CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

timbo · Joined: 22 Jul 2007 Posts: 82 Location: Brampton, Ontario

Chuck27 · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:36 pm Post subject:

FWIW, I bought a 42" Panasonic TH42PX50U last year, in fact, I bought two of them, and they have been great. It comes with its own stand, which many units do not. I recommend it highly, with the caveat that the first thing to do is turn down the eyeball-searing white level to something a little more constrained.

In my opinion, in this size range, I'm doubtful of the benefits of 1080. First of all, it's very difficult to squeeze that many pixels into a 42" plasma, leading to design compromises and secondly, unless the viewer (assuming average eyesight) is going to sit closer than 4 feet from the screen, they will be unable to resolve the additional resolution.

Chuck

ecrabb · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:08 pm Post subject:

I just read a shootout in one of the HT rags where they tested a half dozen or so 42-50" 1080p LCD's. For fun, they also threw in a Pioneer 768p plasma just to see if anybody noticed. Guess which display several of the viewers chose as the BEST looking display? They made the comment that 'contrast is king'. It's so true. In 90% if the installations of these 1080p LCDs, the viewer's aren't sitting close enough to tell the difference between 1080p, 768p!!! I tried explaining it my father-in-law (he sits around 12' from his tube and they're in the market), and he was very suspicious of what I was saying. Looking at his face, it was almost as if he was thinking, "Hmmm... That counters everything I've read and heard about how great 1080p is and why I need it. My son-in-law is supposedly an expert on all this HD/HT stuff, how could he be so wrong?"

SC

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12026 Location: Fort Collins, CO

If you wanted to bother, you could print up some sample "test patterns" on paper, one line on / one line off, at the dot pitch he'd have for 1080 and 720 in his desired screen size. (Or alternating dot patterns would be even better, but harder to print.) Hold up the papers at the distance he'll watch. Ask him if they look any different. Probably they'll both look uniformly gray to him. Even with 20/20 vision (which he probably doesn't have) you can't distinguish those dots at that distance.

Let's say he gets a 50" diagonal screen -- a pretty damn big flat panel. That's 43.6" x 24.5". He's sitting at 12'/43.6" = 3.3x screen width, and we all know what that means. So the dot pitch for 1920x1080 is 0.0227" (1/44"), and 0.034" (1/30"). Ask him if he thinks he can see a 1/30" dot from 12' away!

According to http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Tech-Corner/Hoffner_features.shtml, the "design goal" for HDTV would dictate a screen size of 80x45" at 11.3'. It also says a human eye with 20/20 vision can only resolve 1mm lines at 11.3'. The 720p dot pitch is .86mm. At 12', 720p dot pitch **for a 50" screen** is beyond the resolving capability of 20/20 vision. If his screen is any smaller than 50", it's just that much more beyond his ability to see.