The LCD hype machine has been moving into overdrive recently, with the number of sets available mushrooming thanks to growing global capacity and falling production prices. You might even be forgiven for thinking that plasma was beginning to take a back seat in the flat-panel revolution.

But that's hardly the case. There's little doubt that the best-in-class plasmas still sit above LCD in relative picture performance terms, thanks to generally better black levels and faster response time/less image smearing, but with LCD picking up the pace all the time, the gap is closing.

However, at least one plasma screen reviewed here is just so darned good that rival screen technologies might still have some way to go before they can claim parity. Which one? Read on, and all will be revealed…

Philips 42PF7520D $4249 | www.philips.com.au |  

Pixel Plus, built-in digital tuner, HD Ready and Philips branding, all for $4300? Surely the 42PF7520D can't go wrong, can it?

The 42PF7520D's glossy black screen surround ties in neatly with built-in silver speakers. It's standard dress code, but not in any way shabby.

Connectivity is poor; a single DVI jack is provided for digital video, component, and computer connection purposes. Those of us wanting to connect all three such sources will have to keep manually changing the connections over, and put up with a fiddly system of adaptors – which, incidentally, aren't included in the packaging.

The 42PF7520D is HD Ready, thanks in part to a native resolution of 1024 x 1024. This is an AliS panel, which shows that Philips has sourced the glass from Fujitsu/Hitachi.

Making this very much a Philips product, though, is Pixel Plus, the brand's proprietary imaging processing technology. It doesn't sport the latest, HD-specialist version – but I guess anything's better than nothing.

Other tricks include Philips' Active Control automatic picture optimisation system, picture-in-picture tools, and electronic programme guide support.

Picture and sound

In a word, disappointing. The 42PF7520D's picture performance is reminiscent of the mediocre waters making up Fujitsu's previous generation screens. Particularly worrisome is the appearance of a bunch of old-school plasma picture problems: colour gradations often appear as stripy bands rather than smooth gradations; moving objects or camera pans cause overt fizzing dot noise; general dot crawl noise; and a weird green tonality overwhelming darker scenes. The latter upsets the set's black levels too, leaving dark pictures short of depth and background detail.

Pixel Plus sharpens up standard-def sources pretty well, as usual. But perhaps this isn't such a good idea given how Pixel Plus can exaggerate all the noise caused by other elements of the TV.

HD footage inevitably shows the screen off to its best, with excellent detail levels and far less evidence of motion noise and false contouring. The colour tone is better, perhaps due to the improved colour range of the HD spec. But graininess and mistuned black levels still undermine it as a premium HD screen. Furthermore, during DVI viewing of an upscaled (to 720p) DVD, the picture didn't appear to scale completely accurately, with a small black border appearing to three sides of the picture.

Sonically, the 42PF7520D is okay. You have to push the volume high before you get much life out of the soundstage, but otherwise all is well enough.

Conclusion

Philips hasn't forgotten how to make a good flat panel TV. But, if anything, that makes a substandard effort like the 42PF7520D even harder to forgive. Price isn't everything…

LG 42PX4DV $3749 | www.lg.com.au | 

LG continues to apply downward pressure on plasma TV pricing with its latest 42 inch offering, which includes a built-in SD digital tuner for a measly $3749. But does the low price come at too high a performance cost?

There's nothing particularly cheap about the 42PX4DV's build quality. The black inner screen frame and grey outer frame are a great aesthetic match, and the finish looks solid and opulent rather than plasticky.

The inclusion of an HDMI digital video input is pleasing, guaranteeing compatibility with next-gen digital and HD sources. What's more, there's a set of HD-capable component video jacks, a D-Sub PC interface, and even a CAM slot for adding extra functionality to the digital tuner.

The presence of component and HDMI jacks does not make this TV HD Ready, since its native resolution is just 852 x 480. The set will accept HD video – but has to scale it down to the screen's resolution.

On hand to help with this is the latest generation of LG's XD Engine picture processing, for boosting image clarity, colour saturation and tone, contrast, brightness, colour gradation, and frame rate handling.

Also worth mentioning is EPG support, separate adjustments for fleshtone, greentone and bluetone, and both 3D and MPEG noise reduction.

The 42PX4DV's pictures are very creditable. Its black level performance is deep, natural and textured enough to give genuine solidity and depth to darker scenes. We're not convinced the black levels justify LG's extravagant 10000:1 contrast ratio claim – but our tests confirm a real world contrast ratio of 640:1, which can be considered excellent – it's certainly good enough to add extra scary ‘what's lurking in the shadows' impact during a DVD run-through of Scream.

The 42PX4DV also proves adept at suppressing plasma's issues with colour banding, dot crawl and fizzing noise over moving objects. It also serves up a wide-ranging, vibrant palette and nearly natural colour temperature.

Elsewhere, the XD Engine helps standard-def DVDs and TV broadcasts from the built-in digital tuner look acceptably sharp.

Predictably, XD Engine can't stop the LG appearing softer with high-definition material than PDPs with higher native resolutions. HD viewing on the 42PX4DV looks relatively good when downscaled, but frankly if you intend to exploit the graphical potential of HD content, buying a standard definition plasma is a false economy.

Also, the LG has a minor tendency to exaggerate MPEG noise during HDMI viewing, suggesting some MPEG noise reduction is missing in the chain.

In terms of audio, the 42PX4DV delivers smooth and reasonably deep bass, a clear mid-range, and no nasty harshness when the going gets tough.

Conclusion

The lack of native high-def resolution here is a shame, but its all-round performance and future-proofed compatibility still qualify the screen as a budget bargain.

Pioneer PDP-436HD $5499 | www.pioneer.com.au |  

Pioneer's PDP436HD is a lovely 42/43 inch plasma TV. The SmartHouse team was in a positive frenzy when we first saw it.

There are plenty of nice-looking plasmas, and then there's the PDP436HD. Its build quality oozes uncompromising class, and the design (especially the black glass surround) is elegant in the extreme.

The PDP436HD is loaded in the interface department. The jacks (found on a separate media box) include an HDMI input, two HD-capable component video inputs, a PC jack, a digital audio line out, and a subwoofer line out.

As well as providing an extra inch of picture versus its rivals, the PDP436HD carries innovations galore. We don't have enough time to cover them in detail, but as briefly as possible they are: a new panel structure for reducing light and colour seepage between pixels; a new Crystal Emissive Layer on each plasma chamber for improving the stability, efficiency and brightness of the chambers' light discharge, giving boosted black levels, increased brightness and more energy efficiency; a new generation of Pioneer's PureDrive picture processing, which adds better noise reduction, improved tuner performance, extra colour management tools; and a new 'I-Clear Drive' system which processes incoming signals more accurately to deliver subtler colour gradations.

As with its 50 inch stablemate, the PDP436HD's pictures are outstanding. The contrast is very good. We measured this at 475:1 after calibration. Peak whites look blisteringly intense without being overcooked, while blacks achieve remarkable depth without obscuring subtle background details or colours.

Talking of colours, the PDP436HD's palette is breathtaking. In fact, we don't think we've seen a more delicious combination of vibrancy, tone and separation this year. One thing we're pleased not to have seen, however, were any traces of fizzing noise over motion, colour banding, dot crawl, or shimmering over image contours. Pioneer's use of the Direct Colour Filter screen technology means it's also possible to watch the PDP436HD from quite an extreme off-axis angle without suffering plasma's usual image 'echo'.

Add to all this remarkable levels of fine detail that make HD footage look breathtaking but also survive the up-scaling of standard-def feeds and you have pictures that are as close to ideal as we've seen in the one-box plasma world.

It's almost boring to report that the PDP436HD's sound is fine too.

Conclusion

Elegant design, solid build-quality, breathtaking colour palette and overall performance. One of the finest 42 inch plasma TV's you can buy. Nuff said.

Samsung PS42S5H $4499 | www.samsung.com.au |

Samsung's customary flare for design is clear as day on the PS42S5H, which combines glossy black on the screen frame with silver for the speaker-bearing subsection. The cunning little gap that's been left between the screen and speaker bar is particularly sweet.

Fittingly, for a TV focused on high definition (HD), the PS42S5H carries both an HDMI input and HD-friendly component video jacks. Aside from these, there's an analogue PC socket and all the other lesser-quality AV gubbins.

Enforcing this TV's HD Ready specification is a native resolution of 1366 x 768; another key feature is its Digital Natural Image Engine (DNIe) processing, for improving motion handling, boosting colour saturations and tone, extending the contrast range, and adding more fine detail.

Elsewhere can be found noise reduction, SRS TruSurround audio processing, and picture-in-picture tools. That's pretty much it so far as the interesting stuff goes, though.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to figure out that the PS42S5H's use of an HD-resolution panel hasn't really benefited its picture quality much.

Like its SD sibling, the screen suffers from an uninspiring black level response, which sees dark movie scenes looking washed out and unnatural in colour tone.

We measured contrast at an unexciting 335:1, after calibration.

Problems with colour fidelity aren't exclusive to dark areas either, as skin tones tend to look green round the gills no matter how bright the scene you're watching.

There's also a softness to the PS42S5H's standard-definition pictures, be they from the tuner or even a DVD player.

Stepping up to high-definition brings good news, and it's here that the PS42S5H's HD pictures really shine. Colour fidelity improves and the fizzing noise over motion is reduced. Bizarrely, we much preferred the images from the LG model reviewed in this group test and it doesn't even have a native HD resolution!

The PS42S5H's sound fares rather better than its pictures. The soundstage is big but controlled. Bass is plentiful and the midrange is bright yet seldom harsh.

Conclusion:

Although reasonably priced for an HD-ready 42 inch plasma TV, we can't help but feel that the PS42S5H requires buyers to swallow too many picture compromises for comfort.

And The Winner Is…?

While this group test is clear-cut at the top end, it's a bit messier at the bottom of our ranking ladder.

We've given last position to the Philips model. Its picture quality is deeply uninspiring, looking at least a couple of generations behind the best in this test.

Rolling home third is Samsung's PS42PS5H. This edges ahead by being HD Ready. But its image quality is sufficiently average, so that it only takes a mid-table spot thanks to the weaknesses of others rather than on its own merits.

The first screen that we'd actually recommend that you consider buying is LG's 42PX4DV, which places it second. This display delivers a very likeable all-round performance for its puny price tag, as well as some future-proofed, HD-friendly connectivity. Its lack of a native HD resolution, however, is clearly a major mark against it. That said, its HD pictures are still good enough to make it a serious possibility for the buyer on a budget.

There can be only one winner of this plasma punch up, though, and it simply has to be Pioneer's PDP-436HD. It towers head and shoulders above its rivals here in every single way possible, and moves plasma convincingly ahead of LCD in the pure performance stakes.