Modern DLPs have no color wheel, and instead illuminate RGB LEDs in sequence to produce colors. You can still get the rainbow effect (since not all three colors are being seen at once), but they switch faster than the color wheels and supposedly greatly reduce the effect.
There are a few LED-based DLPs, but most still use color wheels.
Just that picture quality has gotten noticeably better in the past four years. My DLP is great, but I see better detail and brighter images on recent sets.
Lotsa food for thought… Thanks, folks. Gonna go look at some 52" LCDs and see how they look in person.
I’ll give another vote to the Sony Bravia. I know it’s only a “small” 32" screen but I’m still in love with it, we’ve spent a fortune on Movies and DVDs since we’ve had it and I haven’t even sorted out the sound properly yet.
Not noticed a significant problem with “off angle” viewing on mine. I sit well to the side of mine when I’m using the PC and can happily watch the TV. Colours aren’t as sharp but for out of the corner of my eye viewing it’s still better quality than my old TV.
Don’t get a DLP.
The lens is at the bottom, facing up. It will get covered with dust, and cleaning it usually requires a service call. Also - cobwebs. And even, spiders. Inside your TV. wtf?
I now have an LCD Sharp Aquos 52". Pretty happy with it. Very sharp, maybe too sharp. Colors aren’t quite as bright as my JVC DLP was, but, hey, no cobwebs.
I’m waiting for SED technology to finally find its way to the consumer market. Fortunately, my current TVs should last me for the next 4-5 years.
Is Wesinghouse still around? Don’t they offer pretty affordable, decent quality sets?
Also, how are the Samsungs? They have good prices, but do you suffer from much poorer quality?
Yeah, SED sounds cool, but it also sounds like it’s never going to make it to market…
I’m still happy with my Westinghoue 47" that I’ve had for almost a year and a half now. I know there are sets that have better contrast ratios, but I’m still really happy with my purchase.
LCD - sharp, samsung, or sony (in ascending order by price)
fyi sharp D64U series is on sale at fry’s today. 52" - $1900 (<- I have this one and really like it, very minor banding that I can live with), 46" = $1400. Puts it about $100 over the friends and family deal ($1800,$1300).
Then again, the Sharp LC-65D90U 65-inch LCD is now under $4500. That’s a lot of money, but 65-inches… damn.
I’ve got my fingers crossed on this one. Combining all the picture quality Pros of CRT technology with all the form-factor Pros of LCD is like a dream come true.
Regarding Olevia, the NYT had a pretty good write up on them a year or so ago.
The HDTV landscape has changed a bit since then, but it’s still an interesting read.
It’s very unlikely at this point. They haven’t been able to successfully scale up manufacturing. I’m beginning to believe that large OLED displays will make it to market well before SED, and those will kill SED.
Cool read.
My favorite feature on the Olevia set, and something I’ve not seen on other sets so far, is it’s use of a virtual bezel - the edge of the picture, instead of being covered by physical plastic, simply is drawn as black pixels. If you’re feeding it a pure digital source you can turn this “bezel” off and see all 1920X1080 pixels. No overscan at all. It’s like they knew some people would want to hook up PCs to their sets and designed for that. It’s a nice touch.
Here’s the closest thing to a direct technology comparison you’ll find. If you’ve got the cash, plasma’s definitely where it’s at today.
The problem with this is that if you want (ahem, need) a 60+ inch image, you aren’t likely to be able to afford it with any technology but DLP.