Consumer Reports: Panasonic Has Better 3D

Sounds good, yet nobody can afford it.

[citation]The report also added that viewers can't watch 3D movies on the Samsung models while laying horizontally...[/citation]I guess Samsuck failed to account for couch potatoes (aka 99% of television watchers).

I will never understand why LCD has been more successful than Plasma. I bought my 50" Panasonic S1 plasma for $740 plus tax at Sears in Jul 2009(took advantage of stackable coupons, plus a sale). Sale price was $999 before coupons. There is no LCD (even $2,000+)out there that can compare in picture quality to this TV. So, it is no surprise to me that Plasma 3D looks betther than LCD 3D.

LCD does have a few advantages. Less noise, heat and power consumption for example, or better performance for smaller screen sizes.

Plasma is generally better, but don't discount LCD.

Besides, since when is the best product the most common choice for consumers? IE still is the largest browser while Opera and Chrome together don't get 10% of the market. Another clear example of better quality not leading to market dominance.

I got an acer gd245hq and unfortunately it has some of that double-imagery as well. My advice to anyone wanting to dive into 3D:
Don't rush it. Wait for more competition and technological refinement to get a good experience. IMHO 3D doesn't do much for games yet anyway but I've only played Mass Effect 2 in 3D.

"I will never understand why LCD has been more successful than Plasma."

Because Plasma uses a metric crap-ton of energy (in 65 models 755W to power up plasma vs 480W to power up LCD), EU and California are considering a ban on plasma TVs due to their high energy usage.

Yay for plasma. Really though, I would rather panasonic put out some thin bezel plasmas so I could hook them up with eyeinfinity. Just wish those darn Displayport-HDMI adapters weren't so expensive ^_^

Laying horizontally while watching 3D essentially makes no sense. The scene is recorded/rendered with the cameras side-by-side, not up-and-down.

A reliable source of product reviews Consumer Reports is not. If I listened to their "opinions", I'd be driving a Kia (junk) and I'd own a Kenmore dishwasher (junk).

i love my plasma tv and will not be buying into this 3d fad for years.i payed out enough for my entertainment already.i do not need 3d on glasses.

That's not how 3D works. Copied from Wiki because i don't know enough to explain it "To present a stereoscopic motion picture, two images are projected superimposed onto the same screen through different polarizing filters. The viewer wears low-cost eyeglasses which also contain a pair of different polarizing filters. As each filter passes only that light which is similarly polarized and blocks the light polarized in the opposite direction, each eye sees a different image. This is used to produce a three-dimensional effect by projecting the same scene into both eyes, but depicted from slightly different perspectives. Since no head tracking is involved, several people can view the stereoscopic images at the same time. Either linear or circular polarizing filters can be used, as long as different orientations (horizontal vs. vertical, or clockwise vs. counterclockwise) are used for each eye."

I own a plasma for years now, and I'm not jumping into the
"3D wagon" yet.... at least not for a couple of years.

Actually I've had my kenmore dishwasher for 11 years now. Still works great.

Ehh for fixed Resolutions LCDs are great! Plasma is much better at making low quality video that is really pixelated look a lot better.

Weren't the panasonic tc's already sold out?

i am looking forward to an oled 3d tv when sony stop fapping with playstation move and get on with it.

I know it's not directly comparable, but a 55" 7 Series Samsung tv (LED backlit)we recently got pulls around 90W at the wall with the backlight set to 5 (mid). I've checked some comparably sized plasma TVs' manuals online and they specify ~700W consumption as well. I don't care if the blacks are a bit darker on the plasma or if it has a "600Hz" refresh rate, I'm not gonna accept an order-of-magnitude increase in power consumption...

I tried the active 3D glasses from Panasonic during Vancouver 2010 Olympic demonstrations... It was very impressive

That's maximum power draw, not typical power usage. (like saying a 260hp car engine is always generating 260hp) You need a Kill-a-watt to check actual power usage.

Maybe you can take yours and check out a store that will let you unplug their demo units.

Plasma has come quite a ways in energy usage, and if you want to save energy you can run the TV with a lowered contrast/brightness.

We run ours with a "Picture" (Contrast) set to 0 and Brightness set to 35. Why? Because the eye-searing high contrast settings reduce detail. In fact, with Dish Network SD, when watching the Tennis Channel, I found that a Brightness of like 22 is ideal. I turned it up to 35 simply because we have a window that causes glare.

I'm sure our energy usage isn't very high with these settings and I never heard the fans. The picture is much better than LCD.

I am inclined to think that this 3D TV technology is just gimmicky. Until true holographic display is possible, I doubt 3D TV will sell as well as flat-paneled HD LCD TV sets. It's stupid that one has to wear extra eye wear to enjoy the 3D effect. Moreover, I have been hearing more and more people say that while watching the 3D-enabled movies, such as Avatar, it caused dizziness in them.

The Panny plasma might have better black levels now but just wait 6 months.

Power consumption @ 6 hours average per month for 65" TV's
LED/LCD = 18KW @ $.09/KW = $1.62/month.
Plasma = 90KW @ $.09/KW = $8.10/month.

I will gladly pay $6.50/month to enjoy a far superior picture quality that can viewed from any position in the room while paying usually $1000 less for the plasma. At that, your LED backlit has a pay back of about 153 months which is longer than the advertised life of the set.

Actually, Heoytes comment is right. That is how stereo 3D works (with current technology).
Stereo 3D technology is used to simulate what your eyes would view in real life situation:
2 different pictures(1 left and 1 right)with a slight horizontal shift (because for "most" people, eyes are placed horizontally on there head).
So Laying horizontally while watching 3D essentially would place your eyes axis perpendicularly to the 3D horizontal shift and nullify the 3D effect.

@cloakster, what your wiki extract describes is the a way to differentiate the 2 pictures/views (left and right) pictures of a 3d source. In this case it is with polarisation of the light.
The linear or circular polarisation of the light has nothing to do with the horizontal shift between left and right picture of stereo 3d.
Picture differentiation could also be done with shutter glass technique but laying horizontally while watching 3D would still make no sense.

@cloakster

I think what Heoytes was saying is that when 3D images are rendered, it is done with an assumed orientation of the viewer's head. Stereoscopic 3D vision works because some objects (e.g. those in the foreground) have more angular offset than do other objects (e.g. those in the background). Wink your eyes alternatingly, while looking at the edge of an object near you, relative to the location of that edge on background scenery. As you wink, the foreground object should appear to be in different places relative to the background.

Now turn your head 90 degrees (roll axis), and do the same experiment. The foreground object will appear to move up and down instead of left and right.

3D imaging works by projecting all of the objects that your left eye sees onto a plane, and then turning that into a 2D image, and then repeating this process for the right eye. The studios record the 2D projections when the movie is created. The TVs render the 2D projections. Since there isn't any technology in the system that can detect the orientation of the viewer's head (much less change the 2D images since those were recorded previously), a viewer with a turned head will still see the images designed for an upright head orientation. So it will appear as if images are ghosting left and right (up and down from the viewer's rotated perspective), and there will be no apparent 3D effect.

Unless the viewer rotates the TV 90 degrees also, in which case either kind of glasses would still work anyway.

these TV's are already outdated. at CES a company showed 3D Tv's that didnt require glasses. Why would I want to buy a TV, that will be outdated as soon as I purchase it and will more than likely be a 3 thousand dollar hit in my pocket 1.5 years later when something better comes along.

Despite the doubts and some who are convinced that "no one will want one", the first batch of 3d televisions sold out in the first two days of release. There are people that don't have an interest in or just don't like 3d, but don't forget there are a lot that do like 3d. Don't forget about that group of people out there, or you will eat your words in a couple of years.