Plasma Tv/ Lcd Tv

[jimmym40]

ignis:

Can you share with us what satellite company you have?

Please give detailed information if possible: Where/Who did you purchase from? Any guarantee? Is it a one time cost? Monthly charge/maintenance fee? Can you get internet access with it?

Thanks much.

[ignis]

Where/Who did you purchase from? JSat tv

Any guarantee? Yes

Is it a one time cost? Yes

Monthly charge/maintenance fee? NO 'Free to View'

Can you get internet access with it? Box is connected to the internet so always have a good picture regardless of weather.

[zzdocxx]

May I suggest the website avsforum.

I believed the sales people about LCDs, but after extensive reading I have come to believe the plasmas are better.

[fisherd3]

No.1 Although I like the idea of a projector , I would not gamble on the bulb lasting its estimated lifetime, they sometimes cost more than a new projector to replace.

No2. Having read around the forums I have come to the conclusion that the best bet for watching TV in Thailand is a low resolution Plasma TV, and for esoteric sources maybe a top spec LCD or top spec Plasma set up by someone who knows what they are doing. Only in this type of application will the much touted benefits of LCD be realised, and in fact a less pleasing picture can be delivered by a very high res TV with say UBC input.

The other thing of note is that expensive brand name cables: a)do not solve the problems of a rubbish UBC type input and the same thing is available at lower cost without the brand name (e.g. Monster cables). These are high margin items and salespeople will push them, better to buy separately after studying availabilty of different brands, not in the heat of a major purchase, easy to do 5000thb+on wire.

The last thing is I would never believe anything a Thai salesman says about any product, it's all to do with pushing the high margin items, and if you could speak Thai I bet you could in most cases establish that the salesman probably knows less than you do about the product.

[genobkk]

I talked with the guy from Jsat found him very rude non helpfull....I was ready to buy but he just did not seem like he wanted to sale.....talked with him on hte phone a few times, siad I culd come buy andhave a loook....the fact is nthing is ree.....all the goood channels you have to subscribe to a package or get a card....most of the cards come from other countires Astro in Malaysia and one in south africa, etc etc.....really the channels are NOT much different then what UBC has, unless you like sports.....anyhow it was Jsat's unfriendsly manner that turned me off........ get a slingbox back home and watch your shows....that is what I do

[Mobi]

I talked with the guy from Jsat found him very rude non helpfull....I was ready to buy but he just did not seem like he wanted to sale.....talked with him on hte phone a few times, siad I culd come buy andhave a loook....the fact is nthing is ree.....all the goood channels you have to subscribe to a package or get a card....most of the cards come from other countires Astro in Malaysia and one in south africa, etc etc.....really the channels are NOT much different then what UBC has, unless you like sports.....anyhow it was Jsat's unfriendsly manner that turned me off........ get a slingbox back home and watch your shows....that is what I do

I had the same experience. I found him arrogant, rude and very unhelpful. He told me everything I needed to know was on their website, yet I find their website a total nightmare, and extremely confusing. I still went ahead and have them come and do a survey (which took several weeks, and several emails and cost 500 Baht) but I couldn't stand the bad service any more, and eventually had the same system installed locally for less than half the price quoted by J Sat. For me it's worth it for all the sports channels (loads of live cricket as well as rugby, formula one without commercial breaks etc), Sky News, and BBC Prime. It also has several good movie channels.

I have also just had installed Banglamung cable TV which gives me another 63 channels (including Fox News and Aussie TV), and I still keep UBC for all the premiership football, BBC entertainment and Star world.

Probably got more channels than anyone else in Thailand, but I still watch DVD's when I can't find anything on television worth watching!!

The joys of retirement

[fisherd3]

Here seems to be a good link for info on Plasma TVs:

http://plasmatelevision42.blogspot.com/

[Plus]

50'' TV is not going to do you any good in Thailand, even 40'' is over the top for your average living room, imo - both free TV and UBC pictures are so bad you need to sit far way from the TV, which defeats the purpose.

At that size, however, plasma still has the edge, I believe. Anything smaller and LCD rules.

Why don't you just ask them hook up UBC at the store and see the quality for yourself? I agree that fast moving pictures can be problematic at times on LCDs.

[dave_boo]

LCD are usually better overall than plasma. They can show darker shades of black, use less power and do not give out as much heat as plasmas. Standing next to a 42" plasma you can physically feel the heat coming off the screen. Not so with an LCD.

What makes plasmas a good choice for Thailand is that they will pixellate less when viewing low res feeds like TrueVisions, provided of course, they are 720p or 1080i. The picture on a fully HD 1080p will be pretty much just as bad on both an LCD as Plasma give or take.

A good choice for a cable or satellite TV viewer in Thailand therefore will be a mid or low end plasma 720p if you want to go over 32".

Personally I don't care about watching TrueVisions except for the football on occasion so I have chosen to go for a fully HD 1080p Samsung 40" as I watch mainly DVDs. I will be purchasing a DVD player that will upscale the quality of the DVDs.

At least with a fully HD 1080p LCD you are future proof for when HD-DVD, Blu-Ray and HD consoles fully come into their own.

Fairly good advice, but I take issue with your assertion that the plasma doesn't show as good of a black than LCD. Current generation LCDs run with a single backlight. Even if their individual pixels switch to 'off', there's still some light leakage around them. Plasma displays excite the gas in each and every pixel, so if there's no current, there's no light, creating the perfect black. If the O.P. is willing to lay down the big bucks, he can get a display that does the 2:3 pulldown and even get a decent picture from True.

[tuffy]

I have been doing some research myself on plasma vs lcd. The plasmas of today much better picture than LCD's and claim to last 60000 hours which should give you at least 12 years of viewing pleasure. THe set I am looking at is a Panasonic th-42pv which takes standard definition from ubc dvd etc. and upconverts it automatically to HD. I really like this feature. THe only problem is getting the set. Right now I have it on order and will recieve it next week. For the price and quality I don't think you can go wrong woth this one.

[Wolfie]

I have been doing some research myself on plasma vs lcd. The plasmas of today much better picture than LCD's and claim to last 60000 hours which should give you at least 12 years of viewing pleasure. THe set I am looking at is a Panasonic th-42pv which takes standard definition from ubc dvd etc. and upconverts it automatically to HD. I really like this feature. THe only problem is getting the set. Right now I have it on order and will recieve it next week. For the price and quality I don't think you can go wrong woth this one.

What did you pay for it? If you don't mind me asking...

[tuffy]

I have been doing some research myself on plasma vs lcd. The plasmas of today much better picture than LCD's and claim to last 60000 hours which should give you at least 12 years of viewing pleasure. THe set I am looking at is a Panasonic th-42pv which takes standard definition from ubc dvd etc. and upconverts it automatically to HD. I really like this feature. THe only problem is getting the set. Right now I have it on order and will recieve it next week. For the price and quality I don't think you can go wrong woth this one.

What did you pay for it? If you don't mind me asking...

I paid 44900 Baht, most places it is on sale for 49900 right now. I got my in NumChai, and I see that home Pro also is advertising that same price.

[Wolfie]

I paid 44900 Baht, most places it is on sale for 49900 right now. I got my in NumChai, and I see that home Pro also is advertising that same price.

Thanks for the info, keep us informed once you get it. I am especially interested in the heat generated from the TV whilst its on, thats my only real concern with getting a plasma as I've read (here and other places) that they generate a fair amount of heat.

[tuffy]

I paid 44900 Baht, most places it is on sale for 49900 right now. I got my in NumChai, and I see that home Pro also is advertising that same price.

Thanks for the info, keep us informed once you get it. I am especially interested in the heat generated from the TV whilst its on, thats my only real concern with getting a plasma as I've read (here and other places) that they generate a fair amount of heat.

Wolfie,

I have had my tv for about 5 days now and am happy with it. Standard DVD's have an excellent picture much better than my old crt tv, and ubc is hit or miss depending on which channel i am watching but over all not bad at all.

The heat is not noticeable at all. There is virtually no heat felt from the back and the screen is warm to the touch but it is not putting out a lot of heat overall. When you find the one(s) you want the best thing to do would be request them to hook it up to UBC or cable as well as a standard dvd player not one that up converts the signal as it will make a difference. Also be aware of the viewing angle. Most plasmas are viewable from 170 degrees to the side but quite a few LCD's are not.

Good luck!

[zorro1]

Go into the store with your favorite dvd and try it on both.

[stumonster]

I thought I would bring this topic back up as I will be in the market for a big screen in January.

as part of my googling I came up with this opinion from this page http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdtv/1080p-vs-720p.html

The question I am most frequently asked about this resolution comparison is, "Should I get 1080p resolution in my LCD Television?"

In order to perform a fair test of 1080i vs. 1080p we sent participants out of the room after having shown them the DVDs with both resolutions several times. Then we called them back in with one of the resolutions displaying and asked them whether it was the 1080p or 1080i signal. We repeated this process 10 times and, guess what? They had no clue and could not differentiate at all between the two. This feedback came from a team who knows TVs. In fact they seemed to favor the 1080i signal slightly (60/40). It's incredibly difficult to see the difference even in a side by side test.

this was written in October 2007 so it is a recent opinion. Do any of the AV enthusiasts have an opinion on this comment ?

I have also been browsing the 1staudiovisual.co.th site thinking it might give me a rough idea of pricing - are their prices reasonable ? and they do not seem to have sharp LCDs (32-46'), is this because they are not readily available ?

[klikster]

I thought I would bring this topic back up as I will be in the market for a big screen in January.

as part of my googling I came up with this opinion from this page http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdtv/1080p-vs-720p.html

The question I am most frequently asked about this resolution comparison is, "Should I get 1080p resolution in my LCD Television?"

In order to perform a fair test of 1080i vs. 1080p we sent participants out of the room after having shown them the DVDs with both resolutions several times. Then we called them back in with one of the resolutions displaying and asked them whether it was the 1080p or 1080i signal. We repeated this process 10 times and, guess what? They had no clue and could not differentiate at all between the two. This feedback came from a team who knows TVs. In fact they seemed to favor the 1080i signal slightly (60/40). It's incredibly difficult to see the difference even in a side by side test.

this was written in October 2007 so it is a recent opinion. Do any of the AV enthusiasts have an opinion on this comment ?

I have also been browsing the 1staudiovisual.co.th site thinking it might give me a rough idea of pricing - are their prices reasonable ? and they do not seem to have sharp LCDs (32-46'), is this because they are not readily available ?

One thing the comparrison site claims is that the backlight can be replaced only on Sharp TV's. If that's the case, it can be a pretty big plus. While a backlight my "last" for 40,000 - 60,000 hours, it may (not sure) "degrade" a lot sooner. It would be interesting to see a graph showing 95%, 90%, etc degrading.

[fisherd3]

I thought I would bring this topic back up as I will be in the market for a big screen in January.

as part of my googling I came up with this opinion from this page http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdtv/1080p-vs-720p.html

The question I am most frequently asked about this resolution comparison is, "Should I get 1080p resolution in my LCD Television?"

In order to perform a fair test of 1080i vs. 1080p we sent participants out of the room after having shown them the DVDs with both resolutions several times. Then we called them back in with one of the resolutions displaying and asked them whether it was the 1080p or 1080i signal. We repeated this process 10 times and, guess what? They had no clue and could not differentiate at all between the two. This feedback came from a team who knows TVs. In fact they seemed to favor the 1080i signal slightly (60/40). It's incredibly difficult to see the difference even in a side by side test.

this was written in October 2007 so it is a recent opinion. Do any of the AV enthusiasts have an opinion on this comment ?

I have also been browsing the 1staudiovisual.co.th site thinking it might give me a rough idea of pricing - are their prices reasonable ? and they do not seem to have sharp LCDs (32-46'), is this because they are not readily available ?

I have recently bought a 32" Panasonic LCD and a 42" Samsung Plasma both in the middle as far as resolution goes , the biggest surprise is the heat that the LCD kicks out hardly any different to the Plasma, considering its size, my observation on picture quality is that the plasma has a richer looking picture, it certainly has some of that Superstore demo quality a lot of the time, i I would certainly not decry it in any way given the imperfection of most inputs, I would imagine it is more forgiving. It seems to me that a lot of the positive talk regarding the superiority of LCDs is similar to the analysis of Hi-Fi sound which can often be 'technically superb' i.e. flat response no distortion etc, but is often less aurally pleasing than a technically incorrect sound.

My comment invited above is that in my reading about plasma/lcds the most startling thing I have read is that to actually see the benefit of a High Definition TV over a slightly lesser model you have to sit within 10 feet or so of the screen!! Too ridiculous.

I am very happy with both my TVs but I must say the Plasma seems more loveable!! Sorry for the emotion over technicality!!!

By the way I bought the Plasma from Sin Siam mentioned in the pinned A/v stores list on this board, no problems at all, good communication, deliver to Rayong 450thb.

Edited December 16, 2007 by fisherd3

[LivinLOS]

I thought I would bring this topic back up as I will be in the market for a big screen in January.

as part of my googling I came up with this opinion from this page http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdtv/1080p-vs-720p.html

The question I am most frequently asked about this resolution comparison is, "Should I get 1080p resolution in my LCD Television?"

In order to perform a fair test of 1080i vs. 1080p we sent participants out of the room after having shown them the DVDs with both resolutions several times. Then we called them back in with one of the resolutions displaying and asked them whether it was the 1080p or 1080i signal. We repeated this process 10 times and, guess what? They had no clue and could not differentiate at all between the two. This feedback came from a team who knows TVs. In fact they seemed to favor the 1080i signal slightly (60/40). It's incredibly difficult to see the difference even in a side by side test.

this was written in October 2007 so it is a recent opinion. Do any of the AV enthusiasts have an opinion on this comment ?

I have also been browsing the 1staudiovisual.co.th site thinking it might give me a rough idea of pricing - are their prices reasonable ? and they do not seem to have sharp LCDs (32-46'), is this because they are not readily available ?

First I would say they are right that without superb source on a really big screen the differences are slight to say the least.. I have a 720p projector and HiDef files on that look superb.. I would buy a 1080p projection setup if I was looking for an ultimate setup but I would be far less worried about it in a TV in the 40 inch kind of size.

All that said the above test sounds poorly done.

They are stating they showed participants hopefully a 1080i v 1080p clip (possibly although it doesnt say it) on a 1080p screen, the post says they used DVD so I am assuming they are using HD/DVD or Blueray, if they mean they are just showing upscaled regular NTSC DVD's discount the review immediately as it will mean nothing about the TV and everything about the scaler for the DVD output...

Well that test is not showing if 1080p is worth having, they essentially are showing 1080p both times as an LCD TV is progressive anyway. What they were testing there was the difference on a 1080p television to show how well the TV upscaled (actually interpolated I think in that case) 1080i to 1080p verses native 1080p.. If your looking for the differences between interlaced and progressive then thats a whole nother issue and not really a good test of the TV, much more the source and scaling systems used. Was it sports or high motion ?? High motion can show interlaced artifacting more, was there any closely spaced vertical lines panning up or down (car radiator grills, louve window blinds. that kind of thing) these can get distorted over interlaced signal processing much more than over progressive. But either way thats a signal processing issue not a display issue, the display is just showing what its been fed.

[astral]

One the life side, both LCD and Plasma seem to be labelled with same life these days.

You definitely want to see how the TV handles the signal you watch.

No UBC then go to another shop.

It is also useful to see the same signal sent to the models you want to compare,

they do NOT all look the same.

I have a Samsung 32" LCD and am delighted with it.

A restaurant where I eat has JVC which has serious horizontal linearity problems........

The image stretches at the edges of the screen. Most obvious on pan shots and where

there is text scrolling across. Awful.

Only the biggest and most expensive models offer 1080dpi horizontally.

Most are 720dpi so you will never get the full high definition effect.

This applies to LCD and Plasma.

If you want to download HD clips to test the TV, remember you need a powerful processor in your PC

to be able to play them

[LivinLOS]

nothing out there will offer you 1080 dpi !!! That would be super duper ultra hidef !!!!!!!! Think about it.

You could have a high power TV or you could have a media extender like the xbox 360.. Handles lots of hidef files.

[astral]

Oh Yes. There are true 1080dpi sets on the market today with prices of $6000 upwards.

[LivinLOS]

Oh Yes. There are true 1080dpi sets on the market today with prices of $6000 upwards.

No there are not.. You clearly are getting mislead by marketing. Your confusing the 'true HD 1080' marketing with 1080 dpi !!!

1080 marked on a TV means it has 1920x1080 pixels in total and can display a full 1080p signal without downrezzing.

For a TV to have 1080 dpi lets just say it had a >40 inch diagonal.. I cant be bothered to work out the width exactly but lets for sake of argument say that was 30 inches. So now your trying to tell me that the tv will display 1080 dots per inch or 1080 x 30 inches ?? So the TV has a horizontal resolution of over 32000 pixels ?? Think about what your claiming for a second. If you truly think this then I have a nice bridge for sale.

1080 is an indication for the entire panel (all 30, 40 or 50 etc inches of it) not per inch.. per inch its much more like 50 - 70 dpi !!! There is nothing in the consumer electronics display market that can produce 1080dpi !!! Even on the 100's of 1000 USD let alone at a 6k price point.

Edited December 18, 2007 by LivinLOS

[thaieagle67]

One the life side, both LCD and Plasma seem to be labelled with same life these days.

You definitely want to see how the TV handles the signal you watch.

No UBC then go to another shop.

It is also useful to see the same signal sent to the models you want to compare,

they do NOT all look the same.

I have a Samsung 32" LCD and am delighted with it.

A restaurant where I eat has JVC which has serious horizontal linearity problems........

The image stretches at the edges of the screen. Most obvious on pan shots and where

there is text scrolling across. Awful.

Only the biggest and most expensive models offer 1080dpi horizontally.

Most are 720dpi so you will never get the full high definition effect.

This applies to LCD and Plasma.

If you want to download HD clips to test the TV, remember you need a powerful processor in your PC

to be able to play them

I wanted to buy the Philips 42" LCD Full HD 1920x1080p model from Numchai but after reading these mails I think I will be wasting my time. I plan to purchase the JSAT satellite system but from what many of you are saying the signal that I will receive to the TV will only make the picture worse if I go for this Full HD version.

Philips have some lower definition TV's but the Full HD version on display in Numchai had the best picture by far and really took my eye, with a reasonable price tag to match. The guy in the showroom told me that the Sony Full HD was in his opinion the best but came with a very high price. Then again this all completely irrelevent if signals received via any of the local satellite channels are not up to it!

So what next, is a lower definition TV by any manufacturer the only way to go with the current Satellite/Cable systems?

[LivinLOS]

Theres no reason a hidef set will look worse with a SD signal.. Depends on the input though I do think LCD as a tech is less forgiving over compression artifacts like macroblocking etc than CRT is.

That said by getting a full 1080 set now, if you look at any hidef sources (HD-DVD's, BluRay, Downloaded hidef files, gaming systems, your own digital photos, etc etc) they will all show more detail than a lower definition panel.

For me I see little difference on small screens, say stuff up to 50 inches at a 10 - 15 ft viewing difference.. Projected images on large screens the difference becomes more pronounced.

Also buy buying full 1080 sets now your future proofing yourself. But at the same time you will realize how poor the signal options are here. I spent one afternoon going into every electronics shop around here asking about hidef DVD players for all these hidef TV's.. Not one store knew what I meant, could even order one, etc.. The best the smarter places could come up with were some upscaling standard dvd players.

[LivinLOS]

Theres no reason a hidef set will look worse with a SD signal.. Depends on the input though I do think LCD as a tech is less forgiving over compression artifacts like macroblocking etc than CRT is.

That said by getting a full 1080 set now, if you look at any hidef sources (HD-DVD's, BluRay, Downloaded hidef files, gaming systems, your own digital photos, etc etc) they will all show more detail than a lower definition panel.

For me I see little difference on small screens, say stuff up to 50 inches at a 10 - 15 ft viewing difference.. Projected images on large screens the difference becomes more pronounced.

Also buy buying full 1080 sets now your future proofing yourself. But at the same time you will realize how poor the signal options are here. I spent one afternoon going into every electronics shop around here asking about hidef DVD players for all these hidef TV's.. Not one store knew what I meant, could even order one, etc.. The best the smarter places could come up with were some upscaling standard dvd players.

Agreed but Power Buy at Fashion Island now has Blu Ray players from 29,990THB.

As for upscaling the guy at Power Buy knew exactly what I meant and showcased some Denon players.

I have a PS3 and it does both upscaling of normal DVDs and plays Blu Ray so no probs.

Yeah the PS3 is probably the cheapest blu ray option and of course HDDVD players are getting cheaper (or can be added to the xbox).. But you must have got lucky with sales reps, honestly none of the ones I spoke to had the slightest clue.

[astral]

So where to get films in Blu Ray format????

[astral]

Anything worth watching??

Titles please.........

[LivinLOS]

A buddy buys lots (almost all releases I think) of HD DVD from a mail order in BKK.. He posts on here so may pick up on this.. Dont know if they have Blu Ray also but if they carry HDDVD its likely.

I gave up ordering DVD's from overseas.. When you get the DVD + shipping cost + 30% + 7% it ends up costing far too much. Used to be annoying as being into film I like classics and oddball stuff and street sellers tend to the hollywood only end of the market. Of course now with torrents and broadband I am usually ok. Plus the amount of Hidef out there is pretty amazing, even if a lot is re-encoded it still looks good.

[vegas]

I talked with the guy from Jsat found him very rude non helpfull....I was ready to buy but he just did not seem like he wanted to sale.....talked with him on hte phone a few times, siad I culd come buy andhave a loook....the fact is nthing is ree.....all the goood channels you have to subscribe to a package or get a card....most of the cards come from other countires Astro in Malaysia and one in south africa, etc etc.....really the channels are NOT much different then what UBC has, unless you like sports.....anyhow it was Jsat's unfriendsly manner that turned me off........ get a slingbox back home and watch your shows....that is what I do

I had the same experience. I found him arrogant, rude and very unhelpful. He told me everything I needed to know was on their website, yet I find their website a total nightmare, and extremely confusing. I still went ahead and have them come and do a survey (which took several weeks, and several emails and cost 500 Baht) but I couldn't stand the bad service any more, and eventually had the same system installed locally for less than half the price quoted by J Sat. For me it's worth it for all the sports channels (loads of live cricket as well as rugby, formula one without commercial breaks etc), Sky News, and BBC Prime. It also has several good movie channels.

I have also just had installed Banglamung cable TV which gives me another 63 channels (including Fox News and Aussie TV), and I still keep UBC for all the premiership football, BBC entertainment and Star world.

Probably got more channels than anyone else in Thailand, but I still watch DVD's when I can't find anything on television worth watching!!

The joys of retirement

Mobi, who is the local guy that installed your jsat equivalent?