3D vs $$

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Anyone making a HDTV purchase should NOT wait till near Christmas. The near Christmas prices never beat Black Friday prices and this year is no exception.

This year something different is happening that is not the norm. This year there is a huge panel glut, and you will get great deals not only on black Friday, but all the way through Christmas. Waiting till Christmas this year is not a bad thing.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

AND THIS post of yours is just as obnoxious as the rest of the drivel you spew out,
so you're pretty regular too.
IF a HT setup costing in excess of ten grand is "ghetto" then theres a lot of "ghetto boyz"
on this site.

Oh Pix.....its not the cost, it just that it is poorly set up and looks like hell. We all know you don't calibrate your set, and if you rely solely on Audessey(at least the Receiver's version of it) to set your sound, then its calibration on that mess may not be all that accurate either. Clean that crap up!

You can get a DLP that outperforms it at every level, you can get
a 60" (five foot) for less than 1500.
CRT is
DEAD
and so is its Bas**** child plasma, BTW.

Sorry Pix, but once again you just don't know what you are talking about.

I know of no DLP that can natively display all resolutions from 480i to 1440p. None, they all have a fixed resolution. I know of no DLP that has a 150,000-1 contrast ration, None. I know of no DLP that has as accurate color rendition as my set. I know of no DLP set that is as reliable as my set(it has no moving parts, can't say that about a DLP). I do not have to deal with the rainbow effects of a color wheel.

When you peel pack your stupid rhetoric with facts, you walk away with mud on your face, which might not be a bad thing. At least we don't have to be exposed to a Meg Whitman look alike.

[Woochifer]

ah...I guess since I haven't been looking for 3D titles that I hadn't noticed this little monopoly competition. I did notice that I wasn't seeing these popular titles on shelves. That's partially what made me wonder if 3D was just not catching on and that possibly the home experience just wasn't all it was promised to be. Wow. What were the studios thinking? Totally slows down adoption.

It doesn't have anything to do with driving overall adoption, but with establishing market share for individual manufacturers. Among those consumers looking at 3D TVs, Avatar's obviously at or near the top of the list of 3D Blu-ray purchases. Right now, it's only available if you have a Panny. If you're choosing between Panasonic and another 3D TV, that might be enough to sway the purchase if other factors are close.

Right now, Samsung's running away with the 3D market because they've been incorporating 3D into their entry level TVs. From what I've seen, you can generally assume that the 3D feature adds about $300 to the MSRP of a TV (again, that's list price, not the street price).

Samsung 3D TVs are much cheaper because they've added the feature to their least expensive models. Panasonic, Sony, and others are more expensive because their 3D TVs only got added to the midlevel and higher end models.

One point that hasn't been brought up on this thread is the proliferation of 3D cable/satellite channels that have already come online or will come online early next year. ESPN 3D is already on the air, and Directv has two other 3D channels up and running. Early next year, at least two more 3D channels are coming online as well. This uptake in programming is actually much faster than what we saw with HDTV.

As T said, this is still a very early stage for 3D. Remember that HDTVs were first introduced in 1998, but Blu-ray wasn't introduced until 2006 and most cable/satellite channels didn't add HD feeds until 2007.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

It doesn't have anything to do with driving overall adoption, but with establishing market share for individual manufacturers. Among those consumers looking at 3D TVs, Avatar's obviously at or near the top of the list of 3D Blu-ray purchases. Right now, it's only available if you have a Panny. If you're choosing between Panasonic and another 3D TV, that might be enough to sway the purchase if other factors are close.

The unfortunate side effect of trying to gain market share is that you end up choking off the entire market lining up exclusives. It might help an individual manufacturer or studio, but it hurts the marketplace as a whole.

Right now, Samsung's running away with the 3D market because they've been incorporating 3D into their entry level TVs. From what I've seen, you can generally assume that the 3D feature adds about $300 to the MSRP of a TV (again, that's list price, not the street price).

It does not hurt that their 3D panel performance is top notch. Their plasma panel is the only one out 3D set I own where you can watch 3D lying down. That means you can tilt back the theater chair and really relax.

Samsung 3D TVs are much cheaper because they've added the feature to their least expensive models. Panasonic, Sony, and others are more expensive because their 3D TVs only got added to the midlevel and higher end models.

I have to also give props to LG as well. They are the first on the block to offer a projector based on the polarizing method(as opposed to the shutter based method) like they use in the theaters. It requires a silver screen which ain't cheap, and the projector itself is not inexpensive either($14,000 bucks), but for those who want a high performance sensibly priced entry into the 3D projector market, here you are. It is much cheaper than the Titan Reference 3D projector(which is also a projector based on the polarizing method), and the glasses for it are dirt cheap. The bummer with this way is it requires two screens, one silver, and the other a conventional 2D screen.

One point that hasn't been brought up on this thread is the proliferation of 3D cable/satellite channels that have already come online or will come online early next year. ESPN 3D is already on the air, and Directv has two other 3D channels up and running. Early next year, at least two more 3D channels are coming online as well. This uptake in programming is actually much faster than what we saw with HDTV.

Excellent point!!

As T said, this is still a very early stage for 3D. Remember that HDTVs were first introduced in 1998, but Blu-ray wasn't introduced until 2006 and most cable/satellite channels didn't add HD feeds until 2007.

Another good point!

[audio amateur]

Or... get Samsung's 1000$ 50" 3D Plasma. It fits my need very well

It's the PN50C490, just came out. Resolution is 1366 by 768, 768p in other words. Unless your sitting under 9 feet from the screen, it's really not an issue.
If you have any more questions or want pictures let me know

[pixelthis]

Oh Pix.....its not the cost, it just that it is poorly set up and looks like hell. We all know you don't calibrate your set, and if you rely solely on Audessey(at least the Receiver's version of it) to set your sound, then its calibration on that mess may not be all that accurate either. Clean that crap up!





Sorry Pix, but once again you just don't know what you are talking about.

I know of no DLP that can natively display all resolutions from 480i to 1440p. None, they all have a fixed resolution. I know of no DLP that has a 150,000-1 contrast ration, None. I know of no DLP that has as accurate color rendition as my set. I know of no DLP set that is as reliable as my set(it has no moving parts, can't say that about a DLP). I do not have to deal with the rainbow effects of a color wheel.

When you peel pack your stupid rhetoric with facts, you walk away with mud on your face, which might not be a bad thing. At least we don't have to be exposed to a Meg Whitman look alike.

Your brain has no moving parts and look at how it works.
No DLP has 150,000 to one contrast, most are higher, LED lcd sets are boasting contrast
of 3,000,000 to one, don't know about the truth to that.
As for 1440p, that will really come in handy with a 1440p BLU RAY PLAYER.
You have a megabuck scaler that will scale to that? Good for you!
You keep wanting to compare your frankenstien project to real systems that
real people can not only afford, but can actually use.
Or maybe its just that having a "system" that a grad student in physics would take awhile to figure out gives you a smug sense of superiority.
THE REALITY is that you can walk into Walmart and buy gear that will acheive 95%
of what your "system" can do at a fraction of the price.
And the day you realize that your "system" is just a bunch of overengineered crap that
you wasted the family jewels on
and nothing special is the day you will hit the wall.
AND IT WON'T BE PRETTY.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Your brain has no moving parts and look at how it works.
No DLP has 150,000 to one contrast, most are higher, LED lcd sets are boasting contrast
of 3,000,000 to one, don't know about the truth to that.:

B.S, there is no DLP that has a higher true contrast ration than 150,000:1...NONE.

You have just proven that lying is not just something you do in a bed.

Sorry, but there is no video measuring device on this planet that can measure 3,000,000:1, that is pure marketing BS.

[dwayne.aycock]

My Plasma TV says it is 3D ready and the blue ray player is also 3D ready after a firmware upgrade which Sony will send out sometime this month. With everything being 3D ready, what is the next step? I already have the glasses, but no movies as of yet.

[audio amateur]

My Plasma TV says it is 3D ready and the blue ray player is also 3D ready after a firmware upgrade which Sony will send out sometime this month. With everything being 3D ready, what is the next step? I already have the glasses, but no movies as of yet.

3D Blu rays?

My plasma does on-the-fly 2D to 3D conversion, but I haven't been able to check it out as I don't have the glasses yet.

[noddin0ff]

Thanks all for the comments. In the end, the family voted (...drumroll...) that we didn't care all that much about 3D. I think that if there was more of a visible move for the major networks to broadcast 3D, I might have thought a little more about 'future proofing'. We don't subscribe to anything more than the most minimal basic package on cable (networks + PBS etc.), basically stuff you can get with a good antenna. Although in our local area, getting it through cable gives us NH and CT stations that would be hard to pull out of the air.

We went for the 50" Samsung PN50C550, on sale at our local Ultimate Electronics for $799. And the BD-C5500 blu ray for $130 (internet capable, netflix...).

I decided to put the money I 'saved' into a AV receiver upgrade. I'm very happy with the Denon AVR-591 (a good review at audioholics). It doesn't have multi-channel analog inputs, so I did sacrifice the ability to play the 6 or so SACDs that I never listen to. But, it greatly simplifies and improves everything else. The onboard Audyssey MultEQ is pretty slick. It also overlays the on screen display so no input switching to get the receiver menu. Some nice touches. The downside...lack of various inputs. In an HDMI world, all is well. But only 1 optical (reserved for the TV audio for me) and 1 coax digital input and 3 analog stereo inputs.

Inaugural movie night was Avatar and the picture and experience were excellent. Not quite ready to tweak, but might not even bother with it.

again, thanks for the comments all.

[SlumpBuster]

Nice choice. I too recently finally got off the CRT train. I fretted over getting a 3D set and ended up in plain old 2D territory.

The glasses were a big deal for me and they just felt dodgy. I couldn't really verbalize it until we had a Toy Story 3 viewing party. 12 kids would have equaled like $2400 in glasses. Plus some of the more spazzy kids would not have taken to wearing them at all. What do you do when some sugared up 4 year old plants his bony ass right on a pair?

In regular 2D on BD it was a blast for all, that all could enjoy. Until they get the technology to fit the kind of glasses they hand out at Avatar, or Toy Story, or at the Disney World 3D movies, I just won't be interested.

EDIT: For $10/month you'll love Netflix streaming thru the Blu Ray. Even if their HD is limited to 720p. Still very acceptable for the price of one movie per month.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

In regular 2D on BD it was a blast for all, that all could enjoy. Until they get the technology to fit the kind of glasses they hand out at Avatar, or Toy Story, or at the Disney World 3D movies, I just won't be interested.
.

They have the technology right now, but it is hecka expensive, and I cannot see the price going down.

It is called passive polarization, and the LG 3D projector has that technology. The projector costs me $10g's, then I had to get a grey screen/white screen combo because 3D requires the grey screen, and 2D looks terrible on it. So add on another $3g's to that total. The 3D glasses only costs me $1.50, so that is where I saved money.

As far as passive polarized direct view panels, that is years off. The problem with the technology now is that only 1 or 2 people can view the panel because it can only be viewed optimally at a certain angle. When you move out of that angle, the 3D effect disappears.

[noddin0ff]

EDIT: For $10/month you'll love Netflix streaming thru the Blu Ray. Even if their HD is limited to 720p. Still very acceptable for the price of one movie per month.

True! I've been a long term Netflix subscriber and have been streaming to many devices already. To our laptops, to our home computer, to my iPod touch (yes. iPod touch! which is very cool), and to our AppleTV. Hopefully, Netflix will roll out 5.1 audio to some subset of these devices in the near future. I can certainly live with 720p, although not all features have that resolution yet, as far as I can tell. I love streaming.

[SlumpBuster]

They have the technology right now, but it is hecka expensive, and I cannot see the price going down.

It is called passive polarization, and the LG 3D projector has that technology. The projector costs me $10g's, then I had to get a grey screen/white screen combo because 3D requires the grey screen, and 2D looks terrible on it. So add on another $3g's to that total. The 3D glasses only costs me $1.50, so that is where I saved money.

As far as passive polarized direct view panels, that is years off. The problem with the technology now is that only 1 or 2 people can view the panel because it can only be viewed optimally at a certain angle. When you move out of that angle, the 3D effect disappears.

So is that what you have right now? How does it compare to Avatar or Toy Story 3 in theatrical presentation?

I'm dubious of 3D because it seems to further isolate the movie goer from the fellow viewer next to him. I'm sure you've read some of the numerous pieces written about how the movie going experience has shifted over the last several decades from a communal weekly experience to something we do in seclusion in our basement man-caves. Now it is even further exclusionary. "I'd love for you to come and watch a movie with us, but we don't have enough glasses."

When I was a kid, my best friend's dad was the first to get a VCR in the neighborhood (probably like 1982). He would host movie night double features with something for the kids followed something for the grownups. Usually 1950s or 60s classics. Now as an adult I know that is what happened with the advent of television; groups of people getting together to watch the new fangled contraption. You can't do that with the new 3D televisions. Although I applaud early adopters and will ride your coat tails all the way to an acceptable price point.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

So is that what you have right now? How does it compare to Avatar or Toy Story 3 in theatrical presentation?

It is the same technology. The system is based on Real3D technology, the same technology used in 3D theaters.

I'm dubious of 3D because it seems to further isolate the movie goer from the fellow viewer next to him. I'm sure you've read some of the numerous pieces written about how the movie going experience has shifted over the last several decades from a communal weekly experience to something we do in seclusion in our basement man-caves. Now it is even further exclusionary. "I'd love for you to come and watch a movie with us, but we don't have enough glasses."

I don't have that problem. If I wanted guests to enjoy 3D with me, we go to the house with the passive system. For my kids and I, the shutter based sets and projector does the job fine because we have three pairs of universal glasses that came with the projector itself. The great thing about these three pair of glasses is we can use them on all of the shutter based televisions as well. I don't feel isolated from them when I watch 3D movies, it as communal as 2D viewing is. I have said this many times, when you live with this technology, most of the apprehensive thinking you have about it goes right out the window.

When I was a kid, my best friend's dad was the first to get a VCR in the neighborhood (probably like 1982). He would host movie night double features with something for the kids followed something for the grownups. Usually 1950s or 60s classics. Now as an adult I know that is what happened with the advent of television; groups of people getting together to watch the new fangled contraption. You can't do that with the new 3D televisions. Although I applaud early adopters and will ride your coat tails all the way to an acceptable price point.

While I respect your opinion on this, as an owner of 4 3D sets, and two projectors, I cannot disagree with you more. You can do it(we do it whenever there is a new 3D release), and the 3D just adds the "wow" factor to the whole experience.

[pixelthis]

So is that what you have right now? How does it compare to Avatar or Toy Story 3 in theatrical presentation?

I'm dubious of 3D because it seems to further isolate the movie goer from the fellow viewer next to him. I'm sure you've read some of the numerous pieces written about how the movie going experience has shifted over the last several decades from a communal weekly experience to something we do in seclusion in our basement man-caves. Now it is even further exclusionary. "I'd love for you to come and watch a movie with us, but we don't have enough glasses."

When I was a kid, my best friend's dad was the first to get a VCR in the neighborhood (probably like 1982). He would host movie night double features with something for the kids followed something for the grownups. Usually 1950s or 60s classics. Now as an adult I know that is what happened with the advent of television; groups of people getting together to watch the new fangled contraption. You can't do that with the new 3D televisions. Although I applaud early adopters and will ride your coat tails all the way to an acceptable price point.

thats going to take awhile.
With prices collapsing, this is the only "gimmick" that they can make money.
My guy I buy stuff from has his new store open, with an excellent 3D DEMO,
BEST I have seen so far, with a 80" DLP RPTV, demo disc, the works..
Dont know about long term viewing, the few minutes I WATCHED IT was ok, pic was awfully dark, tho. This is in line with others I HAVE SEEN.

[SlumpBuster]

While I respect your opinion on this, as an owner of 4 3D sets, and two projectors, I cannot disagree with you more. You can do it(we do it whenever there is a new 3D release), and the 3D just adds the "wow" factor to the whole experience.

I'm coming to your house to watch some movies. Just let me know the when and where and I will bring the popcorn!

[Mr Peabody]

Looks like a good set up. I'm going to be in the same boat as I was informed upon arrival from work my Sony tube TV is not functioning once again. I believe the warranty is out and I'm not paying to get that dog fixed. I guess it validates springing for a new flat screen. As it's the main set the kids use for video games etc. it will have to be an LCD.

[audio amateur]

I guess it validates springing for a new flat screen. As it's the main set the kids use for video games etc. it will have to be an LCD.

Don't let that stop you from buying a plasma. I decided to buy a plasma and most of what I do when using it is gaming. Ghosting is mostly an issue during break-in, probably the first couple hundred hours. It will fade as you use the set, and it's only a 'problem' if you leave static images. You just need to play something and it will quickly rid the ghosting. Besides there are plenty of built-in burn-in protection options.

[pixelthis]

Don't let that stop you from buying a plasma. I decided to buy a plasma and most of what I do when using it is gaming. Ghosting is mostly an issue during break-in, probably the first couple hundred hours. It will fade as you use the set, and it's only a 'problem' if you leave static images. You just need to play something and it will quickly rid the ghosting. Besides there are plenty of built-in burn-in protection options.

Dream on.
You will find out the hard way that gaming(and just about anything else) and plasma
DON'T MIX. Hope you like your current batch of games, because they will be with you for
AWHILE, burn in still being a serious problem with plasma.

[noddin0ff]

Can't comment on game induced ghosting as we have no game systems. Though, I'd tend to think that aa has it right. There's no evidence of any ghosting on logos or other fixed images in my short viewing period.

[audio amateur]

Pixi is an avid Plasma hater The issues he points out are real but he exagerates them tenfold. In fact a couple years ago or so he predicted that Plasmas would be out of the game pretty quickly but they are still well in it today.

[noddin0ff]

Pixi is an avid Plasma hater The issues he points out are real but he exagerates them tenfold. In fact a couple years ago or so he predicted that Plasmas would be out of the game pretty quickly but they are still well in it today.

.

LOL. Yeah, I'm well aware of Pix's stances. Just tryin' to inject little doses of reason where I can.

[Luvin Da Blues]

.

LOL. Yeah, I'm well aware of Pix's stances. Just tryin' to inject little doses of reason where I can.

Good luck with that.

Pix, just bruising your orbs

[noddin0ff]

Good luck with that.

Pix, just bruising your orbs

BTW, Luvin. Had your 3-Disk blues comp on the other day. I was about to hunt up the thread and let you know I still enjoy it.