Yeah, I have been reading up and gathering info on both as well. Plasma does seem to have a deeper contrast and richer blacks. However, you can get angle fade and room lighting and sunlight can affect the picture. LCDs are backlit and are less susceptible to these issues.

A friend of mine works as a senior engineer at ATi and they produce a lot of the scaler and hardware technologies for the panels. He gave me a long lecture on how to choose a panel and what to look for. I must admit he lost me after about 15 minutes.

He basically said you have the physical characteristics of the panel, which are related to the panel itself and are set. These include response time, contrast, brightness, etc. Response times are so fast, they themselves won't cause motion artifacts.

Panels are made by just a few manufacturers and the same panels are often used in different brands of TVs.

The other major component that separates them - and relates directly to picture quality above and beyond the panel's characteristics - is the hardware used to produce the image, the scaler, de-interlacer and the MPEG decoder. If you see blurring, it could be that the the processor can't decompress the data fast enough to produce a smooth image. So you can have two different brands of LCDs using the same exact panel, but exhibiting a noticeably different quality of picture.

He also mentioned keeping an eye on the upper left corner of the screen. Since this area is drawn (rendered) first, if there is lag, you will see it here. Conversely, the bottom right area may look fine since the TV has time to 'think' about the image before it gets there.

Also said look for diagonal jagged lines - similar to the anti-aliasing effect seen in video games. Diagonal straight lines can be hard to render, and hence can look jagged. Another sign of lower quality image processing.


I'm probably not explaining this well, but it's third-hand info at this point...

__________________
Chris
2007 E550 4Matic - 61,000 Km - Iridium Silver, black leather, Sport package, Premium 2 package
2007 GL450 4Matic - 62,000 Km - Obsidian Black Metallic, black leather, all options
1998 E430 - sold
1989 300E - 333,000 Km - sold
1977 280E - sold
1971 250 - retired

"And a frign hat. They gave me a hat at the annual benefits meeting. I said. how does this benefit me. I dont have anything from the company.. So they gave me a hat." - TheDon

Excellent choice. That is the exact model I am going to purchase, but in a 50" size.

__________________
Paul S.

2001 E430, Bourdeaux Red, Oyster interior.
79,200 miles.

1973 280SE 4.5, 170,000 miles. 568 Signal Red, Black MB Tex. "The Red Baron".

Best choice, you won't regret it.

__________________
99 Gurkha with OM616 IDI turbo

2015 Gurkha with OM616 DI turbo

2014 Rexton W with OM612 VGT

Why do these TV's require specialized installation?

__________________
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

I guess so they can sell you the Fire Dog or Geek Squad service... Just don't let them talk you into $80 HDMI cables. Get a list of what you need and buy them from newegg.com. 3 and 6 foot cables are less than $10.

__________________
-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250

yea..80$ HDMI cables are whack.. but If you are one of those audiophiles that likes to show off.. they are for you

Plasma, as a direct view, non-reflected, image source, has never had "off axis" viewing issues.