I'm looking for a TV, and I've narrowed it down to a Samsung 650 LCD or the Panasonic 700U plasma.

Well, I went to the store to make my pick. I had them pop in Spider-Man 3 on Blu-Ray. I quickly realized that the LCD is so crystal clear, so sharp, that it was almost fake. I watched about 20 minutes and every time there was CGI, I spotted it as being fake. Is that because of the clear picture, or the size of the TV? And is that something you get used to? The images are gorgeous, but so hyper perfect, I'm just not sure I'd get used to them.

[On a side note, the Panny images looked more "real" but not quite as sharp. Unfortunately, I didn't have a side by side comparison while watching Spider-Man, only the Panasonic sampler DVD.]

neither display was probably calibrated correctly. I'd go with the Panny and, when you do, get someone's calibration settings off avsforum and use those. in store display models are usually all screwed up with the brightness or contrast set way too high. I wouldn't rely on in store demos....unfortunately.

What are you watching movies on that CGI doesn't look fake? Keep in mind that not every movie is a cartoony CGI-fest & that most of what you'll be watching will look awesome.

And as stated above, the TV will looking nothing like the amped-up display in most stores once you get it properly calibrated.

Well that is my feeling in general...that the Plasmas look more natural.

However, I did buy a LCD flat panel. In fact I have two:

The first one I bought for the bar. A cheap 27" Olevia. It is sharp. But no depth, poor black levels. Incredibly bright. My bar has a several windows and four skylights, so the set actually works well in there. But it does have that digital look to it. But it is in a bar!! So not a big of a deal.

At Christmas I bought a 47" Samsung LCD flat panel. Yea, out of the box was was pretty shocked how disappointed I was in the image. My wife as like "oh I like it cause it is bigger" (we had a 32" SD set). But, as mentioned, I went over to AVS and looked up my model and got specific settings for my sources. All the difference in the world. Much more 3-D look. Much, much better blacks. I now "happy" with it. Overall, I still think the Panny is a better image including more natural looking. But I let my wife have the final say (hey she agreed to a new tv, I wasn't going to get to up in arms about the exact one), plus I thought the 50" panny might physically be a little big for the living room.

Anyway, yes after calibration the sharpness won't look so digital and fake. Mainly because you are putting everything else where it needs to be.

I just got the samsung 52750 lcd from bestbuy for 2319.00 goes for 3100.00. It's almost the same as the 650 with a few add ones.I love it,I had a 4 year old sony lcd rp and it blows it away. If you want PM me before saturday and I can tell you how to get the 52750 for 23xx.00 which is a steal from bestbuy or circuit city..

Like most people have said so far; the HDTV will look a lot different in your home. The store models usually have the contrast set so high that HD content looks "fake" and unnatural. Some HDTVs look good right out of the box, some need minor calibration and some need a lot. It really depends on the brand and model of the HDTV. Some CGI scenes are just going to look really "fake" anyway.

I would recommend getting a LCD. They are cheaper, last longer, and you can pretty much use it for any type of media (i.e. Blu-ray, DVD, VHS, video games, CPU). With Plasma you have to pay more and you shouldn't play video games on it.

Amazon has the same TV for $2400.00....nice looking though. Great deal too!

I got my 50" Samsung Plasma some time back at a very good price. Its 720 P, but that's all I needed. As far as video games, its not really an issue. You can get some temporary image retention, but I've had no noticeable permanent problems. I have dialed the settings down per info from AVSForums and I have the built in prevention utilities such as pixel shift enabled, as well as using Samsung's scrolling screen occassionally.

Pretty much all of this is wrong.

Plasmas have really come down in price. Especially the 720p models.

There is no evidence that an LCD will last longer then a Plasma. Your going to replace either set within 10 years anyway.

You can use a Plasma for any type of media including BD, DVD, Video games, and yes if you want to hook a computer up to it, get a 1080p model.

And of course you can play games on the plasma.

The main reason to get a plasma is it simply has a better picture. While I mentioned I'm happy with my Samsung 1080p LCD, I still feel the Panasonic Plasma 720p is an overall better picture.

And IMO, at 50" or less 720p is fine unless you are sitting way to close or want to use as a computer monitor. For overall pic quality I think the Panny 720p is better then 99% of the 1080p models out there. And even if you feel strongly you could see the resolution difference, remember resolution is only about the 4th most important factor in overall imagine quality.

Good deal for the 50" panny plasma. $1,000 at Frys

http://shop4.frys.com/product/5525500

(stolen from slickdeals)

Here we go again.

When you say it looks fake, I'll bet you're talking about the motion. Did it look really smooth, like a video game with a very smooth frame rate, or like an HD sporting event?

If that's the case, go back and tell them to turn off "auto-motion plus" and then see what it looks like.

When I shopped for HDTVs, I did find the LCD TVs at the time were too crisp. Probably a setting issue, but when I looked at the plasma sets, they looked more realistic. I'm sure a person could adjust their LCD to reduce the "crispness", but I do like the plasma look.

Back when I had a CRT based HD RPTV I also thought that flat panels had a too digital look to them and were no where near filmlike the way my CRT was.

When that died and I needed to buy something new I decided to get a front projector and was worried I'd lose that filmlike quality. All of the LCD PJs I could afford all had that digital look to them but the DLPs seemed much smoother to me and moe in line with how film and my old CRT looked. I even noticed this on DLP RPTVs that I was looking at before I went with the PJ.

I don't know if it's the focus or the gaps in the pixels from the panels used but LCD does look too digital to my eyes and DLP suits me better while still looking amazingly sharp in HD.

Picked up the Samsung LN52A650. Set it up using CNet's settings and holy cow the image is fantastic. Nothing fake about it. Just a sharp, crisp image. Nothing looks fake, no blurring, nothing, just a whole lot of perfection.

So yeah, the store settings must suck in a very bad way. If they were to set it up properly (which I know might be hard in a big store), they'd sell more TVs, I'm sure of it.