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What is the best LED TV for Gaming?

Power consumption shouldn't even be mentioned anymore with plasmas. a 50" panasonic is rated at about $20 a year electricity at 5 hours a day. Even an Led that uses half that is still less than a dollar a month less difference which you won't notice less than a dollar. Plus, that is assuming you watch 5 hours a day.
 
I have a top of the line 65 inch panny, and my next tv is going to be led/LCD. The plasma is awesome and beats led in every aspect except in a bright room. And while burn in is not a serious problem any more, I still wouldn't play games with stat bars on it. The plasma is really great in my home theater but it's not going to work in my south facing living room.
 
metalmania4evr said:
...but I've heard you have to juice 'em back up every 3 years or so, is this true?
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(trying to be informative and not condescending)
A 1080p has over 2 million pixels that produce their own light, each on containing several subpixels for the RGB colors. Each sub pixel contains its own plasma gas, so no, you don't have to juice them up anymore or else you would be refilling literally millions of individual things with new gas. Also, Panasonic current plasmas' gases are rated at 100,000 viewing hours until half brightness. That's close to 40 years of watching at 7 hours a day. So even if it was possible to refill them, there is no need to. The gases are the least of your worries though as far as longevity of the set though. I've seen more issues with the internal electronics than the panel itself.

Mudkips said:
So sick of people calling LCDs with a LED backlght or edge light "LED TVs".
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It was a smart move for the marketing departments, though. Nothing makes you feel like your tv is out of date like a "supposedly" new technology with a new name, regardless of the fact that it is just a new light source with very few benefits.
 
LeleSocho said:
also you are like 10 years in the past if you think that buzz, consume a lot of electricity and (this is only 6 years in the past though) burn-in are still problems
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Or he owns last year's VT-30 models, which have serious image retention and occasional burn-in problems. Mine is well over a year old and after a month of not playing Borderlands 2 I can still see the quest tracker from its HUD when a bright white or blue screen comes up. From what I gather it's believed the fast-aging phosphors used for the 3D TVs ended up being a huge step backwards for the image retention problem, and the 2011 VT-30s in particular have trouble with it.
 
^^

OP doesn't want to spend more then $800...'

I own both a high end LED and a high end plasma, and I LOVE my plasma set...when it's in a light controlled setting.

Windows and bright lights? Your plasma PQ won't look so hot...
 
deviljho said:
agreed. Panasonic VIERA TC-P50U50 50-Inch 1080p Full HD Plasma TV at about $660



Because you get what you pay for and the value does not exist yet in LEDs.
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I disagree. I've bought 2 46" LED's(Sony and Toshiba) in late 2011 for around that price and they have both been great and look amazing with gaming and television. Both have deep blacks and nice vivid colors. I think if you stick to a good brand, you should be happy with the picture quality. Then again, I haven't really had a lot of experience with plasmas, but from what I've seen, I think the LED's look better. The absolute best LED/plasma imo is the Sharp/Pioneer Elite, but it costs more most people's cars unfortunately.
 
Rhazer Fusion said:
I disagree. I've bought 2 46" LED's(Sony and Toshiba) in late 2011 for around that price and they have both been great and look amazing with gaming and television. Both have deep blacks and nice vivid colors. I think if you stick to a good brand, you should be happy with the picture quality. Then again, I haven't really had a lot of experience with plasmas, but from what I've seen, I think the LED's look better. The absolute best LED/plasma imo is the Sharp/Pioneer Elite, but it costs more most people's cars unfortunately.
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There is no 'imo' about it, the Elites are indeed the the best.
 
I've had a 55" Panasonic ST50 (actually on my third one) for over a month now and I think the buzzing issue is a deal breaker. It fluctuates with the screen brightness -- the brighter the image, the louder the buzz. It's super distracting depending on what you're watching or playing since it rises and falls constantly, and it's loud enough that I can usually hear it over normal volume from 9 ft away on the couch.

Image retention was also a pretty big issue on my second set -- as an example, the Xcom logo on the title screen would still be faintly visible for a few minutes after being on screen merely as long as it took me to hit start and load a save game. Hasn't been a problem on my new one so far, knock on wood. It's hard to see the afterimages on anything but a uniform color anyway so it's not a huge deal, but worth noting.

Otherwise it's the best-looking TV I've ever seen -- coming from kind of a low-rent LCD, the color richness and depth of the black levels are hard to believe. The motion detail is also nearly perfect; backgrounds on 2D games still look sharp even when they're scrolling around, while they would degenerate into a blurry mess on my old TV. As much as I love the TV, I can't disagree with anything Ghost_Protocol said and I'm still not sure the tradeoffs are worth it.

Ghost_Protocol said:
Plasma televisions buzz, reflect a ton of light, consume a lot of electricity, generate a lot of heat, and weigh more than LED tvs. They're only best viewed in darkened rooms, and the advances they have in picture quality over a properly calibrated high quality LED are only noticeable to videophiles. Also, regardless of what anyone will have you believe, image retention and burn in are still issues you have to deal with with Plasma technology.

Buy a Plasma if you're building a home theater somewhere in your house.

Buy an LED if you like brighter pictures, thinner profiles, lower operating costs, and if you don't want to think about image retention or burn in.
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I get the feeling that gamma levels in games are balanced around cheap LCDs and not plasma TVs or CRTs. Games are usually obnoxiously dark on my CRT. But videos and movies don't have that problem.
 
So last night I set up my new TV (LG 47LM6200). The first couple of hours were rough. The out of the box picture quality looked horrendous. Tons of edge enhancement, Trumotion jacked all the way up, tons of MPEG artifacts from FIOS TV channels, weird hue, etc. I expected things to be less than optimal out of the box but this was so bad that I was ready to return it. With Trumotion turned off there was really bad juddering, too.

In 360 games I was seeing really bad jaggies that I never saw on my 32" 720p.

I found some recommended settings on AVSForum and used them as a starting point for calibrating each input. It took about 4 to 5 hours but now things are looking so much better. One thing I found was that the inputs were set to "16:9" out of the box, which is actually somewhat deceptive because the image was slightly cropped and zoomed, which accentuates aliasing in games. "Just Scan" mode really improved on that as it's 1:1 pixel mapping. That's something easily overlooked and somewhat confusing.

The juddering turned out to be a problem with Amazon streaming through my PS3. I think it was inserting extra frames or they messed up the encoding of the source material (Downton Abbey.) I tried watching the same show using the TV's built in Netflix client and the juddering was non-existent. So that's good.

My final test was Kingdom of Heaven on Blu Ray - I was absolutely floored. I've owned HDTVs since 2002. I used to have an ISF calibrated rear projection TV, blah blah, etc. I feel like I know what good image quality looks like. KoH looked absolutely phenomenal. Zero judder or artifacts during battle scenes. Color was well saturated but not blown out. Super crisp image even with all edge enhancement and sharpness turned off. The LED backlighting is totally uniform, no flashlighting or splotches. Black levels I would say are very good for an LCD, but obviously not on the level of a plasma or CRT.

With the new settings Forza Horizon looks outstanding. If there's input lag it's low enough to where it's not messing me up in races. I haven't tried any fighting games. So yeah, I'm happy so far with how the TV performs, though it took a lot of tweaking to get there.

I guess my biggest "complaint" is that having a significantly lareger/higher res display has exposed the weaknesses of source material that looked perfectly good on a smaller 720p display. FIOS TV and Netflix streaming. I can now really see how heavily compressed that material is.
 
SapientWolf said:
I get the feeling that gamma levels in games are balanced around cheap LCDs and not plasma TVs or CRTs. Games are usually obnoxiously dark on my CRT. But videos and movies don't have that problem.
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Resident Evil 6 was unplayable using my normal, sane settings.
Had to cranked that shit up so hard and then I was sad because the IQ is so very, very low.
 
SapientWolf said:
I get the feeling that gamma levels in games are balanced around cheap LCDs and not plasma TVs or CRTs. Games are usually obnoxiously dark on my CRT. But videos and movies don't have that problem.
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Figured you'd be the type with a crt to jack up the LUT to at least 6500k which is really what you need for a good image. Certain games also fuck with windows ICM or LUT settings. There are few programs to lock it like color clutch if need be.


FStop7 said:
In 360 games I was seeing really bad jaggies that I never saw on my 32" 720p.
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Going up in physical size of a monitor makes pixels naturally bigger if the mointor doesn't keep up in dot pitch you will get this problem. I stay away from big monitors and tvs cause they often gimp your response, pixel quality, and color reproduction in a variety of ways. Nothing is perfect atm it's just tradeoff vs what you are willing to tolerate more.
 
no matter what TV you get, it needs to be calibrated. I've had one excellent experience w Best Buy's Geek Squad. guy showed up w a suitcase full of gadgets, entered the service menu, hooked all sorts of contraptions up to it. He was finished after 4 hours and by gods, I finally saw different shades of black, and realized how off my whites were. Games really popped, especially Dead space. That was my first HDTV, Sony LCOS display. 3 years later I called Best Buy again to calibrate a new Samsun LCD and two kids showed up at my door with nothing more than an off the shelf, Spyder calibration tool and a piece of paper. They didn't enter the service menu, saying it "wasn't needed on new TV's" and then tried to convince me I needed Monster HDMI cables to really make games "pop" - I wanted to punch them in the face right then and there.

I believe the first guy BB sent was a private contractor, and officially ISF certified, whereas the 2 teenage douchebags were certainly not. In summary, get it calibrated by someone who can share ISF certification details, you won'tregret the calibration process one bit.
 
PrimeRib_ said:
no matter what TV you get, it needs to be calibrated. I've had one excellent experience w Best Buy's Geek Squad. guy showed up w a suitcase full of gadgets, entered the service menu, hooked all sorts of contraptions up to it. He was finished after 4 hours and by gods, I finally saw different shades of black, and realized how off my whites were. Games really popped, especially Dead space. That was my first HDTV, Sony LCOS display. 3 years later I called Best Buy again to calibrate a new Samsun LCD and two kids showed up at my door with nothing more than an off the shelf, Spyder calibration tool and a piece of paper. They didn't enter the service menu, saying it "wasn't needed on new TV's" and then tried to convince me I needed Monster HDMI cables to really make games "pop" - I wanted to punch them in the face right then and there.

I believe the first guy BB sent was a private contractor, and officially ISF certified, whereas the 2 teenage douchebags were certainly not. In summary, get it calibrated by someone who can share ISF certification details, you won'tregret the calibration process one bit.
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Calibrating a tv takes four hours? (legit question)
 
Ghost_Protocol said:
Plasma televisions buzz (this was a specific Samsung model AFAIK, if they do buzz it's certainly not something I can hear over anything when it's playing on the set), reflect a ton of light (true, it is a glass screen not plastic. It is much more reflective), consume a lot of electricity (relative... they do consume more than a LCD, but current plasma models are quite good. LCD's are better, but I would not label a current plasma as consuming "a lot"), generate a lot of heat (I have not noticed significantly more than an LCD), and weigh more than LCD tvs (true... they do because of the glass screen, but I wouldn't call them "heavy". My 55" Panny is a bit over 100lbs IIRC, still loads lighter than the 32" CRT it replaced :D ). They're only best viewed in darkened rooms (yes/no, they are intolerant of sunlight, but you can certainly watch them with the lights on), and the advances they have in picture quality over a properly calibrated high quality LCD are only noticeable to videophiles (proper video calibration costs a lot of money, Plasma looks good out of the box). Also, regardless of what anyone will have you believe, image retention and burn in are still issues you have to deal with with Plasma technology (very true, I don't see how they will ever get rid of it with the type of tech that it is, plasma definitly needs to be babied compared to LCD).

Buy a Plasma if you're building a home theater somewhere in your house. (I'd put it anywhere but a livingroom with big windows where the light is directly on the set.)

Buy an LED if you like brighter pictures, thinner profiles, lower operating costs, and if you don't want to think about image retention or burn in. (All true, but only the last point is a serious factor for consideration IMO).
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Comments in bold.
 
To be fair, this guy took his time. He popped in a few discs to show the black levels, colors, etc. he also confirmed levels that matched my preferences, just in case they needed fine tuning. He also went into the service menu twice, which in itself, took some time. Yeah, 4 hours. Best $250 spent though, the picture quality on the tv increased dramatically. I'm a big believer in calibration, though My next tv, I'll go the ISF contracted route as opposed to the BB Geek Squad gamble ...
 
PrimeRib_ said:
To be fair, this guy took his time. He popped in a few discs to show the black levels, colors, etc. he also confirmed levels that matched my preferences, just in case they needed fine tuning. He also went into the service menu twice, which in itself, took some time. Yeah, 4 hours. Best $250 spent though, the picture quality on the tv increased dramatically. I'm a big believer in calibration, though My next tv, I'll go the ISF contracted route as opposed to the BB Geek Squad gamble ...
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Best Buy calibration is hit or miss. You either get someone damn good or damn crappy. I was wondering about using my free calibration I earned getting points from using the Best Buy Mastercard. But it's like playing Russian roulette. Might be a huge waste of time if all they are doing is using the tv menu and not even the service menu, I could do the former stuff myself with research from recommended settings online.
 
I was looking for a new Tele too, and was going to get the Panny THP50U50 (I think). I always thought plasmas were supreme over LCD's, especially contrast ratios but you've got me wondering now. How bad is burn in on these things these days and can it be gotten rid of?
 
Heh, find it funny how many people are saying get a Panny Plasma...

They are good if you don't have a lot of light in your room. It isn't the end all/be all.
 
SapientWolf said:
I get the feeling that gamma levels in games are balanced around cheap LCDs and not plasma TVs or CRTs. Games are usually obnoxiously dark on my CRT. But videos and movies don't have that problem.
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They are in many cases. There exists an interview with Black Rock Studio's where they confirmed they mastered their games for Walmart Vizio's "because that's what most people will be using". Cheaper TV's generally tend towards too low gamma, which when games correct for and default too, errs too dark an on TV's with higher, more accurate gamma. What's more the 360's default output is also non-standard, too-high gamma (read too dark) because a lot of people think crushed detail looks better.
 
Here comes the Plasma brigade. . . Honestly, I've recently bought an HDTV, and actually ended up buying both a Panasonic LED and Plasma (the ET5 and ST50 respectively) to compare them before returning one, and the difference is not that great. Motion is a bit better in the plasma, but not even close to the huge difference that people mention (both were a disappointment to me coming from a tube TV, though the resolution increase from SD to HD may have made the difference seem larger as well). Black levels were definitely better on the Plasma, and it could be calibrated far more accurately than the LED, but I got both looking good. Both had acceptable input lag in gaming mode as well (forget about it in any other mode on the LED though). There was some clouding on the LED, but really only noticeable on pure black pictures like when there's no content or during credits, so it didn't bother me. There's many other little differences as well, but on the whole, they aren't very dissimilar. Plasma had a softer, film like look about it while the LED was sharper and things popped out more, which is another of the main differences between both (and again, the difference was not very blatant).

In the end I kept the LED as SD content looked better on it, no worries about image retention (though I didn't notice any while I had the Plasma, I don't have to worry about it and I can play old games and leave things paused for longer periods without a care), its passive 3D, and the fact that the plasma buzzed incredibly loudly (that was the key thing that made me return it - it was really, really bothersome and you couldn't just tune it out as it got louder and quieter depending on how bright / white the content on the screen was).

Point being, both techs have their advantages and disadvantages, and best is to try them out and see which you like. Certain people can see the shortcomings of each much more than others (for example, clouding for LEDs and phosphor trails for plasmas, and each can have different kinds of flicker problems). Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a perfect TV, so you just have to choose what works best for you personally.

Also, not sure about what the problem is with $600 LEDs where someone said you get what you pay for. From what I hear, the TV that I was originally going to get but was out of stock (Panasonic E5) is around that price range and is said to be pretty damn good, comparable with the higher end Panasonic LEDs (in fact, the ET5 doesn't use the Panasonic IPS displays which the e5 and e50 do - it instead uses an LG screen, which is also said to be good). I don't know how much of a difference the slower refresh rate / backlight scanning makes for motion resolution though - I don't use the motion interpolation modes myself, but I believe that those features may still make at least a slight difference.
 
I got Sony HX850 and it proved itself to be a good set when RE6 with its low light scenarios look really good and not black crushed unlike some other people TVs where they have difficulty seeing things. Of course it helps that I calibrated it but it's a good LED LCD TV out of the box.
 
Ive had a 50" Kuro plasma since 2008 and its the best damned TV Ive ever owned, By far.

It has over 20k hours now and still looks amazing, At least half of those hours were accumulated with Gaming.

Kurashima said:
Motion is a bit better in the plasma, but not even close to the huge difference that people mention (both were a disappointment to me coming from a tube TV, though the resolution increase from SD to HD may have made the difference seem larger as well). Black levels were definitely better on the Plasma,
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Did you happen to compare motion with 60fps games? That's where I saw a pretty large difference between LCD & Plasma (PC hooked up), The plasma was able to maintain details during motion far better @ 60fps.
 
Did you happen to compare motion with 60fps games? That's where I saw a pretty large difference between LCD & Plasma (PC hooked up), The plasma was able to maintain details during motion far better @ 60fps.
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I don't have any HD systems to compare unfortunately, just a Wii, but I tried Metroid Prime on them both and it seemed close to the same. I honestly expected the Plasma to blow it away, but it turned out that the majority of motion blur was either source related or visible on both. I did really like the Plasma still (aside from the horrid buzzing), but the LED was more comparable than I would have expected. For the record, I first watched one for a week, then the other for a week, then both side by side with a variety of sources for several hours (Netflix to see both running at the same time, and Blu-rays / gaming by switching the HDMI / components from one to the other). Skyward Sword, which I'm in the middle of replaying, looked worse on the Plasma as I could really see what I think are phosphor trails whenever the camera panned (kind of like colourful outlines along all the details as the scene moved). The only way to get rid of motion blur seemed to be by enabling motion interpolation to the max, which introduced huge input lag and its own glitches, which I can see no matter how strong the mode is when things don't line up right during a pan.
 
I'm a big fan of local-dimming LED-backlit LCD, but I'm really intolerant of glare, so a matte screen was a must for me. If you have the same issue or are in a room with lots of stray light, then that's your best bet (though I'm not sure how many manufacturers are still doing local dimming LED - most are just using edge-lit LED backlighting, which is pretty meh IMO - I don't care how thin my TV is, and edge-lit TVs generally compromise image quality for a thin profile).

If you can control stray/ambient light or don't care about screen glare, go plasma.
 
xbhaskarx said:
I get a TON of light in my room... what's the best option for me?
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I also have this problem, I get a lot of natural light in my living room. My curtains are ok, but a decent amount of light bleeds through and makes me concerned for my next TV upgrade. I plan on upgrading during Black Friday week, and from reading this thread I was hoping to get a 50" panny plasma, but now I just don't know. So I ask you GAF, for a living room that receives natural light, what kind of TV should I get? LED or plasma?
 
When I bought my last TV I chose a 70" LED LCD because my living room is floor to ceiling windows. A plasma in that environment would never, ever work. It wasn't even an option. Besides, burn-in terrifies me and nothing burns-in like a plasma.

Taking it to the other extreme, if someone has a media room with no outside light, why would they pick a plasma over a projector? I just bought a new house and I think the 70" may be placed in the upstairs living room and possibly having a projector in the media room downstairs to take advantage of the size of the room.
 
I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for but as far as gaming go my 27" Samsung S27B550V LED monitor has blown away my gaming experiences on any HDTV that I have played games on,

the pros outweigh the con of being 27" because of the fact that it's a monitor that's 27" & it's more personal you don't have to share it with anyone lol , & it's the perfect size for 1080P you don't have to sit too far away & you don't have to sit too close & once you start playing games & there is nothing else in your view but the screen 27" will appear to be about 50"


& best of all no input lag that I'm able to find & it gives you a arcade like feel & for under $400 you're getting a better gaming experience than people paying $800 plus for most TVs

Samsung S27B550V 27" 1080P 2ms LED Monitor review as a Gaming Monitor for my PS3 vs a HDTV



Samsung S27B550V Monitor Input Lag Test



I'm sure you can find better HDTVs / Monitors in your price range that you would probably choose over the monitor that I have & some people don't even have a problem with the input lag in their HDTVs & 27" isn't really ideal for a living room anymore but if you're buying your TV just for gaming & it's not to replace your big screen in the living room & it's mostly going to be just you playing or maybe one more person a 27" monitor isn't a bad choice & I would also look into them as I'm shopping for a new HDTV for playing games on.

& like with anything the best thing to do is try it out & mess around with the settings & see what you're happy with.
 
Had a Panasonic Plasma for a few years now and I love it. I have experienced a few of the downsides but its never been a deal breaker.

-Buzz sound, its there if I'm very close to the TV but I can't hear it even at 5 feet away. The fans on the PC next to it are louder with just a DVD playing.

-Ghosting/Trailing image, saw this when I first got the TV but its gone now or I got used to it (though I've gone a along time without using this TV in the past and its never resurfaced). Don't know if break-in helps it or not. For what its worth, I was the only one in my hosuehold that could even see it.

-Image retention happens but goes away quickly. Only ever happened with a few news stations when I first got the set, now it seems like only my PC desktop ever shows it (when left on for greater than an hour, if not more as I do school work for hours on it without ever seeing it).

-Heat! This set gets hot and lets off a lot of heat in the mid-sized room its in.


I've never run into reflection issues, but I don't let light in that often. There is also a covered porch right outside a sliding glass window here so the angle is never going to allow direct sun. I'd definitely buy another down the line. I know the TVs in your local store are probably at horrible settings but I'm always much happier with how my plasma looks.
 
I am extremely happy with my LG 55LM7600. Just got it a little over a month ago. As long as I turn off all the TruMotion crap off the TV is perfect. Gaming is fine as I haven't noticed any lag. I used to game on my Panasonic 42PZ85U. Just make sure you have a good return policy just in case the TV is not to your liking.
 
onQ123 said:
I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for but as far as gaming go my 27" Samsung S27B550V LED monitor has blown away my gaming experiences on any HDTV that I have played games on,

the pros outweigh the con of being 27" because of the fact that it's a monitor that's 27" & it's more personal you don't have to share it with anyone lol , & it's the perfect size for 1080P you don't have to sit too far away & you don't have to sit too close & once you start playing games & there is nothing else in your view but the screen 27" will appear to be about 50"


& best of all no input lag that I'm able to find & it gives you a arcade like feel & for under $400 you're getting a better gaming experience than people paying $800 plus for most TVs
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Not saying that monitor is bad (I'm sure its good) but its important to state a few points:
  1. Manufacturer-provided panel response speeds are useless gauges of performance.
  2. Just about all computer monitors with some gaming focus have meaningless input lag when running at native refresh rates.
Point 2 is important if you want to use professional workstation monitors for gaming or have 120hz monitors run at 60hz. 95% of basic monitors on the market have well below 16ms of input lag, which is basically meaningless. That's 1 frame of lag at the very worst.

Point 1 is critical when looking at monitors that boast insane panel response specs. All monitors that have fast panel response use overdrive and the problem is that a lot of the time the overdrive is badly implemented. So instead of no ghosting, you get reverse ghosting.

So low input lag isn't particularly unique amongst monitors and 2ms panel response doesn't mean all that much unless the overdrive application is good. I'd say that panel response isn't too much of an issue since a lot of people seem to be using Benq's XL2410 and XL2420, which are both monitors with fairly heavy reverse ghosting.
 
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