New tv?

Definately the Panasonic Plasma unless you need a thinner display or a less reflective surface or will be using it extensively for gaming.

FWIW, a few years ago Panasonic bought all of Pioneer's Kuro tech and have integrated much of it into their plasma's.

There is plasma and there is LCD. Who makes an LED TV?

LED is really an LCD diplay using a LED to backlight the panel instead of a flourescent tube light bulb. Some of the the newer panels add to the confusion by calling them LCD/LED Tv's which although is more accurate is not anyless confusing.

hth

IMO, LED's still can not rival plasma tech concerning black level, which of course means truer colors. Also, although LED's can output more brightness they can not out do a plasma in dynamic contrast which is any fully black image next to a fully white image on the screen. Also I've seen demonstrations that most LED's will only do 1080p on a still image. If the image is in motion, as in a slow pan, they will drop down to 1080i.

As I have posted previously I believe that Plasma is the best way to go. However if you do want to consider LED I strongly recommend that you make sure that pixelation caused by motion is not bothersome to you. I, as well as about half of my customers notice it easily, to the rest it does not seem to bother them. Find two LED's in the size you are considering that are side by side, one having a 240hz refresh, the other 120hz and check it out for yourself. Some claim that it only makes a difference with sports but I find that there is plenty of high speed motion in action movies that require a higher refresh rate as well.

As far as waiting for newer tech, 4K is sharper, even with current sources as they can upscale the image. However it does not "knock your socks off" like the OLED tech that MAY BE just around the corner in large screen formats.

when I set mine to highest rate (240Hz) movies look like video made by home camera (soap opera effect). There is a reason why movie makers still record exactly 24 frames/s while technology allows for much more

Lets not confuse pseudo higher frame rates with native rates, as in if you can turn it off it is not the native frame rate. IME, my comments only apply to native frame rates.

Also, frame rate, in video terms, and frames per secound, in film terms, are not the same thing. Our eyes can not differentiate between individual still images when the frames per secound are above 16fps or so. Although original movies used a lower FPS it was moved up to 24 FPS. Now if a TV would create an entire still image and then presented them it at 24 FPS or more (read still images per secound) this whole discussion would be moot. The problem arises in how TV images are drawn. If you look up close at a very large flat panel that has a low frame rate you will easily notice how the image will start pixelizing or breaking up, when presented with fast motion. The problem is probably more in the scaler circuit than in the frame rate of a LCD/LED TV but either way the higher the frame rate the faster the scaler.

At this point I will restate that some of my customers were unaffected by any break up or blurring of the image while others find it very objectionable. Not all that different from those who say MP3 files sound just fine while others feel there are issues with them.

For the record most of the newer panels use a psuedo higher frame rate which can actually cause as many issues as they solve. It may be what you mean by a soap opera look. I actually had a customer that was very unhappy with his picture until after much exploration we discovered that the video artifacts created by the pseudo higher frame rate was an issue for him. He turned it off and has been a happy camper ever since.

Finally, I will be tickled pink with either choice the OP makes if they are very happy with it. I was just merely mentioning some of the things an informed buyer should check out before they make a decision.

Enjoy

I don't thing that images are "drawn" anymore. Each pixel on the screen of LCD TV has corresponding bit in frame memory buffer and whole frame appears at once.

Correct. I apologize for the over simplification. You are also correct in that there is a conversion that happens when showing a 24fps film on a video screen. The simplest is often called 2:3 pulldown but there are much better versions available.

At this point it seems that we both have a problem with trying to smooth up the image to much. However I believe that happens more with the "psuedo" or an artificially derived higher frame rate, not a display with a very high native frame rate. Again, FWIU, you can turn off any artificially drived higher frame rate NOT a high NATIVE frame rate. Just like there is nothing in a plasma that allows you to turn off their Native 600hz frame rate.

Here's agood article, for those so inclined, on frame rate.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57524894-221/what-is-refresh-rate/

IME, light output is only more important than black levels in a room where you can not control the ambient light. If that is the issue than LED's are even better as they do not have as a reflective screen surface as a plasma and are capable of even more light output.

Without excellent black levels as well as evenly spaced "shades of gray" a TV has no hope of accurately rendering a color image properly. Kuro's did both of these things better than other plasma's available at the time. Panasonic now owns the Kuro tech and has been integrating it into their plasma's over the last two years.