Best HDTV for gaming!

[Goofy117]

I don't know if this has been posted before in this forum but I would like to know what do you guys think is the best HDTV for gaming. I have a xbox 360 connected via HDMI if that makes any difference, and Iam trying to decide between LCD, LED or Plasmas. Also 60hz vs 120hz etc. Thank You guys.

 

[PCtoMAC?]

I am no expert but I have a Panasonic plasma I bought last year and although I dont have a ton of other TV's to compare it to my Xbox 360 with the HDMI looks pretty amazing on the plasma. Its my experience that LCD's, at least when I was buying a year ago, just flat out couldn't match the black levels of the plasma. That being said think about where your TV is going to be mounted because plasmas have a glass front rather than plastic for LCD's so if your living room has a lot of light there is going to be a lot of glare on a plasma. Doesn't matter how good the picture looks if you can't see it through all the glare.

Anyway my .02

 

[pintsizemacman]

try a 42" led samsung. i dont know about price though

 

[Loves2spoon]

Panasonic Plasmas for the deepest blacks and most vivid colors, no lag when watching spots or playing video games compared to lcd or led, yes they still lag no matter what people say. Plasma is the best for fast motion.

I have 4 panasonic's 42-65" in my house now from 2005-2010 models and none have burn in or any problems.

 

[SevenInchScrew]

I have a 40" Samsung C650 series, and quite like it. It isn't LED backlit, but I don't really care. The picture looks fantastic, and with all the image "Enhancement" features turned off, there is very minimal lag. It has treated me very well.

 

[Goofy117]

Thanks to everyone who is answering in this post....it is much appreciated....soooo for what I can see here plasmas are displaying the best images and little to no lag.....will you still go with a LED? The thing is that iam terrified of burn in and I have always heard that gaming = LCD.....has this changed?

 

[jason221]

My experience with plasmas hasn't been great for gaming. Sure, the picture might look good, but there seems to be a delay between the time I press a button on the controller and the time it happens on screen. For example, if I move the right joystick on my Xbox 360 controller to aim to the right, there is a small delay between the time I move the joystick and the time my character actually aims to the right on screen. I don't know if this is the "lag" everyone is referring to, but it has made playing games that require precision (first person shooters, Guitar Hero/Rock Band) almost impossible to play.

In my experience, Vizio LCD TVs had less noticeable delay than Samsung Plasma and even LCD TVs. I suppose this may vary by model, but in my experience, all the Samsung TVs I have used have had a noticeable delay. In my opinion, perfect gameplay should be a higher priority than picture quality if it is going to be a gaming TV.

 

[SevenInchScrew]

My experience with plasmas hasn't been great for gaming. Sure, the picture might look good, but there seems to be a delay between the time I press a button on the controller and the time it happens on screen.

Plasma TVs, by nature, should be the best for gaming. The way a plasma works, its "pixels" react much faster than any LCD can, which should be great. Note that I say SHOULD here. All TVs, regardless of brand or what type, will exhibit some degree of lag. The problem is with all of the image enhancement features. Every time you turn on Dynamic Contrast, or Enhanced Black Levels, or 120hz interpolation, etc, you are just adding to the processing that the TV has to do before an image is shown. The more processing, the longer the delay. For a movie, which is a passive experience, you won't even notice. But for gaming, which is an active experience, you possibly will.

As I said before, when I turned all of those features off on my TV, and just adjusted the base picture controls, everything was fine. Or at least as good as one could reasonably expect, what with our modern wireless controllers and inherent lag from internet play. Most modern TVs have a mode specifically for this, actually. My Samsung has a "Game Mode" for just this reason, and will turn all of the enhancements off with one click of the menu.

Cliff's Notes™ version: Turn all the "Enhancement" crap off, regardless of brand or type of TV, and you'll be fine.

 

[peskaa]

I just picked up a new Sony BRAVIA 40NX703 (Network Range), and I'm very impressed with it. It's edge-lit LED backlighting, so the set is nice and slim, and pricing was pretty damn good too. In terms of performance the black levels are great, and I've not noticed any lag for gaming.

I'd also agree to turn all processing off. Mine came with Motionflow 100Hz, which was the first thing to be turned off, followed by everything else.

 

[TMRaven]

120hz can either be good or bad depending on your own personal preference. Barring computer games, nothing broadcasts or plays at a native 120frames per second, so it's up to the TV's motion estimation interpolation to render false frames, which can either lead to smoother motion, or more artifacts and unwanted effects.

Almost all HDTVs have an inherent lag because they do all kinds of postprocessing/upscaling to the picture (even a little while in game mode) when it's ran through from the game console to the tv. Keep in mind the response time of the TV is not the indicator of input lag.

Viewsonic makes a lot of digitial signage TVs that have no input delay at all, and they're the TVs you see for commercial use. I'd recommend one of them for extreme gaming.
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/digital-signage/cd4620.htm

For more general use though, you can get whatever you want. I'm a firm believer in samsung lcds or panasonic plasmas.

 

[partyBoy]

The best tv for gaming is a Samsung 40" LCD 120hz 1080p,hanged on the wall with the cables behind the wall...thats what i got

 

[Salacion]

Sony. Period.

You should see God of War 3 and Uncharted 2 on a Sony LED. It's flabbergasting. The one I bought has 240 Hz refresh rate, so that helps with motion. The gaming mode also improves it.

 

[Johnnnny]

If money is no object, here is the summary of priorities:

First off, LED televisions have extreme performance benefits over regular LCD.
They are not only thinner and more aesthetically pleasing, but the LED lighting method significantly improves black levels, side-angle viewing, and contrast. The picture itself is much more even and beautiful across all angles as a result of that, as opposed to regular fluorescent-lit LCD, which still has really great picture, albeit with slight color bias when viewing from an angle (the less perpendicular to the television, the worse the picture gets).

The second highest priority is the refresh rate. 60HZ is ideal for enjoying a movie or TV show. The more fast paced the action, the better the viewing experience. 120HZ is good for sporting events and casual gaming.

OF NOTE: I recall watching a BD of Transformers 3 on a 42" Visio on 1080p at Costco. I recall that at times the video was clearly in sync with the 120HZ and the picture was noticeably smoother, while most of the time it was out of sync and played like a 60HZ video. The fact that it jumped between the two was a real bother for me, however my friends did not notice that. Still, though, because of that one event I have decided that when the time comes for a new TV, I will make sure it runs at 240HZ to prevent that out-of-sync bother from ever happening to me.

That aside, for any hardcore media consumer (you watch TV a lot and enjoy the quality, and you play a lot of online games), 240HZ is definitely a MUST.

Also, if you're planning on buying a television now, I suggest future-proofing it and making sure it is 3D-capable, at 1080p @ 240HZ. Lots of movies are coming out in 3D BD now, while the number of games supporting it is growing by the day. Make sure you consider that before you regret your decision down the road when 3D media becomes a standard.



All that being said:
This is probably the best HDTV available right now for gamers and hardcore media consumers.


And as an audioholic, I feel like I have to remind you of this: A good surround sound sound setup is just as important as your TV, and the budget for your home theater should be split evenly among the two!

 

[peskaa]

The second highest priority is the refresh rate. 60HZ is ideal for enjoying a movie or TV show. The more fast paced the action, the better the viewing experience. 120HZ is good for sporting events and casual gaming.

OF NOTE: I recall watching a BD of Transformers 3 on a 42" Visio on 1080p at Costco. I recall that at times the video was clearly in sync with the 120HZ and the picture was noticeably smoother, while most of the time it was out of sync and played like a 60HZ video. The fact that it jumped between the two was a real bother for me, however my friends did not notice that. Still, though, because of that one event I have decided that when the time comes for a new TV, I will make sure it runs at 240HZ to prevent that out-of-sync bother from ever happening to me.

That aside, for any hardcore media consumer (you watch TV a lot and enjoy the quality, and you play a lot of online games), 240HZ is definitely a MUST.

What a load of rubbish.

For a start, films are recorded at 24p, unless they are some weird extremely low budget home-release only. 24p is the refresh rate used in cinemas, and that is why your Blu Ray player outputs in 24p when playing a film - and that's what your TV will in turn set itself to, no matter what ridiculous level of refresh rate is on the box.

The 240Hz, although it's a multiple of 24, will not give the same film effect at all, and is actually a bad thing. Many people can easily spot the effects of motion interpolation (smoothness, artifical look and the bugs that go along with it) and it is certainly not the best viewing experience. AV buffs always turn off any image processing. If you like that weird, way too smooth and generally fake-looking image, go for it, but don't tell everybody else that it's the best thing ever.

HDTV blurring in gaming is also another area to turn processing off in - http://games.gearlive.com/index.php/playfeed/article/resolving-hdtv-lag-in-games-06142215

 

[apolloa]

I don't know if this has been posted before in this forum but I would like to know what do you guys think is the best HDTV for gaming. I have a xbox 360 connected via HDMI if that makes any difference, and Iam trying to decide between LCD, LED or Plasmas. Also 60hz vs 120hz etc. Thank You guys.

First bit of advice is to ignore all advice on picture quality! Seriously, you stand in a store full of different Plasma's and LCD's and they will ALL have different pictures. It's YOUR eye's not anyone else's. Buy what YOU like!

Buy a good make, no cheap rubbish. As for the tech, LCD's were said to be better for gaming, not as much ghosting as plasma's, these day's I don't know? But I would look at LED back lit set's.
Best bet is to take your 360 with you to a reputable store and test it on different sets.
And don't buy a 3D set. Yes there are a few out there but their is a format war going on between active and passive systems, they both play almost any 3D signal but they also both have plusses and minuses and their are also health issues surrounding the technology. They are also very expensive and you will pay the price of being an early adopter of the technology.

 

[Johnnnny]

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The second highest priority is the refresh rate. 60HZ is ideal for enjoying a movie or TV show. The more fast paced the action, the better the viewing experience. 120HZ is good for sporting events and casual gaming.

OF NOTE: I recall watching a BD of Transformers 3 on a 42" Visio on 1080p at Costco. I recall that at times the video was clearly in sync with the 120HZ and the picture was noticeably smoother, while most of the time it was out of sync and played like a 60HZ video. The fact that it jumped between the two was a real bother for me, however my friends did not notice that. Still, though, because of that one event I have decided that when the time comes for a new TV, I will make sure it runs at 240HZ to prevent that out-of-sync bother from ever happening to me.

That aside, for any hardcore media consumer (you watch TV a lot and enjoy the quality, and you play a lot of online games), 240HZ is definitely a MUST.

What a load of rubbish.

For a start, films are recorded at 24p, unless they are some weird extremely low budget home-release only. 24p is the refresh rate used in cinemas, and that is why your Blu Ray player outputs in 24p when playing a film - and that's what your TV will in turn set itself to, no matter what ridiculous level of refresh rate is on the box.

The 240Hz, although it's a multiple of 24, will not give the same film effect at all, and is actually a bad thing. Many people can easily spot the effects of motion interpolation (smoothness, artifical look and the bugs that go along with it) and it is certainly not the best viewing experience. AV buffs always turn off any image processing. If you like that weird, way too smooth and generally fake-looking image, go for it, but don't tell everybody else that it's the best thing ever.

HDTV blurring in gaming is also another area to turn processing off in - http://games.gearlive.com/index.php/playfeed/article/resolving-hdtv-lag-in-games-06142215

This may be true with early implementations of newer refresh rates, but with recent (especially 3D capable) television, especially from good manufacturers, they actually got it right. With the posted LG television, for example, you get 6 different motion smoothing modes to smooth out different types of sources. 30fps broadcasts, 24fps movies, and of course a wide variety of gaming consoles which have varied fps output during gameplay.

 

[-SD-]

Another vote here for Panasonic plasmas. I have a 50" G10 and the picture quality is absolutely fantastic. I mostly play fighting games and there's certainly no real detectable lag. I also wouldn't worry about screen burn as long as you realise it could be a problem and look after it appropriately.

 

[peskaa]

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This may be true with early implementations of newer refresh rates, but with recent (especially 3D capable) television, especially from good manufacturers, they actually got it right. With the posted LG television, for example, you get 6 different motion smoothing modes to smooth out different types of sources. 30fps broadcasts, 24fps movies, and of course a wide variety of gaming consoles which have varied fps output during gameplay.

Nope.
I have a brand new 2010 NX703 set, with Motionflow 100Hz (or 120Hz in the US, due to differences between PAL and NTSC). The effect is still terrible, and the "video" effect (ie: smoothness) is still a big problem, although artifacting is less. It is widely regarded that the only time you turn on 100Hz+ systems is for watching sports games - and seeing as they are broadcast at 25Hz or 30Hz (PAL or NTSC respectively), that is where the figures come from (ie: 100Hz is 4x 25Hz).

In regards to 24p why do you want to change it anyway? 24p is how it was filmed, and is how it should be viewed. Ramping it up to 240Hz with interpolated frames is simply not how the film was intended by the director, and the effect spoils the film completely.

Being 3D capable also has nothing to do with the interpolation technologies.

 

[SevenInchScrew]

With the posted LG television, for example, you get 6 different motion smoothing modes to smooth out different types of sources.

That right there is the problem. The smoothing, while it might sound nice, just makes gaming worse. Any time you introduce another level of processing to the signal, you introduce another small bit of lag to the image. This might be fine for movies and TV, because you are simply watching the output. But for games, where you are actually controlling what is happening on screen, any tiny bit if lag can quickly ruin the experience. The smoothing, along with a host of other "Enhancement" features are pretty much the opposite thing you want for gaming. And that is what this thread is about.

 

[wywern209]

how is the panasonic plasma with the black levels? i heard that the panasonics lose their awesome black levels after about 1500 hours. Panasonic addressed that this issue is real.

 

[e²Studios]

how is the panasonic plasma with the black levels? i heard that the panasonics lose their awesome black levels after about 1500 hours. Panasonic addressed that this issue is real.

Just remember plasma is still a phosphor, which means it can still burn in just as a CRT device could. Plasma is not the best for gaming since it can burn in just as easily (or easier depending on the model) as CRT could. LCD/DLP/LED do not burn in, they can get screen memory (it takes a whole hell of a lot to do this), but its rather easy to reverse or it takes care of itself when you turn off the TV.

 

[einmusiker]

so if you had a choice between the:

Panasonic Viera TC-P50U1 50" Widescreen 1080p Plasma HDTV - Infinite Black Dynamic Contrast Ratio

and the

LG 47LD450 - 47" Widescreen 1080p LCD HDTV - 100,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio - 4ms Response Time

which would you choose?

 

[wywern209]

Just remember plasma is still a phosphor, which means it can still burn in just as a CRT device could. Plasma is not the best for gaming since it can burn in just as easily (or easier depending on the model) as CRT could. LCD/DLP/LED do not burn in, they can get screen memory (it takes a whole hell of a lot to do this), but its rather easy to reverse or it takes care of itself when you turn off the TV.

i thought that modern plasmas don't suffer much from this issue anymore( you would need a static image for days for this to occur)

 

[hazza.jockel]

i thought that modern plasmas don't suffer much from this issue anymore( you would need a static image for days for this to occur)

I have a Panasonic plasma that is about 3 or 4 years old. It suffers burn in when you leave an image up for a while (4 or so hours) but once you play moving images again for a while it disappears and your get no permanent burn in. So i assume with even newer plasmas the burn in would be nearly no-existant like you said.

 

[wywern209]

I have a Panasonic plasma that is about 3 or 4 years old. It suffers burn in when you leave an image up for a while (4 or so hours) but once you play moving images again for a while it disappears and your get no permanent burn in. So i assume with even newer plasmas the burn in would be nearly no-existant like you said.

i think thats image retention. you can't see IR on an active screen. just screens w/ like a blank screen w/. no vid signal.