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So, Panasonic is discontinuing production of Plasma tvs in December. That bums me out. A Panny plasma is the best looking tv you can buy (in the 1080 range), it's picture quality shatters what any LCD can do. Unfortunately, the market doesn't agree. The old burn-in boogeyman (which I have not experienced) is still alive and well and the sales have been shitty. I pour one out for you old friend, I am sad my S60 is the last one I'll ever buy.

Good riddance. Now I won't have to keep answering peoples questions about whether they should buy a plasma or LCD.

Plasma - the 21st century's betamax.

GasBandit said:

Plasma - the 21st century's betamax.

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That's actually pretty apt.

HD DVD

The only thing the latest plasmas have going for them compared to the latest LCDs is a lower black level. LCDs still have light bleed and you can't get true black as easily, although even that's being improved by the use of intelligent direct LED backlighting.

Viewing angles are as good in newer LCDs that have IPS technology. The color gamut is on par with plasmas.

The only reason plasmas held on for so long was that they were cheaper in the large screen format. A 50" plasma was cheaper by a third than a comparable LCD. That's no longer true.

LCDs, on the other hand, are still lighter, thinner, and consume half the power (and put out half the heat).

Couple that with the recent price drops in large LCDs, and you find that plasma is no longer competitive. The only reason you might buy it is if, like an audiophile, the black level of LCDs bothers you.

It's kind of a shame that OLED tech doesn't seem to be advancing very quickly.

Panasonic S60 plasma also had lower input lag than almost every single LCD on the market too, the only ones that beat it were some Sony brands that cost....MUCH more. That, coupled with the complete lack of motion ghosting that similar priced LCDs had, made it the best gaming tv out there, which is important to me. I'ma hug you forever S60. You're awesome.

figmentPez said:

It's kind of a shame that OLED tech doesn't seem to be advancing very quickly.

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It's going to be awhile, but it'll ultimately overtake LCD. It's a better tech in many ways, but it still has some development before it'll make it.

Jay said:

HD DVD

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OK, so maybe this decade's Laserdisk?

Bowielee said:

OK, so maybe this decade's Laserdisk?

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Last decades, perhaps. 2003-2008.

I'm waiting for 4k stuff to become standard. The "4k blurays" right now are still only 1080p, but encoded in such a away so that 4k bluray players can upconvert them with better results than upconverting a typical 1080p.

The real 4k discs and players aren't here yet, and while you can get a 4k TV, they aren't capable of 2160p60 yet - still only doing 30 frames a second over HDMI. The next version of HDMI was just announced in September, so expect to see a lot of 4k TVs popping up next year, and eventually the players and discs to showcase them.

Then bluray will be old and busted, DVD will be compared to VHS quality, and VHS might as well have been the stone age. Blu ray will probably receive an upgrade, though, enabling 4k movies to be played on it. I don't expect a completely new disc just for 4k.

And then we can buy LoTR all over again in the super special 4k limited extended edition... pack... thing.

stienman said:

bluray will be old and busted, DVD will be compared to VHS quality, and VHS might as well have been the stone age.

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Then the video editing software will get the "DVD" and "VHS" filters to make your footage look all 480i/NTSC-ish and 30fps.

--Patrick

I'm fairly certain that physical media is on its way out.

Bowielee said:

I'm fairly certain that physical media is on its way out.

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Bandwidth costs are going to have to come down, and data caps are going to have to go way way up (or away completely) to be able to deliver 4k content. The one thing physical media still has going for it is the ability to deliver 50+GB of data anywhere for the cost of shipping a package.

figmentPez said:

Bandwidth costs are going to have to come down, and data caps are going to have to go way way up (or away completely) to be able to deliver 4k content. The one thing physical media still has going for it is the ability to deliver 50+GB of data anywhere for the cost of shipping a package.

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That just means the rest of the world is going to advance while the US and our shitty infrastructure remain lagging behind.

figmentPez said:

Bandwidth costs are going to have to come down, and data caps are going to have to go way way up (or away completely) to be able to deliver 4k content. The one thing physical media still has going for it is the ability to deliver 50+GB of data anywhere for the cost of shipping a package.

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It's caps, mainly. H.265 is just waiting for processors that can keep up with the decoding requirements. It can deliver similar quality to H.264 but at half the bandwidth. The telecoms are fighting back, using caps to discourage you from getting your content from someone/somewhere else, but this just means the broadband-only vendors will be the ones who come out on top (by not losing half their revenue stream once everyone cuts the cord in the next 10-20 years).

--Patrick

I just read some statistic that like 4/5 TVs that Best Buy sells are 720p. I don't think that 4K is going to have any sort of foothold for a LONG bloody time.

Frank said:

4/5 TVs that Best Buy sells are 720p.

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Bigger margins. The salespeople push them.