live with not playing 99% of video games on your fancy screen for more than a few minutes then go ahead and get a plasma.  For my money I'll get an LCD any day.

thats exactly the type of "burn-in" propoganda that I'm talking about.  Your statement about not being able to play 99% of video games for more than a few minutes is completely false.  And frankly, LCD's are NOT immune to burn-in.  I've seen burn-in on many of the latest and greatest LCD panels on showrooms from running a dvd menu loop for too long.

The correct term for what you <might> see on a properly broken in plasma after playing a game with a somewhat static image (HUD or something else) is "image retention", and is by no means permanent.  General display usage afterwards (ie watching tv) will remove any ghosting after just a few minutes.  Sure, ANY display left showing the same image for very extended periods of time will suffer from permanent burnin -> look at the majority of arcade monitors, laptop computers, POS kiosks, etc.

I have 3 plasmas, one of them over 5 years old, that I have played countless hours of ps2, dreamcast, and xbox360 games on, and none of the 3 suffers from even the slightest amount of "burn in".

[Nannuu]

Don't you need a box anyway?  I'm under the impression that you can't just hook a Dish Network feed directly to a TV to get channels.  If you've got it hooked to a set top box (equivalent of a cable box), that will then have all the outputs you need, so you're' not married to coax.

Yeah I didn't explain well.  I already have a 65" hooked to the set top box in the living room.  With Dish, you can watch the second tuner in other rooms without a box, it simply feeds through the house on the coax.  So this would be my second TV in another room.

[RecycledPast]

I have a 32" olevia (232v). I got it from <a href="http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/OLEVIA-32-2-Series-LCD-HDTV-232V/sem/rpsm/oid/163702/catOid/-12869/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do">Circuit City for $550</a> Which has a tuner built in but I don't have an antenna hooked up to it.

I only have my 360 hooked up to it but it looks great.   I don't use the speakers and would have rather bought the version with the speaker on the bottom.   Watching the HD movies from the xbox live marketplace look great.

I upgraded from a 27" regular tv.  The jump from 27 to 32 isn't a big as I had hoped since the 32 is wider but not as tall.  So if you have a few extra bucks go with the biggest screen you can afford.