panasonic pz700 full hd 42" plasma

More evidence that some opinions on that forum are only worth the paper they're not printed on.

As has been well documented, I have a 1080P panel.
It's a 37 inch, and I sit 6.5 feet from it.
Leaving aside the arguments re plasma vs LCD, all my HD viewing is on BBCHD... thus it's 1080i, so only de-interlaced by the set - as opposed to downscaled and de-interlaced.

I can't understand why, all other things being equal, one would purchase a screen with less resolution than the best image one might want to watch on it.

mike, am not knocking what you have, am wondering if the £1800 price tag is justified for the 42" full hd plasma, when the panny 768 resolution screen can be bought for less than £1000, i know you can get full hd similar size lcds for a lot less money, is it worth a £1000 more if you are sitting 8-9 feet away from the screen ?

John, that's something only you can judge... and is best done by seeing them working.

If I had room for a 42 I wouldn't hesitate to fork out on the larger version of my Sharp... but nothing I have seen to date would make me want the Pana... even if the natural light in my room didn't turn that sheet of glass that fronts it into a bleedin' great big mirror.

Gotta say, I have the 37inch panasonic 768 and it cost me £800 with a five year guarantee. Now £1800 is over twice the price...I could have 2 of the 768 screens and have 200 quid left over.

Better be massively better !

I'm with you Roy. Lets run out and buy a TV where only a handful of sources can be viewed to show the TV working to it's full capability and as a result only watch certain channels because the picture may be better - er NO!!!! That's right up there with spending thousands on a hi-fi and only playing a few CD's because they are recored well and sacrificing all other so you can impress your friends. Pay £1800 to watch BBC - it's practically a joke!

quote:

Lets run out and buy a TV where only a handful of sources can be viewed to show the TV working to it's full capability and as a result only watch certain channels because the picture may be better - er NO!!!! That's right up there with spending thousands on a hi-fi and only playing a few CD's because they are recored well and sacrificing all other so you can impress your friends. Pay £1800 to watch BBC - it's practically a joke!

Whoa whoa whoa whoa WHOAAAAAAAA!!!!!!


My screen cost £1100, looks great on HD, and farking spectacular with the Prog scan Component feed from my 600 dvds from my n-Vi.

That's why I bought it.

But when more HD is available it won't require me to go out and buy yet another screen to get the best out of it.



Chill out KK!

mike, unless i misread the review they did test it with 1080p inputs, same conclusion unless you sit 3 feet away from the screen you won't notice any differance, unless you have at least a 50" display.

Hi Mike,

I thought that would get your attention. I'm sure your TV performs well with all signals and i hope it brings you a lot of enjoyment. My point was merely that there is a huge amount of SD television and DVD's available. The expense of a SKY HD box plus the monthly subscription for 11 channels in 1080i at best is a rip off and that is why i opted for a TV that performs well with SD. If in the future we start to see more true HD channels then i'm sure you'll have more enjoyment from your box but for now i'm happy with what i see and what i pay per month. I believe that some of the so called SKy HD channels are purely upscaled before being sent, they were never recorded in true HD, so again a bit of a rip off. I have been told that the football on BBC HD is superb - but aren't they losing that as well....

Does the NVi supply a HD signal?

ATB

Paul

Paul

The n-Vi outputs either 480P or 576P depending on the disc (NTSC vs PAL).

The set I have was bought 3 days after the n-Vi arrived.... and one day after my beloved Pana CRT popped its' clogs.
I don't subscribe to Sky, I have a cable V+ box, which upscales all SD footage to 1080i (and does an bloody good job of it too).
I had this several months before the HD set, and it was chosen for the convenience of the triple tuner PVR capability... the HD and upscaling are merely bonuses.

The Sharp set was chosen specifically because it had a fantastic picture for DVD when fed via an n-Vi. Second to that it has a decent freeview tuner, a great de-interlacing circuit (for coping with the 1080i feed from the cable box), and because it looks good.

As a one-time photgrapher I refuse to spend money on kit that can't give me a well balanced and natural looking picture.

The Sharp does that, and with great blacks too.

I DID buy it out of need.... but it had been on the shortlist... the expiration of my CRT merely accelerated the process by a month or two.

I hope this adequately satisfies your curiosity.

Mike

Cheers Mike,

I'm also looking at the V+ box. My Pana native HD is nearest to 720P, it also has the ability to up convert SD to 1080P (so they say) Do you think it's worthwhile investing in the V+ box? Can it send a 720P signal?

The V+ has 4 HDMI output modes....

720P, 720P Wide, 1080i, 1080i Wide

The wide modes will stretch a 4:3 picture to fill the screen.. I don't use these as I'm happy to see 4:3 broadcasts undoctored.

Whatever you watch, whatever channel will be output in either 720P or 1080i, at your choice.
The advantage of my screen is that HD footage is fed to my screen unaltered, and SD is upscaled.

On your 720P screen, HD will be downscaled and de-interlaced, and SD upscaled & de-interlaced.

You could ry setting it to 1080i output... but then the box will be upscaling your SD footage, and the TV will be partially downscaling it again - see what looks better.

To answer John's question re 720 vs 1080 resolutions at distance - here are some numbers:

SD res is 576x1024..... 589824 pixels

768 res is 768x1366....... 1049088 pixels.. 78% more than SD

Full HD is 1920x1080.... 2073600 pixels... 97% more than 768, 3.5 times as many as SD

So full HD is a much larger resolution increase than 768 line is over SD.

If someone honestly can't see the difference between a full HD set and an HD Ready without being that close, then they probably can't tell the difference between SD and 768 line either.

That may be the case, but the numbers speak for themselves.