Home Theater – Page 4

Plasma vs. LCD

I’ve been a home theater nut for about a decade now. I can be blamed (or credited?) for getting a few of my friends hooked as well. While I’ve invested a lot of time reading about audio and video, and I love to talk about the subject – it is only a hobby.

A fair number of my friends ask me for my opinion when they are considering a new television. This usually boils down to deciding between which flat panel display. There are still a few rear projection sets (RPTVs) being sold, but they are on the decline which is a shame since the quality/value balance was generally very good.

Today there are really only 2 mass market options for flat panel displays: Plasma or LCD. Sure there are OLED sets, but the size/cost rule them out for most situations. Looking forward we see SED and FED technologies on the way, but I wouldn’t hold off on a purchase as there will always be something better coming soon.

Panasonic has a relatively good comparison of Plasma and LCD as they sell both. I’m not sure I agree entirely with the conclusions they draw, but the data is basically sound. If we look at the Plasma cross section diagram from Panasonic:

So typical of almost all video display devices, the colour image is made up of red, green and blue. With Plasma we’ve got effectively one electron gun per colour cell, and 3 of those cells make up one pixel. If you remember CRTs, we had a single electron gun that scanned the visible surface and excited the phosphor to leave an image.

The LCD cross section from the same source shows how different things are here. The light source is not an electron gun, but some form of back light. The same red, green, blue triad is used to represent a single pixel.

Let me now try to focus on some more practical shopping advice. One key thing to keep in mind is that both technologies are continuing to change (and improve), so what was true a few years ago may not be now. If we go back a few years, large LCD panels were very expensive – so generally Plasmas had the larger displays locked up. This has been changing, and LCDs seem to be the more popular display at this point no matter what size.

In terms of resolution – you probably want a native 1920×1080. I say native, because some displays advertise that they “accept” or are “compatible with” a wide range of resolutions, but actually have some odd ball native panel resolution. Both technologies were guilty of this, Plasma being more so with 1080p displays which did have 1080 lines but were not 1920 pixels wide. The only time I’d consider a 1280×720 display was if gaming was your #1 activity, as many games are natively 720p and scaling up to the larger resolution may introduce image artifacts.

You want at least 2 HDMI inputs, and possibly more. You would like those inputs to be HDMI 1.3a, but there really isn’t an easy way to determine that in some situations – if you are buying a relatively recent model you can safely assume the HDMI level is a non-issue. Please don’t get fooled into buying expensive HDMI cables – check out the prices at tartancable.com (a 6foot 28AWG cable is $5).

Many LCD displays now have a 120Hz update “feature”. This is in part to try to address some of the refresh rate issue, but it has also become a way to provide smoother motion. One caution here is that this is video processing magic – they are interpolating additional frames. If you watch a lot of live sports (football), this might be a good feature. If you watch movies, the frame rate you care about is the ability to accept 24fps input and display it without too much conversion.

If you’ve done some comparison shopping already, you may have come across the Pioneer KURO (a Plasma). It is one of the best flat panel displays out there now. While the black level is one of the key elements that they push as its benefit (generally Plasmas have better black detail than LCD) the KURO also has very nice colour. While Plasma doesn’t have the refresh rate issues of LCDs, they do have some image retention issues but most of the current generation are relatively resistant to this. Plasma panels tend to run a bit hotter than LCDs and many have (quiet) cooling fans. Also due to details of their construction, they may not be suitable at higher altitudes.

Looking at LCDs, they have Plasma beat for thickness – LCDs will generally have a thinner profile if this matters to you. LCD panels of the same size, tend to be lighter than the equivalent Plasma. The black level of an LCD will not match best Plasma panels, but many of you sit in front of LCD monitors all day and are used to this limitation. Except in extreme cases, LCD will not suffer from burn in issues, as well LCDs run relatively cool and don’t need fans for cooling.

Which one would I buy? If money were no object, I’d be looking at the KURO. Of course there are drawbacks to the KURO due to the screen surface being a little delicate. I’d probably be fairly attracted in general to Plasma displays due to the better black level (having a CRT projector background). There are some pretty nice LCD displays out there too, I’d consider the Sharp Aquos or Sony Bravia lines. With either technology there will be an element of “you get what you pay for”, so if you go too cheap you may regret it. In a similar light, be careful of buying last years model – the technology is changing rapidly and a year does make a difference.

Which one is right for you? That is something you’ll need to puzzle out for yourself, but I’m happy to field comments and try to help guide people to useful data.

PlayStation 3

After months of agonizing over the decision to buy a PS3 I finally made the leap. This is a decision that I’ve been mulling over since I purchased the Epson 1080UB back in January. Once Blu-ray had “won” the format battle, the PS3 was nearly certainly on my wish list. However, early in the year I chose to go with the Oppo 980 DVD player instead of making the leap to the PS3.

There are some stand alone players that are worth considering now. While you can purchase one in around the $200 mark now, you may end up slightly disappointed with the quality. Yes – a cheap player will enable you to watch and build a Blu-ray collection, but you are making trade offs on quality. Looking more at the mid-range offerings, the Sony S550 is very recently available in Canada and offers some features that the PS3 does not. It benefits from being a stand alone, single function device with IR control. The S550 also provides internal decoding of the HD audio streams and discreet analog outs. The PS3 edges it out slightly for performance, but the S550 will run cooler (quieter). It was a tough choice – but the PS3 also serves as a media center and is more flexible appealing to the geek in me.

I’ve been watching the slow progression the PS3 has made recently, hoping that there would be an additional price break or introduction of new lower power chips. Neither has really happened over the course of the year. While 45nm cell processors are a possibility, the PS3 still uses a 65nm cell. The RSX (graphics chip) is still the original 90nm version. As a result the unit still pulls around 135Watts of power when in use.

The new 80Gig low end unit is effectively the same as the 40Gig that has been available since late 2007. It does not have backwards compatibility, and features a reduced number of USB ports and connectivity options. For folks like myself interested in Blu-ray playback or the PS3 games then it has what it needs. Earlier units which supported backwards compatibility had the larger cell processors and more chips to support the old games, this meant running hotter with more fan noise. I haven’t used the PS3 extensively yet, but so far it is quieter than the fan in my projector – which is very quiet (siimlar to the low fan noise of my laptop).

There are no deals on the PS3 happening in Canada. I was able to score a minor deal from BestBuy.ca which lately has had the best prices on a number of the things I’ve been looking for. Normally when they have customer appreciation sales with discounts in the 10% range video game hardware is excluded. As chance would have it a sale cropped up that offered discounts that did include video game hardware. I was amused to find that the next day a very similar online sale started and ran for a week duration, but specifically excluded video game hardware.

Only $25 off a PS3 isn’t much to boast about. Considering that in the US people have access to a SonyStyle visa which gives them $100 credit on their first qualifying purchase over $299.

Previously FutureShop.ca had free shipping on many items and BestBuy.ca did not. Now that both stores off an in store pick up (ISPU) that has no shipping cost, FutureShop now charges for shipping. Just last night I ordered a copy of Wall E from BestBuy.ca for $27.99 + $1.99 shipping + tax, beating out FutureShop.ca’s price of $28.99. Of course, both of these prices at the two stores are not available for in store pick up so you have to pay shipping – and they are not filed under the Blu-ray category making it harder to find (they are under DVD, but are clearly Blu-ray media). This might not seem like a deal with Amazon.com selling it at $24.95, but with the exchange rate the story is quite different.

Of course, to cable it into my system I needed to buy some cables. The PS3 supports audio over HDMI or digital optical out. Since I don’t have an HDMI capable audio setup, I went with a digital optical cable. My projector only has 2 HDMI inputs, and I wanted to continue to run DVD via HDMI so the Satellite box lost out and has moved to component. I used Tartan Cables for the component and digital cables, and its parent company Blue Jeans Cable for the HDMI as they had a sale on their old BJC-Series2. All of the cables came in a single shipment, since Tartan and BlueJean are really the same business.

The PS3 only comes with a single controller, which can be used to control Blu-ray playback but there is an additional Sony Bluetooth remote you can purchase. I was able to find one used in mint condition for $15 from someone who had upgraded to an integrated automation solution. The PS3 has been criticized for not having a standard IR control story, and there is merit to this argument. A number of 3rd party solutions exist such as IR2BT, ps3toothfairy, Schmart and IR4PS3. I’ve chosen to go with the latter, it is built in Canada and uses the guts from the official Sony Bluetooth based remote meaning it has 100% compatibility.

There are still lots of things for me to do to get the PS3 setup to my satisfaction. I haven’t yet ordered the rack shelf, but it will be another 2U unit from MiddleAtlantic. There is a very long thread on AVSForum on setting up the PS3 for Blu-ray playback. I will also want to get the AVS HD 709 calibration disc and see where things sit (this opens up the whole calibration can of worms again and I really need to find time to do more on this front). And of course there will be actually getting the IR4PS3 and integrating that into my remote control setup.

Initial impressions can be summarized in one word: Wow. The ability to deliver 1080p content to my projector (not upscaled) is awesome. I haven’t yet watched a Blu-ray disc, but just the intro/menu of the Indiana Jones Crystal Skull looks great. Another thing that impressed me was that my MythTV box was discovered on the network, recognized as a media server – and the PS3 was able to play back recorded content without any complicated setup. This alone justifies the choice of the PS3 over a stand-alone player for my needs.

Screen size, resolution and viewing distance

A while back I via Planet OTI I came across a home theater related post from Brooke that pointed at an article on screen size and viewing distance. To be honest, I’m not sure I agree with the actual data, or some of the conclusions that are drawn from it – but it did get me thinking.

Here is the screen size vs. viewing distance vs. resolution chart that I’ve replicated from an article on carletonbale.com.

I’d caution you to treat this chart as a set of guidelines, not scientific fact. Your eyesight is also a big factor here, as well as personal taste. For me the interesting point here is about the delta between 720p and 1080p. If you’ve got a 92″ diagonal screen (as I do) with a primary seating position at about 11 feet and a second row at approximately 16 feet, then in my primary seating position I’m right on the edge of being able to see the full benefit of 1080p.

You can look at that in two ways. 1) The ‘full benefit of 1080p’ means that 100% of the possible detail delivered to the screen is visible to your eye. 2) At any point closer than that, you are able to see more detail than your system is able to deliver. The real question is do you want to sit at least that close, or at least that far away?

Let’s consider a smaller, more common screen size. A 50″ diagonal screen would mean to realize the full potential of a 1080p system you’d want to sit 6 feet away. I doubt many people sit that close. According to the chart at 15 feet away from the screen you are at the full potential of a 480p image. Finally the 720p limit happens at about 10 feet.

Wait. There is one more factor too. What is your source like? Standard DVD is effectively 720×480 (480p). So while you might have been thinking “Gee, maybe I should sit closer to my nice shiny new 50″ screen” let’s think about this again. At 15 feet away, which is farther than most would sit from a 50″ screen simply due to standard room sizes, you’re actually getting the full benefit of that DVD.

Now if we consider HDTV inputs, the two common formats are 720p or 1080i (which we can consider effectively 1080p for this discussion). If you’ve got a satellite system, then for either HDTV format you’re probably receiving about 19Mbps. Some providers are dumbing down HDTV and re-encoding to a lower bit rate still (as low as 8Mbps), people are calling this HD Lite. Compare this to blu-ray which is offering bit rates of 25Mbps and better, combined with the fact that it is using more modern codecs (MPeg4, VC-1, H.264) which means higher quality images in fewer bits so the quality delta with blu-ray is pretty huge. So what is all this technical mumbo jumbo saying? The source image is going to play a big part in terms of how close you want to sit. The majority of your content will factor in where your seating is. Also, if you’ve gone an optimized to get the ‘full benefit’ from 1080p you’re going to really notice when that 1080i signal that is MPeg2 encoded from your satellite box is a low bit rate.

Summary – so while the original article might get you thinking that you want to get the ‘full benefit’ of the higher resolutions and you should sit closer or have a bigger screen, you will also want to strongly consider what your source will be. Screen size should be determined by a lot more than just resolution.