HDTV Flat & Large Screen: LED/LCD vs. Plasma

[Rob C.]

get a 110 inch screen and a 1080p projector. you will not regret it!

I agree absolutely (although i am stuck on 720) - but unfortunately i have not found it to be a full substitute for a HDTV - the convenience of a tv (switch on, switch off, no need to fiddle with an AV receiver or screen, nor worry about bulb degredation through use for repeated short stints), and the desire to sometimes watch with a few lights on (or in bright daylight) or simply have the box on for back-ground ambience means that a TV is still a necessity in my house!

My advice - you can spend hours agonising over specifications that magazine/internet reviews will make out to be huge differences. Use the reviews to avoid the dogs, but then see a few TVs in person and decide which picture you like (test on say, a football game, an action movie (action scenes in Transformers is what a lot of reviews used to use as their reference), and a scene with lots of darks/shadows - i had a couple of dvds to take with me into the shop).

When you find, as you inevitably will, that there is not much difference between many of the ones you are considering, go by which looks sexiest when turned off! LED/LCD progress has been amazing over the last few years in terms of cutting plasma's advantage for motion and deep blacks. Plus i like the extra brightness and lower bulk/thickness of LED/LCD, but that's personal (though i agree with Eric re: edge lit LEDs). There's an energy saving there too vs Plasma, but i doubt that it would amount to much in the way of VP over the course of a year! And if you do prefer plasma, i like Andrew have never experienced burn-in from static images - even on an old Panasonic and "first gen" Pioneer. Save 3D for your next purchase in 5 years time. Internet enabled for Netflix etc. is a bonus, but as others say, if you don't get it on your tv you can easily (and cheaply) get it via your other componentry.

oh - and if you have a spare weekend to spend browsing...avforums.com...

[Peter W. Meek]

get a 110 inch screen and a 1080p projector. you will not regret it!

Don't forget - you need a few things to go along with that setup.


$800k later.

[Andy Velebil]

get a 110 inch screen and a 1080p projector. you will not regret it!

Don't forget - you need a few things to go along with that setup.


$800k later.

makes my PS3 look like an old TRS-80

[Moses Botbol]

get a 110 inch screen and a 1080p projector. you will not regret it!

Don't forget - you need a few things to go along with that setup.


$800k later.

How is it all cooled?

[Peter W. Meek]

How is it all cooled?

A separate 3.5 ton AC unit that cools only the space behind those three racks. (It runs 24/7, winter and summer. Another expense! BTW, a 3.5 ton AC is enough to cool a 6 room house in a fairly warm climate.) There is 15,000 Watts of electronic equipment in those racks. (15kW is enough to heat a 6 room house in a moderately cool climate.) The installers intended to cool it with convection grills in the face of the racks before I talked some sense into them.

In the words of a wise man: be careful what you wish for.

To be fair, this rig also provides audio (6 sources) and video (8 sources) distribution to every room in a fairly large house. It's not just for the room where the 1080p projector and the 120" screen are located.

Ask Roy; he had a peek at some of this on his last visit to the area.

(And, yes, there is 6U of wasted space at the bottom of the middle rack. I don't know how we could have been so careless. 1U is 1.75 inches.)

[Derek T.]

How is it all cooled?

enough to cool a 6 room house in a fairly warm climate … enough to heat a 6 room house in a moderately cool climate

Does that = "carbon offset"?

[Peter W. Meek]

How is it all cooled?

enough to cool a 6 room house in a fairly warm climate … enough to heat a 6 room house in a moderately cool climate

Does that = "carbon offset"?

I know you are kidding, but I actually feel bad about this. I'm increasing my carbon footprint on both halves of that equation. I expend power to make the heat, and then again to pump it out of the rack space. If my heating needs could be made to coincide with the times that I generate it, maybe I could consider a heat pump that moved the heat to some other part of the house where it would be useful. It would not be economical, but it certainly would be 'greener'.

[Derek T.]

Does that = "carbon offset"?

I know you are kidding, but I actually feel bad about this. I'm increasing my carbon footprint on both halves of that equation. I expend power to make the heat, and then again to pump it out of the rack space. If my heating needs could be made to coincide with the times that I generate it, maybe I could consider a heat pump that moved the heat to some other part of the house where it would be useful. It would not be economical, but it certainly would be 'greener'.

Could the heat output from the cooler be used as the enegry source to heat your hot water?

[Glenn E.]

(And, yes, there is 6U of wasted space at the bottom of the middle rack. I don't know how we could have been so careless. 1U is 1.75 inches.)

I don't see an Xbox 360 in your setup. Halo or Forza on a 120" screen with that kind of sound setup would be pretty awesome!

[Russ K]

get a 110 inch screen and a 1080p projector. you will not regret it!

Don't forget - you need a few things to go along with that setup.


$800k later.

I got that too...not 800K...more like 40...two racks worth, and not as pretty as those cabinets!

[Eric Menchen]

I presume you have rear access to those cabinets Peter and Russ? That is the one key thing on my list for building a house.

[Peter W. Meek]

I presume you have rear access to those cabinets Peter and Russ? That is the one key thing on my list for building a house.

I thought I had a picture, but if so, I can't find it. The panels pull out on rails. The left panel moves by itself; the two right panels pull out in tandem. Usually, we pull out the two right panels and step in behind them. The wires are bundled to a folding bridge that extends as the panels are pulled out. These racks won an award from one of the national 'smart house' magazines for Beautiful Racks/Installations.

My computers are even better. They are built into a cabinet in my library. The cabinet matches the stacks in the rest of the library. You can go to the back side and open doors to get at all the wiring on the backs of the computers. This is something I swore to have in the new house. Never again will I crawl under a table or desk to make a small change in what is hooked to my computers.

[Russ K]

I presume you have rear access to those cabinets Peter and Russ? That is the one key thing on my list for building a house.

Yes, mine is a little more poor boy than Peters. Its in a storage room / unfinished part of my basement, and they are on rollers. the wiring comes down from the ceiling area with enough slack to roll em out, push the racks sideways and get back there to work on the wiring if needed.

My system runs the whole house. TV's in all the rooms, music in all rooms, etc...through a Control4 system. Control4 is lower end in home control that I am aware of, but its been OK...I also have a TV switcher, so I can watch same box in multiple rooms, and also turn on music in my bar area while the TV plays something...

[Peter W. Meek]

I presume you have rear access to those cabinets Peter and Russ? That is the one key thing on my list for building a house.

Yes, mine is a little more poor boy than Peters. Its in a storage room / unfinished part of my basement, and they are on rollers. the wiring comes down from the ceiling area with enough slack to roll em out, push the racks sideways and get back there to work on the wiring if needed.

My system runs the whole house. TV's in all the rooms, music in all rooms, etc...through a Control4 system. Control4 is lower end in home control that I am aware of, but its been OK...I also have a TV switcher, so I can watch same box in multiple rooms, and also turn on music in my bar area while the TV plays something...

Be careful what you wish for... (not just Russ - anybody)

Our system has been a LOT of trouble, both original programming, and upkeep. Trying to stretch the capabilities of a high-end system can be frustrating.

[Eric Menchen]

Our system has been a LOT of trouble, both original programming, and upkeep. Trying to stretch the capabilities of a high-end system can be frustrating.

Yes. I set up an HTPC for my mom. Worked well for a while, then when I tried to upgrade the video, problems with the power supply. I built an HTPC for us. Worked o.k. for a while, but a lot of effort to configure the software. I wasn't satisfied with most products out of the box, so I went with something that was very customizable. Then a video driver update messed things up ... more problems. Eventually the video card died. Now I have three WD TV Live Plus boxes in the house playing content off of our server. They aren't ideal, but they are all working o.k. I might go with custom firmware on them at some point so I can drive them with an Android app, among other things. I tried other media players, but I've grown to dislike DLNA and none of them would do subtitles correctly. I might go back to HTPCs when I upgrade our main TV.

I'm trying to decide how to handle HD content from our Dish receiver and get it into other parts of the house still in HD. Long HDMI cable? Slingbox? Or maybe rip the receiver open ...

[Russ K]

you can control 4 up the lights and everything. But I stay away. Only problem we have is it can lose communications sometimes and we just need to reboot.
never happens to me, but to my wife all the time. i try to avoid any updates and such becuase your right, something bound to go wrong. Using for TV and music and movie watching only seems to be ideal.

Eric, to distribute the HD we used CAt5 and then baluns on each end.

[Eric Menchen]

Eric, to distribute the HD we used CAt5 and then baluns on each end.

Perhaps I should reconsider that option, but it seemed more expensive than a special long HDMI cable. I need to confirm, but my run is right around 50'. For the baluns you need two cat-5 for HDMI, correct? The Slingbox would give greater flexibility and would use existing networking, but then throws in the complexity/maintainability issues.

[Russ K]

I dont think so, I think just one cat5 line....but I am not completely sure.
Long HDMI is more expensive is my understanding.... Our run was just under 100 feet, and the straight shot hdmi cable was going to be like $750.
Cat5 was already in and you get full 1080p.

[Eric Menchen]

I dont think so, I think just one cat5 line....but I am not completely sure.
Long HDMI is more expensive is my understanding.... Our run was just under 100 feet, and the straight shot hdmi cable was going to be like $750.
Cat5 was already in and you get full 1080p.

Long HMDI isn't that much, but I do see that the $100 HDMI with an equalizer built in just does 1080i, not 1080p. So if you want 1080p, you need to spend more, and it looks like Cat5 is the way to go then.