I bought my first 42" plasma TV (800x480) 5 years ago - before any HD broadcast was available in Poland, and long before I started producing my own HD pieces... So it's been used in my living room, just as a TV set. I now also have a full HD 50" TV (by Panasonic, too) in my editing room, hanging above the desktop monitor, and used as the secondary monitor for Vegas, watching BD movies, and sometimes also HDTV broadcast I'm now having access to, as well...
After this too long introduction, to the point: if I said "sometimes" is because I have found (much to my amazement), that most HD broadcast actually look better on my SD plasma than they do on the FullHD one!
By "looking better" I mean both things than I can explain myself (like less grain, due to the smaller size/watching distance ratio), but also what I cannot understand at all: definition of the smallest details is actually sharper on the SD plasma, than on the HD one!
By "smallest details" I mean e.g. the individuals in crowds, watching football matches or other sports events, broadcast in HD. Another example - when watching background detail in a studio HD broadcast (like when talking heads are sitting in front of a window), I can almost read the licence plates of cars, passing by outside that window! All those details look so sharp as if they were drawn on a paper with a very sharp pencil...
It's not so on the full HD TV, and this I cannot understand. I don't use any additional edge sharpening (or other image "improvers") on either one...
Comments welcome,
Piotr
PS. Yes, I did some A/B comparisons with the same source (the only difference being the fullHD plasma is fed through HDMI, and the SD one - via Component).
After this too long introduction, to the point: if I said "sometimes" is because I have found (much to my amazement), that most HD broadcast actually look better on my SD plasma than they do on the FullHD one!
By "looking better" I mean both things than I can explain myself (like less grain, due to the smaller size/watching distance ratio), but also what I cannot understand at all: definition of the smallest details is actually sharper on the SD plasma, than on the HD one!
By "smallest details" I mean e.g. the individuals in crowds, watching football matches or other sports events, broadcast in HD. Another example - when watching background detail in a studio HD broadcast (like when talking heads are sitting in front of a window), I can almost read the licence plates of cars, passing by outside that window! All those details look so sharp as if they were drawn on a paper with a very sharp pencil...
It's not so on the full HD TV, and this I cannot understand. I don't use any additional edge sharpening (or other image "improvers") on either one...
Comments welcome,
Piotr
PS. Yes, I did some A/B comparisons with the same source (the only difference being the fullHD plasma is fed through HDMI, and the SD one - via Component).