I thought RP TVs belong to the dark ages of crap TVs, back when CRTs were king. Sure, they're all HD these days, but the poor contrasts, washed out colours, sensitivity to ambient light, and inability to look the same from two different angles always stuck me as enough to keep them off the shopping list of anyone who was upgrading to HDTV for the quality.
Im not sure what models you are looking at but I have a 44 Pan and a 42 Samsung and both give better color and responce than my 32 sonly LCD in my bedroom. Im sure that some of the older models have more issues but the ones from the last few years have really put those days behind them. Now that most burn in issues are gone from Plasmas I bet they will start bounce back.
WD - pretty much every RP set I've ever seen. Last week we went to BJs and saw they'd apparently dropped them, but certainly those I've seen there in the last six months had all of the characteristics I mentioned.
I'm not claiming they didn't improve, but they've never seemed to over-come those fundamental obstacles when I've seen them. The "unwatchable from the wrong angle, and with severely different brightness and contrast at different angles" thing's always been a show stopper for me. Any ambient light seems to kill the contrast too.
hmmmm: "poor contrasts, washed out colours, sensitivity to ambient light, and inability to look the same from two different angles...". With the exception of only the most expensivey SPVA LCDs, those are actually blaring weaknesses of most LCD tvs. factor in the price per inch and i'll gladly take an RP over about 98% of the flat panels on the market.
the only complaint that holds any water is the viewing angle, which is absolute crap on a rptv. but as far as black levels and color are concerned, the rptv (dlp, at least, and others probably as well) pretty much kills all lcds, and quite a few plasma sets.
the only other real complaints i had about my older samsung dlp was the inability to get rid of overscan (minor) and the high failure rate, as ours developed some problems about 9 months in, and then died after a year. every replacement they sent had some sort of problem so we took our money back and bought an lcd. but i really miss the picture quality of our dlp.
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Are people still making these things?
I thought RP TVs belong to the dark ages of crap TVs, back when CRTs were king. Sure, they're all HD these days, but the poor contrasts, washed out colours, sensitivity to ambient light, and inability to look the same from two different angles always stuck me as enough to keep them off the shopping list of anyone who was upgrading to HDTV for the quality.
Im not sure what models you are looking at but I have a 44 Pan and a 42 Samsung and both give better color and responce than my 32 sonly LCD in my bedroom. Im sure that some of the older models have more issues but the ones from the last few years have really put those days behind them.
Now that most burn in issues are gone from Plasmas I bet they will start bounce back.
What era rear projection are you referring too? 3 CRT?
Bulb based DLP sets are okay, but let's face it, they still have the heat and replacement issues that all bulb based systems do.
LED and Laser based are great!
WD - pretty much every RP set I've ever seen. Last week we went to BJs and saw they'd apparently dropped them, but certainly those I've seen there in the last six months had all of the characteristics I mentioned.
I'm not claiming they didn't improve, but they've never seemed to over-come those fundamental obstacles when I've seen them. The "unwatchable from the wrong angle, and with severely different brightness and contrast at different angles" thing's always been a show stopper for me. Any ambient light seems to kill the contrast too.
hmmmm: "poor contrasts, washed out colours, sensitivity to ambient light, and inability to look the same from two different angles...". With the exception of only the most expensivey SPVA LCDs, those are actually blaring weaknesses of most LCD tvs. factor in the price per inch and i'll gladly take an RP over about 98% of the flat panels on the market.
the only complaint that holds any water is the viewing angle, which is absolute crap on a rptv. but as far as black levels and color are concerned, the rptv (dlp, at least, and others probably as well) pretty much kills all lcds, and quite a few plasma sets.
the only other real complaints i had about my older samsung dlp was the inability to get rid of overscan (minor) and the high failure rate, as ours developed some problems about 9 months in, and then died after a year. every replacement they sent had some sort of problem so we took our money back and bought an lcd. but i really miss the picture quality of our dlp.