Panasonic Plasma TV Help!

[cs123]

Originally Posted by YOOT

Boosters are useless, all they do is amplify noise, which means more drop outs and error pixels not less. Digital should never need a booster unless you are running 100m of coax from the aerial.

That's not exactly true. A masthead amp is generally used when signal strength is marginal and you have a distribution system ie splitting the signal to multiple rooms. I'm about 50Km from the transmission towers and need a masthead amp with 4 tv points, even with quad shield and f-type connectors.

A lot of older antennas have the large elements used for low frequencies and are not needed these days. They just induct stray electrical noise. So if you are going to buy an antenna for just digital then you need only a antenna that has the correct elements for the bands that you need.

Agreed that there is no such thing as "digital" antennas.

[FPV GT40]

Originally Posted by YOOT

Technically Rob is right, but so are you in another way.

CRT is by far the best way to display colour and fast moving objects. If you could get one that has the same resolution as the current range of digital TV you would be blown away. But it would be so big you would have to crane it in to you house.

SED TV is supposedly the next generation to put LCD and Plasma to RIP, it is basically made up of millions of CRT tvs, each one displaying a pixel of RGB. These TVs are stunning but only available at techo shows in Japan at the moment. Don't hold your breath.

However, Plasma/LCD (I prefer Plasma) are much clearer and are basically non forgiving. Any compression, errors, or noise will be shown with all its glory (or horror). A CRT is like looking through an insect screen and a lot of the noise is not visible (but neither is the detail).

If you play a 1080i broad cast over Component to a decent CRT and play the same content on a 50"+ Plasma/LCD you'll suddenly realise what the CRT is leaving out, but put an SD 576i broadcast on both sets and you'll definitely like the CRT more, the Plasma/LCD will show you everything thats there 9and everything thats not!!).

I agree as I think you are saying that if you have a bad quality signal the old style TV will not show up the errors as much??

I generally do not actually watch TV in the lounge, I usually use it for DVD and Bluray only, the Dining TV gets watched a lot more than the lounge one.

I peronally much prefer LCD over plasma, as it picture appears sharper and better quality to me, Also I have been led to believe the LCD lasts a lot longer than a plasma which only has a short life expectancy

[YOOT]

Originally Posted by cs123

That's not exactly true. A masthead amp is generally used when signal strength is marginal and you have a distribution system ie splitting the signal to multiple rooms. I'm about 50Km from the transmission towers and need a masthead amp with 4 tv points, even with quad shield and f-type connectors.

A lot of older antennas have the large elements used for low frequencies and are not needed these days. They just induct stray electrical noise. So if you are going to buy an antenna for just digital then you need only a antenna that has the correct elements for the bands that you need.

Agreed that there is no such thing as "digital" antennas.

Thanks for clearing that up, although I personally found with my house that I got better reception once I pulled all the spaghetti and amplifiers out of the roof and rewired my own coax, but this was just my house. I got double signal strength after.

My neighbors have to use a Masthead amplifier to achieve the same result. Weird I know, but there is a lot to be said for quality and simple wiring.

[YOOT]

Originally Posted by FPV GT40

I agree as I think you are saying that if you have a bad quality signal the old style TV will not show up the errors as much??

I generally do not actually watch TV in the lounge, I usually use it for DVD and Bluray only, the Dining TV gets watched a lot more than the lounge one.

I peronally much prefer LCD over plasma, as it picture appears sharper and better quality to me, Also I have been led to believe the LCD lasts a lot longer than a plasma which only has a short life expectancy

My Pano has a 1/2 life expentancy of 100,000hours.

So if I watch it for 4 hours a day it will be half stuffed in 60 years.... I would have bought ten by then.

I like plasma as it looks more like CRT! SD looks REALLY bad to me kn most LCDs. But thats my opinion. LCD looks best for static and computer displays.

[cs123]

Originally Posted by YOOT

Thanks for clearing that up, although I personally found with my house that I got better reception once I pulled all the spaghetti and amplifiers out of the roof and rewired my own coax, but this was just my house. I got double signal strength after.
.

Well what you did was the exact right thing. Good antenna and alignment and use good quality cabling first. Only use an amp if you signal level is too low after you have done the other things.

[Bundy]

Originally Posted by YOOT

Does your TV have a internet connection for updates?

no need for internet for the TV, it recieves the updates via the digital signal
I have look at panasonic.com for updates in the past and manual load them, but no luck finding any.