As photograhers, which type of TV do you want/own?

As photograhers, which type of TV do you want/own?

  • Plasma: mostly due to more accurate color rendition

    Votes: 31 14.8%
  • Plasma: mostly due to higher refresh rate

    Votes: 7 3.3%
  • LCD

    Votes: 53 25.2%
  • LED

    Votes: 31 14.8%
  • None of the above, why?

    Votes: 98 46.7%

  • Total voters
    210
Tube, man, tube!

Tube, man, tube!

I voted 'None of the above' because I have yet to see a plasma/LCD/LED set that didn't scream "PIXELS!!!!". I suspect the manufacturers have figured out how to beta test their products on us whilst extracting large sums of money from our pockets.

We have one of the last wide screen WEGA Trinitron tube sets Sony offered. Picked it up from a Craig's List seller a few years ago. Wrestled may be a better description; it weighs well more than 200 pounds -- the glass content in those big tubes is substantial.

When correctly adjusted, colors are realistic, contrast balanced and details clear. Completely reliable and a joy to watch.

hth!/:D
 
Same here. I'm still rock'n my '03 Sony kv34xbr910 CRT. The 200lbs + is an anti-theft feature, I reckon. :p
Live sports
Movies
...electrons traversing the vacuum.
 
I had no TV for years – unlike most American families who have one or more TV in every room of the house except the bathroom, my parents have always been a one television family. When I moved out of the house 4 years ago, I didn't bother getting a TV even though I could afford it. I just used my laptop for movies, and took my game system over to a friend's house if I wanted to play video games. I took the plunge in March though, and bought a Philips 32" LCD HDTV for $250. It's all I need (and much more than I need).
 
No TV. Most programs are dumb as **** anyway.
This isn't dumb as *** ... not only is it delivered in HD, but all their programming is shot in HD. It makes a difference, and a lot of the content is inspiring and good for the soul/spirit.
 
I think a CRT still looks way better then any of those flat things. Like film still looks way better then digital.

And not only the viewing device. There are also still bad digital movie productions around. Example: I own Waterworld in both LD and DVD edition. The movie contains a great amount of beautyful landscape impressions on the sea.

Of course, the digital 720x576px resolution of the DVD-Video is technically slightly better than the 640×576px of the Laserdisc medium (PAL output). And it fits 16:9 properly. But in slow pans on cloudy sky and blue ocean you see many ugly pixel artifacts on the DVD edition which you don't have on the LD edition.
This negative digital effects are visible both on my analog CRT backpro (RGB connection) as well as on a new LED/LCD screen (HDMI connection). The playback decoder device doesn't help here: This artifacts are visible using both DVD player or HD screen image decoder.

Just one more example why digital is still an emerging technology, if you are looking at good optical quality. I don't own yet Blue-rayDisc technology in my home cinema setup and cannot speak for that.
 
Just one more example why digital is still an emerging technology, if you are looking at good optical quality. I don't own yet Blue-rayDisc technology in my home cinema setup and cannot speak for that.[/QUOTE]

Speaking as a photographer that still prefers the aesthetic of film over digital, any HD TV, be it LCD or plasma needs to be fed an HD channel, or better still view a Bluray disk, to see it's full potential. Particularly Bluray, it's so much better than a CRT set, but they're not quite as good as CRT when fed lesser signals.
 
I have a 36" Phillips Magnavox that belonged to my uncle. It's a CRT which I feel is a better picture than most flat screen tv's I've seen. I hate HD & got tired of renting DVD's when right in middle of the movie the picture freezes & the picture pixilates into pieces. happens on cable too. I miss those days seeing the message "OOPS THE FILM BROKE".:D
 
Pixellation? I see that maybe three times a year when atmospheric conditions reduce the satellite signal to the processing threshold, and I've never seen it on a DVD that I owned. Rented DVDs were another issue, sometimes they were so scratched as to be unplayable for their entire duration. But that's not a fault of the medium.
 
Well, I just bit the bullet and ordered a Panasonic plasma that was on sale at a great price at a local dealer. Should be interesting to pop my SD card straight into the TV for some 50" images! TV will be here later this week.
 
Hope you like it! I can pop you my settings in a PM if you would like. I used the Spears & Munsi BluRay calibration disc to help with that.

Earl
 
In fact, Paul, the other gents comment was fundamentally inaccurate in the first place.
Why would they presume that the OP doesn't "actually do stuff".
This echoes some other responses implying that people who dont watch TV are intellectually/morally superior.
Its ridiculous.
The thread topic is not the pros and cons of TV or the people who watch them,
but rather the TVs performance in and of itself in the opinion of visually trained amateur and pro RF users.
I am just trying to keep the thread on point.

Ooooo!!! I'm not a gent ;)

I should perhaps have put a smiley after the "instead of doing stuff" bit. I did not mean that anyone watches tv for seven hours a day (or whatever time there is after working, sleeping, bathing etc). For any sane person watching tv and having a life are not mutually exclusive, but it is an activity that takes time out of the already full day. Grading contact-sheets and watching X-Men 97 are probably not best done simultaneously.

The last option on the ballot was "None of the above, why?" - I read this as implying that a photographer is somehow expected to have a television. Why might that be? I was expecting possible answers with reasons including a big tv giving the most cinema-like view to well crafted cinematography, for example. Or some cable-channel with darkroom or digital programming, that sort of thing. But no-one has come up with a reason why photographers specifically would appreciate television in general, though there have been some interesting observations on the technical side of things.

I'll willingly accept that I am weird and anti-social in not watching tv, as I have misinterpreted the whole question.
 
I have a 58" Samsung plasma.
My sister has LCD. My father recently bought a smaller Samsung 3D LCD or LED(?)..... They're sharp. But, i really dislike it those two technologies. There's something about the LED/LCD rendering that just looks so 'digital.' Plasma is certainly smoother and more 'filmic,' without being 'soft.'

Plasma is it. My set is more than five years old, but i've never seen anything that would lead me to believe "refresh rate" is a significant factor with plasma. And, i watch a ton of sports and 'action.' Maybe that spec is more important with LCD/LED? I dunno.

There's also a pretty significant difference in the source, though. He has Fios, which isn't available to me in NYC (imagine that). Cable is horrible. I can always see artifacts and compression in the picture - some channels or programs are worse than others, but none are as consistently clean as the Fios signal. I know i'm losing a lot of IQ from my plasma, just because of that factor.

Lastly - do not skimp and use component cables. Get HDMI cables for your sources. Big difference. I'm pretty sure you don't need expensive ones, but definitely get them.
 
Plasma 52" screen, football games are fantastic, DVR records them and can cut out the commercials and then there are movies . . . . .
 
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