GY-HD200 and an HD TV

[Miles Martin]

I have an GY-HD200 which I'll be editing footage using either Adobe Premiere or Canopus Edius. I'll be shooting mainly in 720/60p.

I want to purchase a 42" LCD HD television to demo our videos (mainly weddings). Does it matter if I purchase a 720P or a 1080P television? Will there be any difference in the quality between the two when I'm shooting in 720P?

Thanks.

Miles

[Brian Luce]

Originally Posted by Miles Martin

I have an GY-HD200 which I'll be editing footage using either Adobe Premiere or Canopus Edius. I'll be shooting mainly in 720/60p.

I want to purchase a 42" LCD HD television to demo our videos (mainly weddings). Does it matter if I purchase a 720P or a 1080P television? Will there be any difference in the quality between the two when I'm shooting in 720P?

Thanks.

Miles

Most TV's rated for 1080p will also play 720p. I have a 1080p Vizio 42" set. The HD100 footage through component looks great.

[Alex Humphrey]

I personally think Plasmas are still the way to go. And up until the last few months, there were no true 1080p plasmas. Six months ago I picked up a Hitachi 42" plasma at Sears for $799 new as many units as you wanted. The 1080p's were about to ship. The new Samsung and even the Sony LCD's are very good as well. A bit brighter and contrastyier, but I still like the look of a decent plasma more. less edgy and less issues with sqaured off edges like LCD's.

I say look for last years good brand plasmas in 720p from Hitachi, Samsung, Panasonic and Pioneer. Avoid the Walmart/Kmart plasmas. They look like a mediocre LCD for the same money. Their graphic cards are not as good as the Hitachi, Samsung, Panasonic and Pioneer plasmas. If you go with LCD, most good ones are now 1080p, and the most of the 720ps are older panels that simply don't look as good as the newer panels. It's not the resolution so much but as to the LED backlighting and better graphics cards which means less video pixelization and macroblocking happening as well as higher contrast and darker blacks. So any good Plasma 720p/1080p or a good LCD 1080p would be my advice.

[Sean Adair]

I went for a nice 720p projector (panasonic PT-AX200U), and if you can make space and lower light for it, it's really spectacular. There's little reason to get a 1080p unit for displaying footage from these cameras, but the choice is dwindling as manufacturers ands retailers conspire to upsell 1080p to consumers. There is no disadvantage with a 1080p set, as they will scale the 720p very well. Alex's advice seems right on to me, since it's true that an older model would have compromises.
However, if you have a BR-HD50 deck, or output from a video card, I'd definitely go for HDMI output over component output. It's noticeably better on my system. (and yes Brian, the component output still looks great compared to any SD and most cable HD).

[David Scattergood]

I'd second the Plasma route. Get the right one (Panasonic and Pioneer shine in this game) and it will match the old CRT's for SD and HD will look fantastic.
720p for a 42" will be fine.
I'd seriously think about what you want before you pick one up - many of the LCD's (whilst looking nice switched off ;) ) looks 'pants' once the picture is up...you'll be wanting to wipe off the illusion of a vaseline smear the screen.
Demo a couple (showing DVD's not TV).

Given the room a projector would be great Sean - what size is your projector screen?

[Sean Adair]

Originally Posted by David Scattergood

Given the room a projector would be great Sean - what size is your projector screen?

It's a 9 foot diagonal "Gray Wolf", which improves blacks and contrast. The projector can compensate automatically for ambient light to a degree, but the true magic is in a darkened room. I highly recommend the projector BTW. One nice feature is that it has true 24p display, which really helps with that theatrical feeling. My HD-DVD player (yes it's dead technology...) outputs this on theatrical HD-DVD releases, as do many Blu-ray players. I can even burn a standard red-laser DVD with a shorter HD program with DVD-SP in 24p and get that true display (doubled frames, or 48khz). The panasonic PT-AX200U is about $1200, and there is a 1080p version for nearly double that. Reviewers claim it's hard to tell the difference much of the time.