Got a Pioneer Plasma TV
Posted: May 28th, 2007, 3:17 pm
This past weekend I picked up a Pioneer 42" plasma (PDP-4271HD) for my game room. I had done quite a bit of research on this, and reluctantly went with the plasma for these reasons:
- I've had a 50" Pioneer in my basement for two years and it's worked flawlessly, especially with video games. People rave about it, and I've yet to see a better picture on a TV.
- My game room is narrow, so when I have people over, they're sometimes viewing the screen from an angle. Plasmas are the best in this regard.
- I need a large number of inputs to accommodate all my systems, and the LCD TVs in the same general price range didn't have nearly enough. My Pioneer has four composite/component/S-Video inputs, plus two RF inputs. Most LCDs had two inputs, and a few didn't even have RF inputs.
- Having already owned a plasma, I knew I wouldn't have to deal with input lag or image smearing sometimes associated with LCDs.
The only downside I could think of was the possibility of burn-in. I haven't encountered this myself on my old Pioneer, but I have read many horror stories on the Internet. It's important to note however that in many cases people confuse "image retention" with "burn in". They look the same, but burn-in is permanent. I've experienced some minor image retention on my plasma, but it's never stuck around long enough to be a problem.
As a safety precaution, I am being extra careful with the TV for its first 100 hours or so, breaking it in with a lot of full-screen TV problems that don't have logos in the corner. Also, I'm keeping the contrast and brightness low (under 50%) initially.
So how does it look? Well it really depends on the system. Systems that aren't known for their crystal clear visuals (like the Genesis or Atari 2600) don't look as good as they do on normal TV. Also, the larger screen really emphasizes the huge pixels of many older games. Systems made by Nintendo seem to look a lot better, due to their crystal clear video inputs. Modern systems with component video inputs however look absolutely phenomenal. I was playing Wave Race Blue Storm the other day and it almost made me sea sick.
For the record, I'm keeping my 27" around as well, just to watch TV or use it for light gun games.
- I've had a 50" Pioneer in my basement for two years and it's worked flawlessly, especially with video games. People rave about it, and I've yet to see a better picture on a TV.
- My game room is narrow, so when I have people over, they're sometimes viewing the screen from an angle. Plasmas are the best in this regard.
- I need a large number of inputs to accommodate all my systems, and the LCD TVs in the same general price range didn't have nearly enough. My Pioneer has four composite/component/S-Video inputs, plus two RF inputs. Most LCDs had two inputs, and a few didn't even have RF inputs.
- Having already owned a plasma, I knew I wouldn't have to deal with input lag or image smearing sometimes associated with LCDs.
The only downside I could think of was the possibility of burn-in. I haven't encountered this myself on my old Pioneer, but I have read many horror stories on the Internet. It's important to note however that in many cases people confuse "image retention" with "burn in". They look the same, but burn-in is permanent. I've experienced some minor image retention on my plasma, but it's never stuck around long enough to be a problem.
As a safety precaution, I am being extra careful with the TV for its first 100 hours or so, breaking it in with a lot of full-screen TV problems that don't have logos in the corner. Also, I'm keeping the contrast and brightness low (under 50%) initially.
So how does it look? Well it really depends on the system. Systems that aren't known for their crystal clear visuals (like the Genesis or Atari 2600) don't look as good as they do on normal TV. Also, the larger screen really emphasizes the huge pixels of many older games. Systems made by Nintendo seem to look a lot better, due to their crystal clear video inputs. Modern systems with component video inputs however look absolutely phenomenal. I was playing Wave Race Blue Storm the other day and it almost made me sea sick.
For the record, I'm keeping my 27" around as well, just to watch TV or use it for light gun games.
) but I've also kept my 27" 4:3 Sony Wega tube TV. What my 747i lacks in PQ (I agree that the Pio plasmas have the best overall picture of any HDTV in the market, including my own) it compensates for with killer built-in sound, excellent response time (for an LCD), Picture-in-Picture options and a pleasing picture regardless of console age. It also has inputs up the whazoo: two HDMI, one VGA (ideal for XBox 360 HD-DVD and to upscale regular DVD's to 1080p), two component, two composite and two S-Video. No RF input but I have the SD TV for those. Only problem is that a couple of older systems (namely the Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn) will not play full screen on my new HDTV. I either have to play them on a smaller picture-in-picture mode or play them on the ol' 27" TV. Oh well...