New DLP or LCD

Printable View

  • 04-13-2006, 11:20 AM
    Dharris
    New DLP or LCD
    Hi all -
    I'm in the market for a new monitor. Call me crazy, but is there a HDTV in the 42" range that is a great value not costing more than 1700.00?

    Thanks
  • 04-13-2006, 01:03 PM
    edtyct
    Crazy, huh? You can get the Sony KDFE42A10 Grand Wega 3LCD RPTV for less than that at the moment, and the 50" model for not much more. PM me and I'll tell you where. I don't like recommending stores in public forums.

    Ed
  • 04-14-2006, 02:30 PM
    bacchanal
    I second that. I have the KDFE42A10 and love it. I thought the picture was a little better than the Samsung DLPs, but both are good sets. The Sony works well for SD cable, HD and DVDs. Color setup is a little involved (see http://www.avsforum.com/ for more info). You have to go into a hidden (and cryptic) service menu to get the color just right, but once you get it set up it looks great. Oh, and there is no video out, which may or may not be an issue. Dark scenes can sometimes be a little bit of an issue depending on your settings if you don't have the automatic iris feature turned on. Viewing angles are great horizontally, not so good vertically.

    circuitcity has it for $1750 plus $100 MIR. Probably not the best deal on the net, but I'd get it from somewhere that has a decent return policy and where you can get a service plan. Any RPTV can have potential lamp issues.
  • 04-15-2006, 01:00 PM
    phillyguy
    I also have a 42" Sony. Bacchanal is right on the money with his assessment. I will add that I found the Sony LCD to have a better picture on non-HD broadcasts than the Samsung DLP (w/ HD3 chip).
  • 04-15-2006, 09:54 PM
    rsxgamer
    Dlp
    I'd have a samsung dlp and would pick DLP every time over LCD. The contrast on LCD just isn't up to par. With a DLP, you replace the bulb every 3-4 years (which I'm fixing to do), and it's like a brand new tv.. The same cannot be said with plasma and LCD due to the way the images are projected onto the screen. I got a 43" in 2003 for 3400 dollars. Now, the 60" goes for less than that. Plus, at the the time Samsung had zero competition. Now Zenith, RCA, Mitsubishi, and a few others are helping to drive prices down. Just my two cents.
  • 04-16-2006, 04:55 AM
    edtyct
    I doubt that you would pick every DLP over every LCD if you did an extensive comparison of the various offerings. The contrast issue is not as straightforward as it used to be, and even when it was more of a factor, it didn't necessarily make DLP a clear winner. The iris control on some of the newer LCD models effectively lowers black levels, and LCD color saturation is definitely a strong point. Though all types of TVs are a testament to human ingenuity, I can't help marvelling at how DLPs work. But DLPs rely heavily on viewers' persistence of vision for color, greyscale, and even resolution (the recent wobulation), and persistence of vision can be problematical. The troubles that the color wheel can cause are well documented, but some people's physical reaction to it is more than simply rainbows along edges.

    I believe that anyone interested in an RPTV should include DLP in the hunt, but no one type of technology is automatically superior to another. Each TV that falls within a buyer's purview deserves to be evaluated on its own terms. Some people will end up with a DLP set, some with an LCD, and others with an LCoS. Vive la difference.

    Edit: I'm not sure what you mean about DLP's lamp-replacement advantage with respect to how LCDs and plasmas project images on the screen. Rear-projection LCDs--the topic of this thread--have replaceable lamps just like DLPs. LCD flat panels, which we haven't been discussing, and plasmas, though superficially similar in profile, have vastly different ways of creating images. When the lamps on most LCD flat panels die, the panels go black. In the case of plasmas, the individual cells gradually lose their brightness, either uniformly or in distinct groups, over a long period of time, but the screens don't blank all at once like LCDs do.

    Ed