Projection, or Digital?

Looking around for HDTVs, came across two types: Projection, and Digital... Which is better? \'specially for games... Like HALO.

These are the two I\'m looking at right now...

Panasonic 47" Widescreen Rear-Projection HDTV Monitor with 2-Tuner Picture-In-Picture

Toshiba 36" Flat-Tube HDTV Monitor with 16:9 Compression

... Help?

I believe that digital TVs offer better image quality... but I\'m not an expert.

For widescreen, progressive, and HD material go for an HDTV.  The 47" Pana is very tweakable and is in very many peoples\' price range.  Just buy what you can afford, the bigger the better.

Yeah, decide how much you want to spend, and how big you want it to be.  Then the available choices will be obvious.  I think projection TVs are a good choice, but keep in mind that they need to be calibrated more often than direct view televisions to keep the focus and convergence at it\'s best.  You can learn how to do this yourself.

Do you watch more widescreen content, or 4:3 content?  If you care more about the quality of your 4:3 content, then you might want to get a 4:3 projection television.  I think those can be had cheaper than, and you can still get a great letterboxed widescreen image out of some of them.

Already picked. Getting the 36" Toshiba.

I remembered the stuff about burn-in that big screen rear projection HDTVs have. Dont wanna deal with that.

I\'ve had a Toshiba 65H80 for about 9 months, and I haven\'t noticed any burn-in attributable to my consoles.  I think if you use even a tiny amount of caution, you won\'t have any problems.  All the old guys on the home theater forums who would never consider playing a video game love to harp on this, but in reality it\'s not as big a problem as they say it is.

Originally posted by Nu Gundam


I remembered the stuff about burn-in that big screen rear projection HDTVs have. Dont wanna deal with that.

From what I remember, you should only have worry about "burn-in" unless you get a really cheap projection screen or leave a game/movie on pause for like 15 hours.

If you havent paid for the TV yet and 36" is what you want, check out sony WEGA\'s..pricier than your average 36" but good none the less.

Originally posted by luckee
From what I remember, you should only have worry about "burn-in" unless you get a really cheap projection screen or leave a game/movie on pause for like 15 hours.

And unfortunately, I do this a lot. I get distracted, have to do something for my parents really fast and end up leaving my room all day with the game paused. It happens a lot more than it should...

Originally posted by luckee
If you havent paid for the TV yet and 36" is what you want, check out sony WEGA\'s..pricier than your average 36" but good none the less.

Eh... I\'ve heard the image quality on WEGA\'s aren\'t as good as some other HDTVs... Like this 36" Toshiba, for example. 0_o

[videoholic]

First off, they are both digital.  They are just projected to the screen entirely differently.

The difference between the two is pretty big.  A direct View CRT TV like the Toshiba you show will give a much better picture than the rear projection tv at ALL ANGLES.  This is the huge difference.  The screens on those rear projection units are geared towards you sitting on the couch directly in front of the set. You will notice that when you are at Best buy, any TV on the floor is tilted up.  Circuit city has their tvs on 3 foot platforms.  This is to give you better viewing angles.  If you walked around that store with all the tvs on the ground they wouldn\'t look nearly as good.  I for one will keep my eye on one set and walk all around it to view the angles.

Some sets I have seen have pretty darn good viewing angles.  One in particular was a sony rear projection I saw about a month ago.  But this is something that is definitely a concern.  So if you have a narrow home theater type room then no biggie, larger is better, but for a normal room you just can\'t beat a regular tube crt HD set.

Other way to go is front projection, but that is a lot more money and a lot more difficult since you have to have great control of the light.  But it kicks ass.

So... Just go with the Toshiba, eh?

Also, what\'ll happen if you dont have great control of the light? Burn?

[videoholic]

By great control of light I am talking about ambient light.  A front projection tv you are shining on a screen on the wall.  You need indirect lighting where none of it hits the wall or you could get a washed out look.

Like I said before, if you are in a narrow room where you don\'t have people sitting on the sides of the tv and everyone watches from the front, then a rear projection works fine.  Larger tv for cheaper.

If you view from different angles and don\'t mind the smaller set then go with a standard direct view.


Burn in, don\'t worry about burn in.  It takes many many hours of a crisp line to burn in.  Although I have heard that plasma screens are more suseptable to it, but you aren\'t buying one of them so no worries.