Tony Sarno19 August 2007, 10:34 PM
With HDTV testing so subjective, we asked professional car testers from Wheels magazine to run their critical eyes over the plasma and LCD HDTVs in our Labs.
With HDTV testing so subjective, we asked professional car testers from Wheels magazine to run their critical eyes over the plasma and LCD HDTVs in our Labs. Wheels magazine is Australia's top selling car magazine and is owned by the same company as us (which means they are conveniently located in the same building). A review from the Wheels testers can make or break a new car so we were keen to unleash them onto the HDTVs.
We showed them various plasma and LCD HDTVs side by side, using a component splitter to pump 1920x1080i signal into the sets from a Toshiba HD DVD player. We also sent video to the TVs individually via a HDMI cable to get the highest maximum resolution of 1080p in some cases.
 The team from Wheels. Back row, from left (ignore the green guy), Ash Westerman and Ged Bulmer, front row: Robin Austin, Dean Lee and John Carey |
It didn’t take long for the car heritage of the Wheels' testers to come through. APC magazine's reviewers barely considered design style when assessing the HDTVs, but Wheels’ John Carey took one look at the piano-black Panasonic Viera and said dismissively “that’s so Monaro 2001," referring to the Australian muscle car icon that's the Pontiac GTO in the US.
The image below shows that piano black is the new, eh, black in HDTVs, with the Samsung, Pioneer and LG also featuring the same deep shiny black.
 Piano-black is hot in HDTVs |
The Wheels news editor Ash Westerman agreed piano-black looked dated. “The Sony looks more contemporary,” he said, pointing to the 52in Bravia as an example of a stylish HDTV. The Sony and the Grundig won approval from Wheels because of their use of silver trim. Wheels' art director Robin Austin thought the Grundig’s silver base softened it up. Black would be too strong particularly for small spaces, he thought.
 The Sony Bravia - stylish |
 The Grundig - equally stylish |
The Wheels crew spent at least an hour in our Labs checking out the HDTVs on the benches. What follow are their comments on the two TV technologies, prefaced by senior designer Dean Lee’s observation that “it’s hard to see the differences without comparing the TVs directly.“
When you just look at each set by itself, most of the HDTVs look great, particularly in comparison to the Standard Definition dinosaurs many of us still watch. We have an old SD TV in the Labs, a Sony Trinitron and use it mostly for laughs when comparing it with the HDTVs. But among the HDTVs, it’s only by constantly switching one's gaze from the plasma to the LCD sets that the differences between the two technologies become apparent.
If there was one HDTV quality that Wheels crew unanimously agreed on, it was that the plasma picture was more “life-like” than that of the LCDs. Their thoughts on this included:
- “It’s a softer picture.”
- “It’s a more natural look.”
- “There’s more detail in the blacks.”
- “The skin tones are more natural.”
- “The graduation of colours in the shadows looks more natural.”
The plasmas were assessed in the ideal low lighting conditions that make the technology look good. However, as Wheels editor Ged Bulmer said when the lights were turned up, the issue is “not cut and dry.” The LCDs got better as we restored the fluorescent lights in the Labs, which was what the APC reviewers had found earlier.
The Wheels crew was generally more ambivalent about the LCD HDTVs than the plasmas. After assessing the LCD HDTVs, the Wheels testers split into pro LCD and pro Plasma camps.
One thing they agreed on: just as they'd concluded that the plasma picture looked softer and more natural, they thought the picture on the LCD HDTVs was brighter and sharper. The “fine pitch” or resolution on the 40in 1080p Samsung LCD impressed them, while they agreed the Toshiba Regza’s contrasts (and their ability to show fine detail in dark scenes) virtually matched those of the plasmas.
John Carey felt a major advantage of LCD screens was that they came in more manageable sizes. “I could not accommodate some of the big TVs,” he said, a 32in Toshiba being more than big enough for him.
Size was equally important to Lee, but he came at it from a different angle: how much TV one got for the money. Lee was impressed by the 50in Panasonic Viera plasma. The LCD Toshiba might have been the right size for Carey, but “that Panasonic kills it,” said Lee when it came to screen real estate per dollar.
Of the LCD HDTVs, the Toshiba Regza impressed the Wheels crew. Toshiba has only just re-entered the AV market in Australia after several years focusing on the computing side, where it’s the major player in notebooks. Toshiba claims its heritage in computing means it understands how to process LCD pictures to get the most from them, and if its Regza range is anything to go by, Toshiba has made an impressive comeback.
Like APC’s reviewers, the Wheels team thought the Toshiba managed to extract plasma-like contrasts from the blacks and greys in its pictures. But from APC’s own testing, this appears to be common in the latest generation LCD HDTVs, with the 40in Samsung and 32in Philips also doing better contrasts. Surprisingly, the 52in Sony Bravia, one of the most expensive TVs but now an older generation LCD, lagged behind the others here – its muddy blacks hid detail in dark scenes.
The Wheels testers expressed some concern at the cost of the investment required for the more expensive HDTVs (50in plasmas or 42in and above LCDs). Perhaps stretching the point, Westerman said: “you pay $13,000 for it now, a couple of years later you’ll get it on eBay for $1,500.” The industry does concede that LCD HDTVs will continue to drop in price, with more potential for price cuts in LCD technology than plasma.
In the end, Carey went for the LCD technology, admitting “I have a natural predisposition to it.” The crisper image and finer detail on the LCD sets impressed him. “You also get a sense of constant improvements in the LCDs,” he said, which pretty much agreed with our experience at APC, having seen constant improvement in LCD monitors over the years.
On the other hand, Westerman wasn’t convinced about LCD HDTVs. "For me, LCD is a distinct look, it’s not as natural to me as the plasma. I would trade the LCD for the more natural look of plasma.”
Sitting mostly on the fence was Austin. “Until we watched the Toshiba, plasma looked more perfect..even if a couple of the dark scenes in the LCD were a bit iffy, the TVs were very close. In fact, they’re about on a par, with the plasmas just a touch ahead. “
As the owner of a plasma HDTV himself, Lee favoured the plasmas. “It’s how you watch your TV – turn the lights down and the plasma is better.” He liked plasmas, because, “I like to play with the lights off!”
Throwing his casting vote, in keeping with his title as the Wheels boss, Bulmer went for the plasmas.
But the final word should probably go to Austin when summing up the LCD vs plasma debate: “Neither is perfect, but neither will disappoint.”
The faceoff