Ditching Sony - Are the Mitsubishi RP DLP's any good, reliable?

[jamison162]

Due to getting screwed by the Sony Optical block issue on my 60" RP LCD, I'll never buy another Sony product. I'll get rid of the set for whatever I can even if I have to give it away.

I am now looking into the Mitsubishi RP DLP's. Any thoughts on these?

[Woochifer]

Sony's current LCD flat panels are a lot more reliable than their RPTVs ever were, and compared to other LCD manufacturers, they get the video processing right more often than not. If it helps, just know that all Sony LCD TVs are jointly built with Samsung.

The Mitsubishis unfortunately have a much higher failure rate than most of the flat panel brands. I think part of it is the complexity of their designs, all of which now use a three-chip DLP setup. Picture quality though is very highly touted, and their LaserVUE models have gotten very positive review.

***correction*** On another thread, someone pointed out that RPTVs don't use three-chip setups, and I rechecked Mitsubishi's specs and found no mention of a three-chip DLP feature. I recall reading about this on a preview article, but that info might have been incorrect.

[jamison162]

I checked out the Mitsubishi DLP's after work, wasn't all that impressed really. If I could get a 65" 737 for $999 I might would do it. Othen than that, I'm looking at the Panny Plasma's. I honestly do not like the Samsung LCD's at all. In the store and all the one's my family/friends have, there's just something weird about them. Movies look to real and often fake....I think this is due to their high refresh rate or something.

[westcott]

I agree with the others. Rear Project just does not hold a candle to front projection or flat panel displays.

I have a Panasonic plasma in the master bedroom. It is almost as good as the Pioneer I also investigated. The performance difference did not justify the large price difference. I would also consider a Samsung, if you find a good deal. They have gotten a lot better recently.

I have seen Panasonic 50" plasmas for under US$900. May not get 1080i/p but at these small screen sizes, it is argueable you would not see a difference anyway.

Dollar for dollar, inch for inch, front projection is the way to go.

[N. Abstentia]

I checked out the Mitsubishi DLP's after work, wasn't all that impressed really. If I could get a 65" 737 for $999 I might would do it. Othen than that, I'm looking at the Panny Plasma's. I honestly do not like the Samsung LCD's at all. In the store and all the one's my family/friends have, there's just something weird about them. Movies look to real and often fake....I think this is due to their high refresh rate or something.

You probably were looking at the 120hz models...which is why I opted for a 60hz model Sony. To me 60hz simply looked much better.

[Woochifer]

I checked out the Mitsubishi DLP's after work, wasn't all that impressed really. If I could get a 65" 737 for $999 I might would do it. Othen than that, I'm looking at the Panny Plasma's. I honestly do not like the Samsung LCD's at all. In the store and all the one's my family/friends have, there's just something weird about them. Movies look to real and often fake....I think this is due to their high refresh rate or something.

With the Samsung LCDs, you're noticing the motion interpolation feature, which comes with most 120 Hz LCDs. It smooths out the motion and allows LCD TVs to greatly improve their motion resolution benchmarks. But, it has the negative side effect of introducing image artifacts and making film-based material look like it got shot on a camcorder. Fortunately, you can disable the feature, so if you want to do another demo of that Samsung (or any other 120 Hz TV), you should make sure that the MotionPlus option is turned off.

Motion interpolation works by taking two frame images and then synthesizing additional images to "fill in the blanks" in between to match the display's refresh rate. On a 120 Hz TV, the TV's image processor creates 4 interpolated frames for every 1 frame that it displays when the interpolation feature is active. That's why it looks fake -- because it is.

As far as the Panny plasmas go, it's what I use and they deserve strong consideration. Their newly introduced lineup has gotten very good reviews. Just make sure that you use the Cinema mode when demoing the sets (this is the mode that has the highest color and greyscale accuracy), and adjust the brightness to account for the lighting conditions in most retail showrooms (should be done with all sets anyway, given that the defaults vary so much between different TV models).

You should also look at the Samsung plasmas. They purportedly have better colors than the Pannys, though they have lower maximum light output. Especially in the lower price ranges, plasmas are generally the way to go if picture quality is your primary consideration.