DLP vs Plasma/LCD

Warren,

I recently bought a 50" Samsung HLP RPTV for my bedroom and am very happy with it. Its vertical veiwing angle is more limited than horizontal, so I put shims under the back of the TV so it points slightly downward. This works very well with the TV sitting on a 33" high stand about 6' in front of my bed.

I bought the bedroom Samsung as a follow on to buying a 61" Samsung HLN set for my HT in my living room.

As others have pointed out, your choice should be based on your priorities and preferences.

My own opinions, which are just that, are:

- I much prefer DLP RPTV to CRT based RPTVs

- Direct view CRTs and LCDs are not large enough for me

- Plasma TVs are too expensive, for me, for the large sizes that I wanted.

- DLP, like some other technologies, does not suffer from burn in so you do not have to stretch images to fill the screen. I really do not like a stretched image; e.g., taking a 4:3 image and widening it to 16:9 to fill a display screen. I want to watch everything in original aspect ratio.

- Visit more than one store and more than one chain/company for viewing comparisons. I found a lot of variation in lighting, source quality, PQ of the different TVs, etc.

- I generally found DLP RPTV PQ more consistent than LCD RPTV for HDTV and DVD sources.

- SDTV can be a challenge with any large screen HDTV.

- I particularly like the synergy between an upconverting DVD player with DVI/HDMI and the Samsung DLP RPTVs - depending on quality of the DVD soruce, PQ can be near high def. Based on reading avs forum, it is not apparent that the same synergy exists for CRT based sets or LCD RPTVs that do not have a 720p native resolution.

Again, YMMV.

I appreciate the informative postings above on what the future may hold. My comments w.r.t. current products.

Thanks
Bruce

I agree that a CRT based RPTV is a better value than the same sized screen DLP RPTV, and understand some people prefer a CRT based picture, but I am one who much prefers a DLP based RPTV.

To me, again my opinion, the DLP set is sharper than any CRT set I have seen. The new HLP Samsung sets are very sharp but also smoother at the same time. You don't have to stretch the input signal and watch bloated images. Horizontal viewing angle is much better. Sets are much lighter in weight. They can benefit from a digital image feed; e.g., 720p over DVI/HDMI. the image is brighter. You can watch them in the daytime in a room with windows and sunlight. At night, you can watch them with a soft background light on rather than in a blackened room.

Not trying to say this is the answer, but shwoing that difffereent people have different priorities and preferences. You should do compartive viewing.

Bruce

merge03,

Good points, thank you. I would even add one other advantage to a CRT based RPTV - a big top shelf on which you can easily put a center channel speaker.

Thanks
Bruce