The nice thing about LCD screens.......

[ajmrowland]

is that if they have dust, it only shows up in a fully lit room.

The not-so-nice thing: Black levels aren't very deep, due to the bright nature of the display.

What are your thoughts?

[David S.]

Nice signature!

I completely agree about the black level issues. I like to watch with the lights off, so having deep, solid, black levels is important. But my biggest problem with the LCDs I've experienced in hotel rooms and such can be shown in this picture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Think ... arison.JPG

The viewing angle issues - constant shifting of color/contrast/brightness as I moved up and down and right and left relative to the TV (like a cell phone) was a HUGE turn-off and one of the biggest reasons (besides price) I haven't been chomping at the bits to aquire one of these type of TVs. My flatscreen tube CRT TVs deliver deep, rich blacks, vibrant colors, and my DVDs look fantastic on them.

A friend of mine who is into tech stuff says these viewing angle issues have since improved with newer LCDs, but based on my experience, if and when I have to replace my CRTs, I'm thinking plasma, plasma, plasma.

I'm waiting for the prices to substantially drop, too, as I've never spent more than 200 dollars for a TV! And I will want it to be at least as tall as my CRT 4:3 TVs to make sure classic 4:3 films like Pinocchio don't actually look smaller in their proper ratio than the way I'm used to seeing them. And stretching anything filmed in 4:3 to fill the screen is absolutely out of the question!

[ajmrowland]

I can see your argument perfectly. My tv was made in 2007, and the black level issue just leave it very mildly gray, especially on the edges. The other issues with seating and such have been reduced by at least 90%. All-in-all, I'm pretty happy at the moment. Colors are handled quite well and everything. Plasma will probably be next, though, or even projector.


And thanks for the compliment on my sig! I had Enigmawing do it. I'm still trying to learn the basics of Photoshop, so I'm not quite there.

[KubrickFan]

I personally own a plasma television, but my parents and my brother own lcd televisions. I think plasmas are much better, the black levels are really better, in my opinion. There's also a sharpness on the lcd sets I can't stand, and that's much more apparent if you watch something on the relatively softer looking plasma set first. Viewing angles on my parents' tv is alright, but on my brother's set it's absolutely horrible. You have to sit right in front of it to see it perfectly. If you slouch just a little, the picture is already getting darker.
Plasma isn't without it's problems too, like image retention and color banding (at least on my set), but the positive things about it far outweigh the negative.

[Jules]

I can see your argument perfectly. My tv was made in 2007, and the black level issue just leave it very mildly gray, especially on the edges.

My father and I have a plasma TV, and interestingly I've never been blown away with its black levels. With the lights off, blacks look grey. Very grey. And my brightness setting is fine. Actually, even if I adjust brightness to the minimum level it will still look grey.

Oh well. Otherwise the TV is fine, and Blu-rays look damn beautiful on it, and it's a 720p set.

Plasma isn't without it's problems too, like image retention.

Couldn't agree more. Image retention doesn't ruin the beauty of plasma technology, but it's like an annoying pest. I'm almost afraid of watching 4:3 material on the TV for fear of marking it permanently or something (it's very sensitive). Thankfully, so far retained images have disappeared as fast as they came.

Oh, and for that reason I can't imagine one using a plasma to play videogames. I think that in such a case one should definitely opt for an LCD.

One more thing. Here in Europe (and in my country) I've been seeing lots of ads for a new breed of TVs called LED TVs, but they're very expensive. I wonder how good they are ...

[ajmrowland]

We get LED ads a lot too.


One thing that helps is to NOT have all the lights off when watching a tv, as dim lighting is often ideal compared to no lighting at all.

And what about LCDs being sharper? I don't think that's necessarily relevant as it's niot always the case. Movies that look soft will suddenly not be sharper on an LCD screen.

[dvdjunkie]

First want to say: NEVER, but NEVER watch your television with no lights on in the room your are watching it in. Ask your Optomomtrist about this, and he will tell you how much damage you do to your eyes watching television in a darkened room.


Second, if you are the owner of a Plasma, LCD, LED, or other HDTV and have not had it professionally calibrated you will never see the picture as it was intended. I own a LG LCD 56" HDTV monitor and when I was shown the difference between a calibrated picture and a non-calibrated picture, it was like day and night. You say that your blacks are not as black, and are almost gray. This is a sign that your HDTV needs to be calibrated by a professional.

Sure there are DVD's with THX optimizers available, but these are not calibrations to your set, and your set will change from day to day and movie to movie. When you have your HDTV calibrated the colors are sharper, and the blacks are blacker, and you can actually see every detail in a Hi-Def Blu-Ray picture that you probably aren't seeing without the calibration.

Want to see the difference, go to your nearest Home Theater store, Best Buy, or wherever they sell good quality electronics, and have them show you the side-by-side comparisons of a calibrated picture and non-calibrated picture. The difference will be astounding.

If you feel a lot of heat coming off your HDTV when you get close to it, that is energy that is being wasted and you are burning up the panels in your flat screen tv. Calibration can save you up to 20% on your electricity bill that a non-caibrated television causes. Plus you add years to the life of your LCD, LED, Plasma or whatever Flat Screen HDTV you have no matter what size - be it a 19" or a 72" size screen, all HDTV's need to be calibrated for effeciency and quality after a 200-hour burn in.

I was a total non-believer in this until I had it done on mine, and now I am shouting it out to everyone who wants to see a brilliant picture and colors that you have never seen before. Price for this calibration varies from state to state, and your Best Buy Geeks have the best price that I have found. Check into it.

And PLEASE, PLEASE, DO NOT WATCH A TELEVISION, HD OR OTHERWISE, IN A DARKENED ROOM. Have at least a minimum of a 25 watt light somewhere in the room or behind the television set. Your eyes will thank you for it in the years ahead.

[KubrickFan]

And what about LCDs being sharper? I don't think that's necessarily relevant as it's niot always the case. Movies that look soft will suddenly not be sharper on an LCD screen.

It has a sharper look to it, it's not sharper at all. Like edge enhancement used on vhs, dvd and Blu-ray unfortunately, it simply makes it look sharper without actually being sharper. A lot of people who owned plasma televisions (can't comment about LED tvs) said that's the first thing about LCD televisions that struck them, how they looked too sharp.

About watching in the dark, I don't think it's too bad because you have light bouncing off the walls next to the television to help compensate the brightness.

[ajmrowland]

I keep a couple lamps behind my tv to get a close approximate to the lighting of a theater. The difference between that and reflected light is night and day.

[dvdjunkie]

KubrickFan wrote:

About watching in the dark, I don't think it's too bad because you have light bouncing off the walls next to the television to help compensate the brightness.

That is precisely what is bad for your eyes. Retinitis is caused by watching television with no lights on in the room. I asked my Opthalmologist about this and he said that a minimum of 25 watts of light should be lighting the room when watching the television. This will keep a person from getting eye-aches and even headaches from watching television in the dark. A person under the age of 16 who does this, is more apt to need bi-focals in his glasses about one-third earlier than one who watches television in a semi-lighted room.

And if your television has that much refracted light, you definitely are using up to much energry, and costing you precious life of your HDTV panels. A properly calibrated television set does not refract that much light. If your lights up the room as you described, then it is time for you to think about calibration of your television.

[KubrickFan]

That is precisely what is bad for your eyes. Retinitis is caused by watching television with no lights on in the room. I asked my Opthalmologist about this and he said that a minimum of 25 watts of light should be lighting the room when watching the television. This will keep a person from getting eye-aches and even headaches from watching television in the dark. A person under the age of 16 who does this, is more apt to need bi-focals in his glasses about one-third earlier than one who watches television in a semi-lighted room.

And if your television has that much refracted light, you definitely are using up to much energry, and costing you precious life of your HDTV panels. A properly calibrated television set does not refract that much light. If your lights up the room as you described, then it is time for you to think about calibration of your television.

I should explain that. My television is right next to a wall, so there's bound to be light on the wall, which is white. I also don't watch movies in the dark that often, since that's in the evenings and I can't turn up my sound system too loud in the evening. I'm also not about to shell out 200 euros for a calibration right now, but I have it on good authority that the settings on which they're on now are very close to actually being calibrated. But I will keep that in mind.

[DarthPrime]

First want to say: NEVER, but NEVER watch your television with no lights on in the room your are watching it in. Ask your Optomomtrist about this, and he will tell you how much damage you do to your eyes watching television in a darkened room.


Second, if you are the owner of a Plasma, LCD, LED, or other HDTV and have not had it professionally calibrated you will never see the picture as it was intended. I own a LG LCD 56" HDTV monitor and when I was shown the difference between a calibrated picture and a non-calibrated picture, it was like day and night. You say that your blacks are not as black, and are almost gray. This is a sign that your HDTV needs to be calibrated by a professional.

Sure there are DVD's with THX optimizers available, but these are not calibrations to your set, and your set will change from day to day and movie to movie. When you have your HDTV calibrated the colors are sharper, and the blacks are blacker, and you can actually see every detail in a Hi-Def Blu-Ray picture that you probably aren't seeing without the calibration.

Want to see the difference, go to your nearest Home Theater store, Best Buy, or wherever they sell good quality electronics, and have them show you the side-by-side comparisons of a calibrated picture and non-calibrated picture. The difference will be astounding.

If you feel a lot of heat coming off your HDTV when you get close to it, that is energy that is being wasted and you are burning up the panels in your flat screen tv. Calibration can save you up to 20% on your electricity bill that a non-caibrated television causes. Plus you add years to the life of your LCD, LED, Plasma or whatever Flat Screen HDTV you have no matter what size - be it a 19" or a 72" size screen, all HDTV's need to be calibrated for effeciency and quality after a 200-hour burn in.

I was a total non-believer in this until I had it done on mine, and now I am shouting it out to everyone who wants to see a brilliant picture and colors that you have never seen before. Price for this calibration varies from state to state, and your Best Buy Geeks have the best price that I have found. Check into it.

And PLEASE, PLEASE, DO NOT WATCH A TELEVISION, HD OR OTHERWISE, IN A DARKENED ROOM. Have at least a minimum of a 25 watt light somewhere in the room or behind the television set. Your eyes will thank you for it in the years ahead.

I've been told the same thing about watching TVs in a dark room.

Anyway I agree with calibration. If you can't do a professional version at least run one of the setups on a DVD. Also you can look around online and find some settings for most TVs that people have shared. While this isn't as good as getting your individual set calibrated you often get a better picture, or a good starting point.

TVs almost always ship with the back light and brightness turned up very high. Thats why a lot of screens look gray instead of black and/or the picture is to sharp. The last TV I bought the settings out of the box were 90 out of 100 for brightness.

My biggest fear about Plasma TVs is image retention/burn in/etc... Although I have heard this really isn't a problem anymore with new Plasma sets. Although LCD/DLP/Plasma/etc... all have their pros and cons.

[ajmrowland]

Like I've said before, after professional calibration, the Digital Video Essentials DVDs are the next best thing.

[David S.]

I've been watching TV in the the dark all my life, and as of my last checkup, my eye health was perfectly fine! No headaches, eyeaches, retina problems, etc., or anything else to report. I appreciate your concern, though

Even the slightest light in the room annoys me. Even with shades on all the windows, some light bleeds through during the day, so I prefer to watch at night. I'm a night person in genral and don't care for sunlight, glare, or bright lighting, and also like the way watching in the dark simulates ideal cinema-like conditions.

[ajmrowland]

Have you put a 6500k lamp behind your tv? That really helps, aka, no glare and only bright enough to keep eye damage at a minimum. I suspect you have great eyesight, if what you claim is true, but you don't want to find out 10 years down the road that your movie watching caused your eyes to weird out on you.

[David S.]

There's a wall behind my TV. I appreciate your concern, though. Believe me, at the first sign of any trouble (if there ever is any) I'll look into making adjustments

[ajmrowland]

There's always those specialize wall-lights.

[dvdjunkie]

David S. wrote:

and also like the way watching in the dark simulates ideal cinema-like conditions.

Evidently you have not been to a cinema lately, because all cinemas now have lighting on when the feature film is running. And then there are the aisle lights. But if you have ever been to a cinema where they don't have lights just dimmed while the feature is playing then you have been going to cinemas who don't care about the patrons eyesight.

Say all you want, but if you outright ask your Optometrist "Is it okay to watch television in an unlighted (or dark) room?" His answer will be a resounding NO!!!

Don't know how old you are now, but 10 years down the road you will probably be wearing those thick "nerdy" glasses because your eyesight has gone to pot. Just a warning, so you can't say you didn't know.

[David S.]

David S. wrote:

and also like the way watching in the dark simulates ideal cinema-like conditions.

Evidently you have not been to a cinema lately, because all cinemas now have lighting on when the feature film is running. And then there are the aisle lights. But if you have ever been to a cinema where they don't have lights just dimmed while the feature is playing then you have been going to cinemas who don't care about the patrons eyesight.

Say all you want, but if you outright ask your Optometrist "Is it okay to watch television in an unlighted (or dark) room?" His answer will be a resounding NO!!!

Don't know how old you are now, but 10 years down the road you will probably be wearing those thick "nerdy" glasses because your eyesight has gone to pot. Just a warning, so you can't say you didn't know.

Actually, I see on average 10 to 25 films a year in cinemas (depending on how many interest me in a given year). I know of the lights you refer to and don't care for them as they can be somewhat distracting at times. That's why I said "ideal" cinema-like conditions, because not all cinemas live up to the ideal I was referring to. To answer your question I am in my 30's and have had no problems after over 30 years of watching tv almost exclusively in the dark. I get my eyes checked annually so at the first sign of any problems (if there ever are) I'll look into getting one of those small wall lights ajmrowland mentioned.

In the meantime, I know you are trying to be helpful, but there is no need to continue the warnings I know that there are certain patterns of behavior that increase a persons risk of something happening, but that hardly means it is a given that the bad thing in question WILL happen. For example:

Not everyone who eats an above-average amount of red meat gets heart disease.

Not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer.

Not everyone who drinks develops liver problems.

Not everyone who watches tv in the dark will get retinitis or need bifocals!

Now, can we please get the thread back on topic regarding people's thoughts on LCD screens? The only reason I even brought up watching in the dark in my first post was to explain why having a deep, solid, black level on a monitor is important to me, but I didn't expect it to lead to a debate about my eye health!