Audioholics, our favorite home theater addictophiles have reviewed Optoma’s 50 inch plasma HDTV offering.

This plasma is not the best as far as features and control set, but it makes up for it in the price department. Also, you’ll want to look elsewhere if you view a lot of standard definition (non-digital) material, as its processing for interlaced sources is poor.

Out of a possible five for each category, here is how they scored it:

4 - Build Quality
3 - User Interface/Remote
2 - Features
3 - Detail and Video Quality
4 - Contrast & Black Levels
4 - Color Reproduction
2 - Calibration Options

3.25 Overall
4 Value

“Conclusion:
The Optoma PD50A plasma television is, as we mentioned, quite possibly the least expensive 50-inch plasma display on the market (street price). For users with digital sources it’s almost a no-brainer, unless you’re a stickler for D65 color temperature and a perfect color profile. In that case, you’ll need to spend quite a bit more money to get this much television. For the rest, the Optoma represents a plasma display that is large, attractive and will be quite impressive to your friends.”

Full Review

Via HD Blog

Bring on the bling, it’s Christmas time baby! Panasonic’s ultra-popular 42-inch plasma, the TH-42PD50U, can be had for less than 1600 bucks.

That’s right, plasma goodness from Panny for $1599.

Check it out:

Just in time for the holiday shopping rush that begins this Friday, Vizio have announced price drops on their popular LCD and Plasma HDTV sets.

The price drops are as follows:

* L37HDTV Broadens Big-screen LCD Market with $1,499 Everyday Price

* VIZIO 50″ Plasma Hits Magic $2,499 Price Point

* Most Popular 32″ LCD Gets $100 Price Drop to $899

Full Press Release

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has awarded LG with the “Best of Innovation” stamp in the Digital Display category.

The award goes to the new 50-inch Wireless Plasma HDTV Display, model 50PB2DW.

This unit will be on display at the 2006 CES in Las Vegas on January 5th-8th. Looking forward to more info on this piece of technology.

You heard it here first…

Press Release

Wow, a 50 inch plasma HDTV for less than $2700. Here is a review of the Vizio P50HDM, from personal tech pipeline.

The Good:
“The picture is everything you’d want in an HDTV monitor, although you’ll want to play with the settings a bit, the defaults are a bit dark. The unit will display 4:3 material in a variety of ways, either letterboxed, stretched, zoomed or panaranomically stretched (which leaves the center relatively undistorted while stretching out the edges.) It performed well, even in a well-lit room, putting out an impressive amount of image power.”

The Bad:
“There are only a few dings I can make against the unit. First, the remote makes you toggle between the doubled up inputs (HD1, then HD2, for example.) This is a pet peeve of mine, because it means you can’t program a remote with macro capabilities to set up your home theatre for a given setup. If you’re already on HD1, sending the command again is going to switch you to HD2. In other words, the remote is state-dependent. Also, the connectors are a bit awkward to get at (one of the downsides of wall-mounted displays.) ”

This is not the most in-depth plasma hdtv review, but it sounds like this model is worth a look.


Personal Tech Pipeline | Review: VIZIO P50HDM
Found: engadget

IGN took a look for us at this 26 inch LCD HDTV. Though it’s not the biggest home theater screen, while selling around $999 (see below), this may be a good solution for those looking for a slick HD display for their xbox 360 next gen experience. Not to be confused with the Jimi Hendrix exp… ah nevermind.

Options for HD capable displays get pretty broad at price points above $1,700 (CRTs, DLPs, and low end Plasmas), but for those not yet ready to invest thousands in a new TV, the W2600 will let you get your foot in the high-definition door and your money’s worth out of your future XBox 360 and Playstation 3.

Full Review

While Plasma and Rear Projection sale prices remained generally stable, LCD prices have been falling in October, especially the larger sized models.

LCD TV models are now being advertised at the same price points as PDP TV models in the 42-inch segment, and both technologies have narrowed the price gap with RPTV models of similar size, according to PMA (Pacific Media Assoc) Vice President Rosemary Abowd. The aggressive pricing in all three segments may make it difficult for retailers to cut prices further as we lead up to Black Friday and head into the holiday buying season, Abowd said.

“The biggest advertised price movements in October were for larger LCD TVs. In the 40-to 42-inch category, advertised prices continued to challenge 42-inch HD (high definition) PDP technology. An Olevia-branded 42-inch model appeared at J&R for US$2,299, and Best Buy offered a 40-inch JVC LCD TV for US$2,999, down US$500 from September.

Prices for Sharp LCD TVs declined across-the-board, with its 26-inch model offered at US$1,199 (Circuit City, CompUSA); 32-inch model falling several hundred dollars to around US$1,500 at several retailers; and 37-inch model priced at US$1,999 (6th Avenue Electronics), which is US$800 lower than the September advertised prices.

In the 26- and 27-inch LCD segment, models from Maxent (US$688 at 6th Avenue Electronics), ViewSonic (US$750 at CompUSA), Westinghouse (US$800 at Best Buy & The Great Indoors) and Syntax (US$800 at CompUSA) mirrored September’s prices and remained several hundred dollars below similar-sized top-brand models.”

News Source

In the big screen LCD sector, the competition is heating up. Both Samsung and LG-Philips are moving ahead of schedule for mass production of 40, 42, 46 and 47 inch LCD HDTV models.

Look for this battle to be one by who is first in with consumers.

Market watchers say LG-Philips and Samsung advanced their schedule for the new factories in a bid to seize control of the large-LCD market segment. LG-Philips focuses on manufacturing 42-inch and 47-inch LCDs, Samsung on 40-inch and 46-inch LCDs.

Source

Here is a decent review of Panasonic’s popular 50″ plasma hdtv. It lacks a tuner and aspect ratio control, but has great image quality.

Available under 3 grand (see “Best Deals” tab below), this set is a great choice.

“The good: Relatively inexpensive; excellent black-level performance; accurate color decoding; solid video processing with 2:3 pull-down; independent memory per input; versatile PIP function; extensive picture adjustments; customizable inputs.

The bad: Does not include a stand, a tuner, or speakers; sparse input selection; doesn’t include a digital input; cannot change aspect ratios with HDTV sources; floats blacks.

The bottom line: Although it’s missing a couple of inputs, the Panasonic TH-50PHD8UK surpasses any 50-inch plasma we’ve reviewed in terms of image quality and overall value.”

CNET Review

Plasma TV buying guide has taken some polls for a few interesting questions.

This one is:
What plasma TV size are you considering purchasing?

42 inch sized screens are well in the lead at 50%, with 50 inch screens pulling in second at 22%. Third through fifth spots are shared closely between 61, 37, and 32 inch models.

Check out their polls page for a few other polls.