Living on television’s cutting edge

The epic “Lord of the Rings” battle looked dazzling. The incredibly thin plasma screen seemed as much a window onto another world as a television.

Hordes of mythic fighters swept across the screen as a surround-sound system put me in the middle of it all, with thundering hoofbeats, battle cries and a booming heraldic score. Even the smoke wafting across the screen looked real.

Actually, it was real.

In the middle of the scene, one of the video components shorted out, billowing white smoke into the room before the picture completely died.

Thus were the joys and tribulations of living on the cutting edge of home theater technology during a week in which I tried out three 42-inch plasma TV screens, ranging from the cheapest available (relatively speaking -- even the low end of these screens cost about the same as a used compact car) to among the most expensive.

The allure of plasma is readily apparent -- the screens are so thin and sleek, they can be hung on the wall like a piece of art. The pictures they produce are so bright, you don’t have to dim the room lights to enjoy them.

No matter what your version of the “home of the future” was when you were a kid -- coming from the likes of Popular Science magazine, “The Jetsons” or “Star Trek” -- these screens handily fit into those visions.

Plasma does not deliver the very best big-screen viewing -- videophiles argue that digital projection TVs produce sharper pictures with more depth and richer colors at a fraction of the cost. But a projection TV is incredibly bulky, adding a huge and attention-drawing piece of furniture to a room.

Plasma screens are like Hollywood stars -- expensive and thin. Even with their drawbacks, they have become the consumer darlings of the home theater world.

For the average consumer, however, they are far from plug and play.

When the test screens were finally installed in my humble abode and working in tandem with sound systems designed for home theater, the effect was stunning. It was so close to resembling the experience to be had in a small theater at a multiplex that just about the only thing missing was someone’s cell phone going off during a quiet scene.

But the week also proved all too instructive about setting up and living with cutting-edge consumer technology. Remember all the problems you had getting your first home computer up and running circa 1995? I got to relive them, home-theater style.

The three plasma screens used in the test were the Gateway GTW-P42M102 ($2,999 list price, available only from the manufacturer), Sony KE-42TS2 ($6,999 list, but available from retailers for about $5,500) and the Pioneer PDP-4330HD (list $11,500, available for about $8,000 from authorized dealers).

The Sony and Pioneer came equipped with speakers, although you get far better sound with a separate component system.

A warranty is obviously important (think of the billowing smoke) for technology this fresh, and all three of these screens came with a one-year parts and labor policy, although Pioneer does not recognize theirs unless the set is bought from an authorized dealer.

As for installation, you may have seen the ad featuring a cute young couple blithely toting around a screen they just bought while deciding which wall they’d hang it on. Forget it. Even the lightest screen tested weighed almost 70 pounds, taking the blithe out of it.

In the commercial, the couple finally decides to hang it on the ceiling, which is a particularly bad idea in Southern California -- the day after an earthquake, you’d be the casualty everyone would be talking about.

Also, if you are spending thousands of dollars on one of these slick screens, it would be a shame to have wires hanging off it like an Elvis picture that lights up. Unless you are a highly skilled do-it-yourselfer, you’d best hire a professional installer. Those provided by dealers generally charge a minimum of about $150 to do the job.

You could go for a less dramatic tabletop installation for your screen that is much simpler. Still, don’t get the TV the same day you are having the gang over for the Super Bowl, Academy Awards or finale of “The Bachelor.” None of the screens we tested came with the cables to properly hook them into my cable system and a sound setup.

I ended up watching Steve Martin’s monologue at the Oscars at a Good Guys while one of the clerks gathered the expensive cables I needed and drew a diagram to show where to plug them in. It was still so complicated that my friends and I gave up around the time the best cinematography award was given, and we watched the rest of the show on my old-fashioned 27-inch TV.

With help from a technician the next day, the screens and sound systems were finally operating.

Adjusting the picture is a rarefied craft, even though the controls resemble those of a traditional TV -- brightness, contrast, tint, etc. And relying on a set’s default setting might not be satisfying.

“Right now, there is not really an industry standard for adjusting these screens,” said Jason Koehler, senior consultant with the Vantage Technology Consulting Group in Manhattan Beach that has overseen major plasma screen installation projects for malls, hospitals and other venues.

The number of choices in screen controls is overwhelming -- the Pioneer remote, for example, features 56 button choices, many of which the average consumer would never push.

Different DVDs required slightly different settings to be seen optimally, and all three sets failed to automatically adapt their picture sizes from wide screen to the standard 4:3 aspect when appropriate.

“We are still not at the point where these things are so consumer-friendly that they just work out of the box,” Koehler said.

Eventually, many if not most plasma owners would perhaps adapt to the point where screen size and other basic controls become fairly easy. “We tell people that it takes about three weeks,” said Sony spokeswoman Jeena Choi.

Sad to say, when it came to the cheapest of the screens, the Gateway, you get what you pay for. No manner of adjusting could make up for the relative dimness of the picture, washed-out colors and distortion of the image, especially at the edges when viewing a DVD.

It has just about the lowest resolution level -- 852 by 480 pixels, as listed in the manufacturer’s specifications -- available in a 42-inch plasma screen.

If you do end up buying a Gateway, I recommend never looking at a better, more sophisticated plasma screen -- it will break your heart.

Next up in price was the Sony, which had an incredibly bright picture. The detail it displayed was arresting, especially during action scenes that were crisp and clear.

Indeed, it was bright almost to a fault, with colors sometimes bordering on the garish. But on an evening when the Sony controls were optimally tuned, friends visiting to watch DVDs voted it the best of the three.

When the Pioneer was tuned to its best (I unfortunately fiddled with it later and could not get it back to its peak), a different set of friends agreed that although its colors were more muted, they were also more pleasing. The image had more depth, a more sophisticated richness of tone.

The choice between the Sony and Pioneer, at their bests, came down to personal preference.

Either would change your home entertainment life if you’re not used to a big screen, especially when mated with high-quality sound. Either provides an experience that is almost overwhelming when showing a film like “The Lord of the Rings” that is meant to be, in part, an assault on the senses.

At home, away from the experience of actually going out to see a movie in a theater, the sensory overload felt somewhat out of place after the initial novelty wore off, even before the week was up. But the last night I had the screens, a friend came over with pristine DVDs of “Casablanca” and “Sunset Boulevard.”

No special effects in these movies except subtle matte paintings and glass shots not meant to call attention to themselves. No thundering hoofs.

But there on the big screen in my living room (and the Pioneer did an exceptionally good job showing black-and-white film) were great writing, performances and direction. Thrills of a high order.

It’s not the size of the television, but the content that rules. Still, when that content is riveting, it sure is fun to watch it on a big, futuristic screen.

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Here’s the skinny

We tested three 42-inch plasma screens, ranging in price from the low end to a year’s college tuition. Before you buy, be sure to view the screens in a store where you can see several side by side and compare picture quality.

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Gateway

GTW-P42M102

www.gateway.com List price:$2,999 At this price, can you go wrong? Yes. The bargain basement of plasma screens produces a dim picture with washed-out colors.*

Sony

KE-42TS2

www.sonystyle.com List price:$6,999

Street price:about $5,500 Bright picture shows off plenty of detail and is relatively free of annoying distortions that can plague plasma screens. Colors can be overly intense and lack subtlety.*

Pioneer

PDP-4330HD

www.pioneer-electronics.com List price:$11,500

Street price:about $8,000 from authorized dealers.* The winner in image depth, sharpness and richness of color, but only when picture adjustments are tuned just right. *

* Unauthorized dealers charge less but can’t offer factory warranty.

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The tube -- and beyond

Television technology comes in three basic flavors -- the plasma and LCD flat panels and traditional tube. More information is available at tech-savvy sites www.howstuffworks.com and www.cnet.com.

Plasma display: The screen contains hundreds of thousands of tiny cells containing xenon and neon gas. When energized by a computer-controlled signal, the gases strike phosphors to produce visible points of colored light. Massed together, the points create a visible picture. The big advantage is that the screen is so thin it can be hung on a wall and has a wide viewing angle. But plasma screens are still quite expensive.

LCD: Liquid crystal display panels are made up of tiny pixels that are activated by ultra-thin transistors to produce points of colored light that mass together. These screens are thin and generally produce brighter images than the plasma type. But they are also expensive, top out at about 35 inches and have a narrower viewing angle.

CRT: Cathode ray tubes are at the heart of traditional televisions. They work by sending electron streams from a heated element through a vacuum to a screen treated with red, green and blue phosphors. The resulting points of colored light make up the picture. CRT televisions are inexpensive, last a relatively long time and produce excellent pictures. The picture is not distorted at wide viewing angles. But these sets are bulky -- don’t plan on putting one on the wall unless you have a sturdy shelf, even for a small unit.

-- David Colker