In the market for new tv

I would go for the new panasonic plasma range or buy a S/H pioneer last generation.

When pioneer stopped making their plasma´s they sold their technique to panasonic.

Good luck

Panasonic, but look at the LCDs. "Which"'s top recommendation these days is Samsung which they reckon has the best picture quality of any TV. Sony seem to have lost their way somewhat - a shame because they were always top dog for TVs in the past.

I bought a Panasonic Vierra 50" last night. I had seen a friend's one, watching the cityscape from 'Bladerunner' on it, with the very fine points of light, and was very impressed by the stability of the picture and lack of line swapping/flicker.

I did have a look around at other TV/monitors in the shop. The salesman was pushing LED, but I saw a tell tale flicker, or strobe at the base of sharp vertical movements that I associate with LEDs, which convinced me that although they have improved, they still do not have the ability replicate movement that I was looking for.

On fairly static images it would be easy to be swayed by the bright and immediate impact of a LED, but TV is about moving images, and for me the LEDs simply did not look as good.

There is something in the picture set-up on the Vierra which adjusts the brightness of the screen to the surrounding ambient light, and energy saving device. When I switched this off it brightened the picture, and I adjusted the various settings to my personal taste.

I was surprised by the drop in price on plasma TVs. I was replacing a 12 year old Sony 'Trinitron' 32", a monitor type I have often used when working in TV, which cost me around £1200 then, I was expecting to pay more for a 50" plasma, I was pleasantly surprised.

I upgraded my Sky to HD, I already was using a HD box, must say that watching 'Madagascar' (the David Attenborough documentary, not the mouthy Chris Rock animation) was blown away by the quality, detail and depth of the image. The friend who showed his Vierra commented that it is the first time he has seen the stability of image at home that you see with studio monitors fed directly from the camera on a TV or film set, I definitely agree.

We are still looking at the internet and I-player functions. We watched a BBC show over the net, and the quality was very good, but as far as we can see you can only access I-player through the Panasonic interface, no web browser, so some sites may not be able to be accessed (C4, Sky-Go, etc).

For TV viewing, we do not have an aerial, so are using the Sky box as the sole tuner, as we did with the Sony CRT before. We must also now look into a Blu-ray player, probably a budget model to start with.

There is one thing that is sadly lacking from the plasma TVs, my cat has lost the warm flat ledge at the back of the Sony CRT that she loved to sleep on, we did have to stop he investigating the top of the plasma, as we could see her clawing madly at the thin top edge before falling. This is a point almost all reviews have missed, and could be key to the stability of your household. In favour of the plasma, it will be wall mounted soon, and so be out of the reach of our daughter (11months), so things do balance out.

Cats aside, I hope that helps.

Ultra HD (4x Full HD) is the new resolution

And 55" OLED is coming

I won't buy any TV before I see what is proposed at Las Vegas in 9 days.

Ultra HD will be interesting, but is unlikely to reach broacast for a while. Standard definition (720 PAL, 640 NTSC) survived from the early 70's until now, and although the diversity of media is far far greater, the number of releases that will be available in the short term on anything with greater quality than Blu-ray will be limited.

That said, if your media is sourced from the net, and does not need to be filtered through physical formats, or the broadcast media, then there is no reason why higher standards of source material could not be made available. I do think it is unlikely for mass media for quite a while though.

Such media will exist in professional circles, in much the same way DAT existed in audio for many years, and I know latest Arri Alexa cameras can handle very high quality output, raw 4:4:4 at around 7 or 8K definition, but you do need a bundle of hard drives strapped to the back of them to get the material stored.

Jamie

Hi Gary

That is exactly the model I got, £650 at Amazon, but no doubt plus postage, so I was happy to spend £50 more to pick it up locally, and where I can easily return it if teething troubles happen in the next few months.

I am loathed to take my old Trinitron to the tip, but it simply isn't worth repairing.

We were treated to the somewhat spectacular sight of China, our cat, alunching herself up on to the top of the new TV, only to find that there is no lwarm ledge, and only about 1 inch of top to walk along, she did try but soon jumped down. She was impressed enough with the image to pounce on an American football player at the bottom right of the screen though.

The box says you need to get a dongle for internet use, but that is only for wireless, and as they cost around £75, an ethernet cable is fine for our needs as the router is about five feet away.

I have been looking at wall mounts, and that is something we will have to sort out in the next few weeks, as I need to move all the hi-fi out of reach of our 1 year old. Around £35 seems to get a good one on the net.

All in all after a few days of viewing I am very pleased with this model, I hope you get the same enjoyment from it too.

Jamie