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Hardware

Forty-two Inch Plasma Monitor 269

Posted by michael from the first-post-power dept.
An anonymous reader writes "PCstats has a review of what should have been under my Christmas tree - a 42" plasma display from Samsung Since Santa couldn't have possibly brought this monster down the chimney, we'll just have to be satisfied with the review. They even hooked it up to a computer and played games on it...."
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Forty-two Inch Plasma Monitor More

Forty-two Inch Plasma Monitor

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  • 42"! The ANSWER! (Score:5, Funny)

    by gpinzone ( 531794 ) on Saturday December 28, 2002 @10:58PM (#4974602) Homepage Journal
    But what is the question?

  • Gaming monitor (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gabrill ( 556503 ) on Saturday December 28, 2002 @10:59PM (#4974607)
    At that size, who needs 3 monitors to display peripheral vision? Reminds me of the 'Wall' that President Scroob was talking to in the bathroom from Spaceballs.
    • "Reminds me of the 'Wall' that President Scroob was talking to in the bathroom from Spaceballs."

      Actually it was Skroob. I'm not correcting you because I'm an over zealous Spaceballs fan, but because you reminded me of something I heard once. Skroob is 'Brooks' spelled backwards. As in Mel Brooks...

      I love DVD's with commentary tracks. heh.

  • Why si this review news? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by packeteer ( 566398 ) <packeteer@@@subdimension...com> on Saturday December 28, 2002 @10:59PM (#4974608)
    I hate to troll but...

    I dont understand the drool factor of huge tv's...

    if you want a biger screen you can buy it wiht enough money... there is no point in looking at these "wonders of technology" if your not going to buy them...

    why dont we look at a movie theatere and talk about how cool it would be to spend $1M on a screen and stereo setup...

    • Re:Why si this review news? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Osty ( 16825 ) on Saturday December 28, 2002 @11:07PM (#4974653)

      why dont we look at a movie theatere and talk about how cool it would be to spend $1M on a screen and stereo setup...

      You mean you don't do this?


      Just as some people drool over the latest CPU, or the newest video card, some of us drool over the latest in A/V technology. Whether that's a new set of speakers or a DVD player, or a bigger, better, fancier TV, it's all still drool-worthy. Maybe we can't afford it just now, but what does that matter? These kind of reviews give us the insight on whether or not what we're lusting after is really a good idea.


      Personally, I'd rather just go down to the local Magnolia Hi-Fi [magnoliahifi.com] and drool over the new sets in person. I've bought enough stuff there that a couple of the sales people know me already (heck, I always end up with the same guy), so it's quite easy to get personalized demonstrations. Even if all I end up buying is some cabling, the salespeople have still done their job -- I usually end up with something else to add to my wishlist.

      • I dread going to electronics stores and having the local sales-vulture approach me.

        I'm thinking about starting a site to promote a "stay the hell away from me"-style badge that people could wear to retail stores to warn salesdroids that they are NOT welcome to approach/pander/sell to me because I know exactly what I'm looking for, or I just want to browse in peace.

        N.

        • I agree and disagree. There are some stores that just take this way too far (*cough*Circuit City*cough*). If I'm in Circuit City, chances are I know what I want, and I just want to get it and get out. However, there are other stores, like the previously mentioned Magnolia Hi-fi, where I welcome the sales people. Mostly, this is because they know what they're talking about, and usually we just end up shooting the shit over what's new, or what set A has that's better than set B, or what I can do next to my home theater setup, or whatever. I've spent time and energy to build a rapport with those guys. When I walk into the store, I'll usually get a, "Hey, how's it going?" I like that. I never feel pressured into buying anything.


          On the flip side, there are some stores that should do a better job of approaching the customer. Case in point: I went into the local CompUSA to buy a laptop earlier this month. I knew exactly what laptop I wanted, but I obviously needed somebody to get one for me. It took me a good half hour just to find somebody willing to help me get the laptop I wanted to buy. That's taking the "ignore the customer" thing to the wrong extreme. A happy medium in most cases would be to have associates be around and visible. Maybe approach customers, telling them, "Hi, I'm George, and can answer any questions you may have. Just come grab me if you need me," and then walk away (stay in the area, but don't hover). Then, when I need the guy, he's already there and ready. There'll still be exceptions to this (like Magnolia Hi-Fi, or my car dealership), but in most cases I think that would work out best.


          I don't want to be ignored, I just want to be left alone until I feel like I need someone to help me. And at that point, somebody better be there to help me, or there'll be trouble.

          • Amen to that; around but not in your face.

            Some sales guys are quite annoying.. When I'm in a foul mood once in a long while, I like to play computer-dumb and mess with them. I was in Futureshop, quite a few years ago, and had a rookie sales guy looking all over the place for a white ink cartridge because I told him I wanted to print on black paper. heh, that was fun..

        • Amen! (Score:2)

          by zenyu ( 248067 )
          Sales people seem to be the only people in the world incapable of reading the body language that screams, "Get the hell away from me!"

          That's prolly why they end up doing sales. They don't actually have to help you to get their commission. I may not want to help them, but a good customer in their eyes. I usually know exactly what I want and where to find it. Quick and easy for the salesdroid.

          I've found that if you state exactly what you're looking for in precise language, they just tell you they don't carry it and then leave you in peace until you find it and the other stuff you're browsing for. It's important to be intimidating so have a good 2-3 minute spiel with no choices, just specs in it.
          • That's prolly why they end up doing sales. They don't actually have to help you to get their commission. I may not want to help them, but a good customer in their eyes. I usually know exactly what I want and where to find it. Quick and easy for the salesdroid.

            When my car started to show signs of age I drove off to the local SAAB dealer with check book in pocket. You might think that a 30 something guy driving a 5 year old SAAB 9000 sport model who came in to ask about the new model range would be a pretty hot sales prospect.

            The sales staff were completely uninterested.

    • I think the basic reason people "drool" over such things is that, while this is currently priced well out of the range of most people, the fact that it exists and is on the market means it could very well be cheap and commonplace in 3-5 years. The "drooling" is subconsciously anticipatory, not just random pipe-dream stuff. IMO, of course.
    • Bah humbug....

      I don't understand the drool factor of faster cars...

      If you want a faster car you can buy it with enough money...there is no point in lusting after these "wonders of speed and handling" if you're not going to buy them...

      why don't we look at an Audi R8 Prototype and talk about how cool it would be to spend $5M on a 610 hp car....


      You my friend, are missing the point. And if you don't know what that point is, maybe you shouldn't post comments on Slashdot.

  • wow (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 28, 2002 @10:59PM (#4974609)
    that's some tree you've got, if you can fit a 42" screen under it!

  • I'd never pay $10,000... (Score:5, Funny)

    by iiioxx ( 610652 ) <iiioxx@gmail.com> on Saturday December 28, 2002 @11:03PM (#4974627)
    ... for anything I couldn't drive, sleep in, or have sex with.

  • Complaint (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) <<ten.elcychtneves> <ta> <kram>> on Saturday December 28, 2002 @11:03PM (#4974633) Homepage
    I'm not giving my my CRT until there's something that can do 2048x1536 at the same brightness, same refresh rate, and same price.

    Until then, there's no point drooling at something that is more stylish, but doesn't have the punch.

    • Re:Complaint (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Saturday December 28, 2002 @11:25PM (#4974738)
      I don't know. I've got a 24" 1920x1200 HDTV CRT running off of a Radeon VE (AGP) on my Windows 98 PC right now. (I know... I've got some really mixed up levels of technology here.) I think I'd be willing to lose something on either the resolution, brightness, refresh, or the price in trade for a 42" display. And, yes, a 24" HDTV monitor pretty much takes up my entire cornerpiece for my desks. It is HUGE.
      • I've got a 24" 1920x1200 HDTV CRT running off of a Radeon VE (AGP) on my Windows 98...

        Meanwhile I'm getting one of these 48" plasma displays and a DTS 300 watt 7 speaker setup for my commodore 64.
  • We mounted *4* similar sized plasma monitors (apprax 2x4 ft) on a wall to make up a total of 4x8 ft using 4 video cards in one PC.

    And that was about a year ago. It's kinda cool, and cost $28,000 for the monitors at the time.

    But still, it isn't anything new, and not anything I can justify at home. Prices will have to really drop before I get one; especially with the job market as it is.

  • even on a saturday night they've been slashdotted.

    Seriously though, unless the long promised merger of your pc with your entertainment center finally happens what use is there for a 42 inch monitor of any sort?
    • We here on /. are to pathetic to have anything to do on saturday night.

      Seriously though, I would never trust any "merger of my pc and entertainment center" such as the "HP Media Center PC." Just throw a video capture card (the Haupauge PCI TV card works fine w/ v4l) into a Linux box. It is neither difficult nor complicated. It seems like my server does nothing but host some websites [dnsart.com] and show TV. I recommend mplayer [mplayerhq.hu] in spite of it playing Stargate in French occasionally.

  • AWESOME (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SHEENmaster ( 581283 ) <travis&utk,edu> on Saturday December 28, 2002 @11:17PM (#4974699) Homepage Journal
    A 42" screen that I can watch TV on at 640x480. That's only nineteen DPI.

    Or, I could play doom on it at less than ten dots per inch!

    I wonder what a Doom3 framerate would be at an acceptable resolution for this!? Would you need to pay more for the computer to use this than for the monitor? Does Windows have a "special edition"(seperate $300 license) for this type of display?
    • nice 'switch' thing, but I hate to tell you this - iBooks aren't 64bit.

    • Re:AWESOME (Score:4, Informative)

      by Shaheen ( 313 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @03:37AM (#4975456) Homepage
      The display resolution of standard Television is NOT 640x480. It is (approximately - I've forgotten exact numbers) 500 'lines' of data.

      However, plasma display screens are (in my humble opinion) NOT meant for standard television at all. HDTV perhaps, but definitely not standard broadcast signals.

      These screens have been used for high definition displays at conferences and such before. Mostly because they provide awesome resolution with very good viewability (usually around the 160 degree range).

      Now, these screens are finding consumer-level uses in home theater and video games. What you want is a source that actually has the resolution the plasma screen can display. These sources come from devices such as a modern progressive scan DVD player and Xbox, GameCube, and to a lesser extent PS2 (it only supports 480i/p to my knowledge).

      Signals that support these resolutions are encoded in a format called "Component" (or YPrPb). A lot of people know about "RCA" and "S-Video". Component looks exactly like RCA (except it's color coded differently and it encodes high definition signals). Most good plasmas also come with a VGA connector for exactly that - XGA/UXGA/SVGA/VGA/etc.

      Computers are a also a good use for these screens, but I haven't seen them used for standard computer desktops at all yet.

      If you're putting together a home theater, you definitely want a plasma screen (see http://plasmatvbuyingguide.com [plasmatvbuyingguide.com] for reviews 'n stuff).

      The parent post doesn't seem to know what he's talking about.
      • as in Television or NTSC(640x480) for nerds like us. I was not talking about the max that the screen could handle.

        With the site /.ed, I had to use the pythagorean therom rather than porportioning width and height. If you "knew what you were talking about", you would've caught that.
    • We have a SGI CAVE system at work, at a nearly 7 x 7 cube it is huge. The guys that run it are all happy because they have 1280*1280 (it's not quite square, 1280x something smaller, I don't remeber - oh yea, they got a new machine to drive it and moved up from 1024xsomething a little smaller) resolution. I had basically the same thought as you. But after playing quake on it I would have to say I was very impressed, both by the detail and the immersive environment. I don't know why it looked good (the DPI had to suck) but whatever it was it worked (I suppose given the right set of inputs my brain filled in the rest?).

      That being said I have not personally seen this monitor and can not specifically answer your missgiving, just that DPI in CRT != DPI on a cave system (or the immersa(sp?) desk as it was quite low also)
  • I had a 50 inch plasma television for a while but I had to return it. Whenever I watched it for more than a half hour I got a brutal migraine. I found out that plasma displays actually emit very high frequency soundwaves which can cause strain on some people.

    If you have a cat or dog, it will normally leave the room if you turn on the plasma display, because they are even more sensitive to high frequency sound waves than we are. I would not recommend anyone buy these devices without testing it for a long period of time to make sure you are not suseptable to strain from watching it.

    • Most TVs give me headaches (Score:4, Interesting)

      by freeweed ( 309734 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @01:16AM (#4975093)
      I've never formally measured the frequency, but I'm one of those unlucky people to be really sensitive to the high pitched whine that most every television/monitor I've ever seen emits when turned on. It's even worse when a tube is about to go south, I almost can't stand it. Oddly enough, a lot of people I've talked to have no idea what I mean, they can't hear a thing. But ever since I was in grade school (at least), I've been able to tell if a TV is turned on even with my eyes closed and the volume muted.

      I'll tell you, walking into an appliance store is a real challenge, with all the noise the wall of 200 TVs gives out. Now, I've never isolated a plasma screen by itself, but I usually can tell by how close I am to something just what it is that's making the noise - and plasma screens don't do it for me. This is one reason I'm anxiously awaiting the prices to drop - watching television is somewhat of a pain in the head for me.

      I'm curious, do you know just how high a frequency a plasma display emits? And are you yourself sensitive to normal CRTs?
      • Actually, most people can hear the whine of an NTSC television; the horizontal scanning circuitry operates at only 15.75kHz, which is well within the range of human hearing. Some television sets are louder than others, but they all make noise. Hearing sensitivity drops with age though; my parents can't understand why I always turn an unwatched television set off.

        You don't hear this noise with computer displays because higher resolutions require higher scan frequencies. As a case in point, my display at 1280x1024x75Hz has a horizontal scan rate of 80.1kHz, which is well beyond the hearing range of any animal.

        HDTV scan frequencies:
        480i (NTSC) : 15.75kHz
        480p : 31.5kHz
        720p : 45kHz
        1080i : 33.75kHz

        This, by the way, is the reason that most sets on the market today will do 1080i but not the lower resolution 720p: a higher horizontal scan frequency is required for progressive scan, and that means more expensive circuitry.

        It also illustrates why NTSC was designed as interlaced rather than progressive: it requires much less bandwidth and simpler circuitry.

        The parent poster's plasma display is probably operating in 480p. Dogs can hear the resulting 31.5kHz scan frequency, and while humans can't, I guess in some rare cases, the ultrasonic noise causes headaches.

      • It can be extremely frustrating when others write you off as mad because they can't hear what you're complaining about.

        A few years back now, I purchased a new hard disk. If was a kinda new "high speed" drive, and when I got home and plugged it in it emitted this most excruciating very high pitched whine. There was no way I was going to put up with it so I went back to the store (and took my PC to demonstrate the problem).

        Sales guy plugged it in on their test bench in the shop area, and couldn't hear a thing outside of the "normal" sound. "They all make that noise mate". :(

        At which point, the manager walked into the store from the back room and shouted out "Je*** Ch**** what's that noise?!!!".

        I got my replacement. Next one was fine. :)
      • It's the electron beam sweeping across the screen to make the picture. LCDs, Plasma screens etc. don't have that, so they don't make that sound:

        NTSC: 525 scanlines * 60 Hertz / 2 (interlacted) = 15,75kHz
        PAL: 576 scanlines * 50 Hertz / 2 (interlaced) = 14,4kHz

        Of course here I have one widescreen TV (not HDTV though) that's silent for some reason and one 100Hz PAL TV (= 28,8kHz) so I don't really have a problem with it, though I can hear that high frequencies usually...

        Kjella
  • Here's a mirror [mchsi.com] of the review, complete with images. Enjoy!

  • My Brain! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Saturday December 28, 2002 @11:44PM (#4974814)
    [Left Brain]
    Great! Now we can watch 10 dozen channels of crap at 3 and an half feet tall.

    [Right Brain]
    Yeah but there are TWO Matrix's coming out! And then Return of the King!!

    [Left]
    It's a gazillion dollars!

    [Brain]
    AND Daredevil AND the Hulk.

    [Left]
    Yeah but the resolution could be better and we hatesses the MPAA!

    [Right]
    Look how SMALL Spider-Man is! LEAVE US ALONE!
    It's going right in the middle of that wall.

  • A Waaay cheaper alternative... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tuxinatorium ( 463682 ) on Saturday December 28, 2002 @11:52PM (#4974845) Homepage
    For a (reletively) mere $2,000, you can get a good, bright projector capable HDTV-like quality at 1280x1024 That gives you a good 3'-25' screen for what, 1/10 the price of that plasma monster?
    • here's the link: ,a href="http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?de scription=24-116-263"> Viewsonic PJ511 projector

      It has S-video in, VGA in, etc.

      Only $1,999. Go get one. :)
    • I got the hitachi cpsx5500. Its $5000for true SXGA (1365x1024). [note that the viewsonic mentioned above is only XGA 1024x768].

      The hitachi is really great. Super bright and about 8 feet across. Its so much better than a plasma screen I am sad for people duped into buying them.

    • Re:A Waaay cheaper alternative... (Score:4, Informative)

      by mr3038 ( 121693 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @09:17AM (#4976261)
      For a (reletively) mere $2,000, you can get a good, bright projector capable HDTV-like quality at 1280x1024 That gives you a good 3'-25' screen for what, 1/10 the price of that plasma monster?

      ...and later in the same thread you gave us a link to that "HDTV" projector [newegg.com]. The specs say 1024x768 (usually called XGA), 1500 ansi lumens and contrast ratio of 400:1. That's pretty good, but nowhere near to the image quality of the reviewed plasma display. Well, it has higher resolution, but worse contrast ratio and probably dimmer white point--depending how small image you're going to project.

      In addition, that display is an LCD so you can forget ever seeing black again--especially in this case due to high brightness. In addition to greyish "black" you can be pretty sure to be able to see pixel structure due to LCD technology. True, you cannot get true black from plasma display either. For maximum image quality I'd use UXGA (or better) DLP projector in a black painted room. That should provide you with true black and truely sharp image.

      Remember that most projectors have bulb life of 2000 hours or less. And watch out those bulb expences--some do cost well over $500 a piece.

      If a room with walls and the ceiling painted black sounds exaggerating, just think for a second what we're trying to do here: we're trying to make white panel (silver screen or something similar) to look truly black. If any part of the image has any light, the light will be reflected back from any non-black surface in the viewing room, namely walls, which makes the full screen to wash out. Trust me, I do own a CRT projector in a small room that has white walls and I'm not allowed to paint those darker. Black curtains help a little, though.

  • Article Inaccuracies (Score:3, Interesting)

    by I Am The Owl ( 531076 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:07AM (#4974883) Homepage Journal
    The simplest way to think about each of these three subpixels is as little fluorescent lights which together form a matrix of tiny 1.08mm x 1.08mm pixels.

    I hate to nitpick, but NTSC pixels are not square. They are 1:1.33 rectangles. That would be 1.08mm x 1.4364mm pixels. Which leads me to wonder how distorted the computer game looked...

    • > but NTSC pixels are not square. They are 1:1.33 rectangles

      Yeah, Jukka Aho's A Quick Guide to Digital Video Resolution and Aspect Ratio Conversions [uwasa.fi] page goes into this.

      And then there is this gem [hometheaterhifi.com], which shows what anamorphic really looks like.

      Cheers

  • A winning combo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stwrtpj ( 518864 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:13AM (#4974907) Journal

    Here's a winning combo for you: 42 inch TV combined with digital cable. Now not only can you have MORE of the same crap (500+ channels), you can get it BIGGER, too.

    I think TV sizes are going the same way as cable channels; more is not necessarily better.

  • What do you get if you multiply six by nine?
  • Dude, that's like $400 US! Sign me up.
  • The database boys at my job have a pretty big (though not 42") display that they run DB monitor apps on. Since they're monitor apps, they're on continuously, and the display has them all burned in. From what I hear CRTs are largely burn-proof now, and LCDs always have been. Is this a problem with plasma displays?
    • I was just reading the 'cure' for a burned-in image on Apple's support area. The cure was to leave a white rectangle up (filling the screen) for the same length of time the image that is 'burned' onto the screen was displayed (which causes the burn)

  • component & s-video & composite (Score:5, Informative)

    by FredMcGriff ( 560545 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:32AM (#4974964)
    The composite video inputs offered the best overall picture which is to be expected, followed by the RCA video connection and S-Video in a distant last place.

    This statement worries me, here's why (excerpt from a cnet article [cnet.com]):

    Composite video

    Although the composite-video system was developed for color-TV signals, it doesn't give you a very sharp picture. Composite video was created as a backward-compatible solution for television's transition from black and white to color. It was a fairly clever solution to the problem of how to continue to send the same black-and-white picture to all the old sets and layer color information on top--a composite of those two picture components. The black-and-white sets ignored the color component, while the newer sets separated out the color information and displayed it with the black-and-white picture. This made for a smooth TV transition in the 1950s with low-resolution color TVs. Today, though, sophisticated high-resolution displays show all of the compression artifacts and cross-color (or moiré) blurring that comes with a composite video connection. It's simply impossible to perfectly separate the color and picture information of a composite-video signal. So, if your TV picture isn't sharp enough or the colors blur together, the likely culprit is a composite output signal.

    S-Video

    S-Video, which was introduced in the 1980s, solved some of the problems that came with composite video. It provides better color separation and a much cleaner signal. S-Video does so by keeping separate the color and picture parts of a composite-video signal. You'll find S-Video ports on most TVs for sale today, but not many people are really taking advantage of them yet. Why is that? Well, take a look at Direct Broadcast Satellite, for example. It starts broadcasting in the composite-video domain, and even though it is a component-video format, the artifacts associated with composite video still show up in the picture.

    Component video

    Component video improves the picture quality even more by not only separating the color from the black-and-white portions of the picture but by further splitting the color information into two color-difference signals. When the picture signal is split up in this way, you get an unfiltered, uninterrupted image, with better resolution and greatly improved color saturation. And this is why component video is the predominant method of hookup from HDTV set-top decoders to HDTVs.

  • Plasma is a dead-end technology. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Noehre ( 16438 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:33AM (#4974965)
    What most people don't understand is how utterly horrible Plasma televisions are from a technological standpoint.

    First. there is the insane problem with burn-in with plasma displays. Plasmas burn in faster than any other display technology. In fact, there is much discussion on the problems that static logos (displayed in the corners of most televisions stations) cause with plasmas. For the same reason, it is absolutely impossible to use a plasma as a computer monitor unless you really want your desktop image, start bar, etc. burned onto the display. Nor is gaming all that favorable considering that most games have at least some static imaging that will cause burn-in if used for any period of time.

    Cost is another factor that is horrible with plasmas. Unless you want to spend multiple tens of thousands of dollars, you are not going to find a plasma with HDTV resolutions. Most of these low-end plasmas max out at 800ish pixels width. Seriously, why would anybody spend that much money on a display that can't handle HDTV?

    And anybody that has actually compared display technologies knows that plasmas are known for having horrible blacks. You will never find a plasma that can display black as anything other than a shade of grey. That is not acceptable.

    The only thing plasma has going for it is 'drool appeal' and thickness.

    For a lot less money you can get a DLP projector that:
    a) Is much cheaper.
    b) Has much higher resolutions, up to HDTV resolution.
    c) Is thinner. (Can your plasma roll up?)
    d) Doesn't suffer from burn-in.
    e) Has much better contrast.

    Why would anybody buy a plasma if they actually did ANY research at all into projection systems? And don't tell me replacing projector bulbs is the reason. The money you save buying a projector over a plasma will pay for many decades of bulbs.
    • > Seriously, why would anybody spend that much money on a display that can't handle HDTV?

      Because I don't watch TV (at all) so I could care less about HDTV. I watch movies (mpeg2 = 720x480 MAX), and play games (PS2 = 512x448, and PC ~ 1024x768 res)

      What's DLP stand for? And what DLP projectors would you recommend?

      Cheers
      • DLP = Digital light processing. A technology invented, or at least commercialized, by Texas Instruments, I believe. See www.dlp.com [dlp.com] or something.

        Oh, and I really don't think the PS2 uses a 512-pixel wide resolution. Some games might, but it's certainly not the only resolution handled by the PS2, and I'd actually be surprised if it's the default, or even the most common.
  • Heretics. As if you never heard of Christmas magic or had forgotten that Santa has the ultimate Bag of Holding.

    A piddly little 42" monitor is nothing compared to the power of the dude in the red suit and his elven magi.

  • Plasma Guides (Score:3, Informative)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @12:35AM (#4974976)
    Since I was just looking at them last week... ;-)

    Scroll down to the bottom for the Plasma Buying Guide [plasmatvbuyingguide.com]

    You can compare plasma screen resolutions [plasmatvbuyingguide.com]
    Note: NO plasmas have a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 (HDTV) yet. Currently they apply a bilinear filter when showing non-native resolutions.

    And check the most popular [plasmatvbuyingguide.com] (Panasonic) choices.

    As well as prices [plasmatvbuyingguide.com] and description [plasmatvbuyingguide.com] of said popular models.

    The cool part, is if you save $175 for 2 years ($4200), you can afford the 42" Panasonic! ($3900 + $169 shipping, from DTVCity - which are reported to be good vendor.

    Cheers

  • HDTV? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MeanMF ( 631837 )
    Where does this reviewer get the balls to call a 852x480 display High Definition? A simple line doubler could convert any standard 480i signal to run on this thing, no HDTV receiver (or downsampling) required. And last time I looked, my projection HDTV screen (50% bigger, at about 50% of the cost) has a VGA input as well... And it even came with free speakers!
  • I went into a Gateway store this weekend to check out their 42" plasma screen. They had a display model with a game of Madden 2003 demoing off of a PC. I asked the guy if I could switch it over to TV so I could see what it'd look like with a real feed going to it instead of a computer feed, and was told "No, we don't have any cable signals in the store." What's the point of selling a plasma screen, if you're not going to allow your potential customers to see how things will look for 90% of its use? I walked out the door.
  • ... it's convincing the spousal unit that I find the most difficult obstacle in getting one of these bad boys into my house!
  • Larry Ellison, the Oracle CEO, has a sunlight-viewable projection TV in his house in Woodside. It uses a projector sized for a movie theater. This allows him to watch big-screen TV in daylight.

    This was really cool when he put it in in the mid 1990s, but now it's kind of dated.

  • I went into one of those electronics boutique shops (the kind that sell high-end stuff, not the computer games) a while ago, and just happened to set my eyes on a plasma screen showing one of the more recent computer graphics animation movies, and it was all I could do to wipe the drool up off the floor. When I talked extensively to the [high-end] salesdroid, he mentioned a failure half-life of the plasma pixels.

    Whoa. These things fail?

    I don't remember his numbers, but it sounded to me that a non-trivial number of pixels would be gone within a few years; and the droid also mentioned that plasma pixels tend to fail a scan line at a time.

    Can anybody shed some light on how/if/why plasma panel screens fail? I'd hate to plunk down some serious buckage just to have the thing start looking nasty in a couple years.

    I don't want to be a pioneer here. You can tell the pioneers: they're the ones with the arrows in their backs.

  • Forty two inches is a big tv
    That monitor would be some geek's wet dream
    Big enough to make any nerd happy
    This is starting to sound very obscene

    But really, who needs a screen that's that big?
    Such monitors are really overkill
    and who affords that? Capitalist pig!
    Dig, this whole trip makes me feel somewhat ill.

    Still, it is quite impressive that such things
    can be; it's a long way from cathode tubes.
    Hell, I'm still using an old CRT
    Yep, nothing here will rhyme except for boobs.

    Conclude: If you think this post has no class;
    If I ever meet you I'll kick your ass.

  • S-Video VS. Composite? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Overand ( 590318 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @03:45AM (#4975472) Homepage
    I don't really trust a review that: A: Doesn't talk about the longevity problems with plasma displays (they have circuitry built in to compensate for the wearing out display elements, but it only lasts so long, some folks say ~3 years, but I'd say that's pessimisting) B: Says the S-Video input had WORSE picture quality as compared to Composite. Sure, it could be a problem with this particular display model, but they didn't even comment on how *strange* that is. The whole thing is fishy.

  • Anyone been to Hartsfield airport lately? (Score:3, Informative)

    by silverhalide ( 584408 ) on Sunday December 29, 2002 @07:23AM (#4975950)
    One HUGE downside to plasmas is they're just like old monitors -- they BURN IN BADLY. Go take a trip to Hartfield airport sometime in the delta terminal where they have several plasma displays in use for only a year or two, and they have hooorrrriiibbllleee discoloration where the persistant images were. They're no good for PC use.

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