Suggestions for lag-less HDTVs?

Infil

First of all, sorry if this is in the wrong forum, but I classified this as technology/"gaming rigs" so I decided to post it here.

I'm looking to buy a new HDTV to replace my 13 year old CRT. I'm looking for the size to be around 40", but will go one way or the other a couple inches depending on the deal and the quality. As the topic suggests, though, the main reason I haven't invested in an HDTV in the last few years is gaming lag. I play a lot of extremely timing-sensitive games very seriously (beatmania IIDX is probably the biggest one), so I've become extremely sensitive to lag of any sort. I've played on a very wide variety of HDTVs (including in the Melee and Guitar Hero tournaments at PAX this year), but have left extremely frustrated over problems with lag seriously affecting my play. Seeing Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Galaxy at 480p, though, really makes me want to look for a way to play HDTV with as little lag as possible.

I've done a bit of research, and plan on talking to some local salespeople tomorrow, but I thought I'd ask people who may have already gone through a similar process. Does anyone know of certain TVs to avoid, and certain TVs which are excellent for lag from 480i/480p signals? I would be playing Wii mostly at 480p (and a lot of older consoles, such as N64 and PS2, at 480i), though I am considering grabbing a 360 in the first half of next year. When dealing with 480i, lag is far more important to me than upscaling picture quality, so I would play with more pixelated graphics if the lag was less. Ideally, I would be looking at around 5 ms being max for lag (if this is even possible). I would be willing to spending more (to a reasonable degree) on a TV which "specialized" in reducing lag.

If anyone has any pointers for me, I would be very appreciative! Thanks!

ToyD

I have an LG 42" 1080p television
http://us.lge.com/products/model/detail/tv%7Caudio%7Cvideo_lcd%20flat%20panel__42LB5D.jhtml
The specs show it's lag at 5ms and I've been extremely happy with it.

Although I HAVE to ask, are you SURE you need anything under 10ms? That's 100fps equivalent.... Anyway, this TV is very nice and I've had zero problems whatsoever and it's GORGEOUS and customizable.

Kainy

He's not talking about lag as in pixel response time, he's talking about the lag that HDTV picture processing introduces into the console -> display time. In rhythm games, especially, it's troublesome.

I honestly have no idea about this. You might want to check www.avsforums.com - they'd probably be much better able to help you (as much as I hate to direct you elsewhere).

I imagine in the near future, any rhythm or other timing-sensitive games will go the route that Guitar Hero 2 did, and have a lag calibration option in the settings.

ToyD

Doh, my bad then. I pipe all my stuff through an AV receiver, so the /shrug. I do fine on boom boom rocket through. Don't own any other full rhythm games.

setrajonas

IIRC, if a game has progressive scan and you turn it on, that will fix pretty much all of the problem. Otherwise, you have to get a rather expensive box that will automatically de-interlace the signal and scale it correctly to your screen.

Geod

Usually a TV will also have a game mode which will disable lots of the processing the TV does. This helps for speeding up times. I visit AVS forums and I have read that a few people have low lag times for GH2 on a Samsung 71 series, but those are fairly expensive TVs. I'm sure there's others that have pretty good timings if you ask on the forums.

Daedalus

Biggest motherfucking CRT you can find. One that natively displays 480p. I've got one and it was the best decision I've ever made: the thing displays 480p without even scaling it. It's beautiful. It also does 1080i so I can get my HD on, and it accepts 720p but needs to scale it (probably by taking it down to 540p and then up to 1080i, but what can you do?) It's only 30", but my apartment is small.

CRTs are basically the only kind of set that can display more than one native resolution without scaling. Every supported resolution looks beautiful. The problem is most TV makers stopped making CRT HDTVs around last year (probably out of space concerns in stores) so they may be hard to find.

Infil

Hmm, I click on the AVS forums link and all I get is some search-like page? There's no link to forums there that would discuss this type of thing, and searching for TVs or whatever doesn't help. Is the URL wrong?

Also, yeah, I'm aware that some TVs have game modes while others do not... it would be best to look into only those TVs that do. Though, even among those TVs, I've read some are atrocious for lag while others seem to be better. Also, for the record, Guitar Hero's lag adjustment thing in the options is terrible. I greatly appreciate the effort they put forth, considering those with laggy TVs, but in all honesty, I'd rather play with it off and try to force myself to play the notes late. Adjusting for lag causes more problems than it fixes, so in this respect, I'd just like a TV that has less lag than hoping games implement a decent software solution (which seems very unlikely).

Daedalus: I've also heard CRTs are the best, but as you say, they're very hard to find these days, plus they're on average smaller even if you can find them (not to mention heavy and large). If I find any at stores, I will consider them, though.

EDIT - I found the AVS forums through a google search. Here are some good resources I've found:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=558125
http://hdtvlag.googlepages.com/home

I must say, this is fairly disconcerting. I thought with some smart research I could find a solution with less than 1 frame of lag that doesn't cost $2000 over and above the cost of the TV. It just doesn't look like there are any HDTVs out there that focus on this.

bigwah

Supposedly, some non laggy hdtv's at the bottom of here: http://gear.ign.com/articles/720/720303p2.html

khain

bigwah wrote: »

Supposedly, some non laggy hdtv's at the bottom of here: http://gear.ign.com/articles/720/720303p2.html

That article is over a year old. Do you have a price point your looking at as that would help suggestions. I'd also highly recommend taking in guitar hero or whatever game you think lag affects the most and playing it in the store.

Infil

I have a price point in mind, but I'm willing to invest a bit more than my expected price if I can find a REALLY good TV. Though, my current price point probably maxes out at $2000 (and that's probably more than I'd "enjoy" spending).

And definitely, I will be taking in the games that matter to me to the store before I buy. However, I need a model or two in mind before I can get to that stage.

After doing more reading, I dunno. It's pretty discouraging. I might just pass on an HDTV for now... maybe try again in a year when f*cking HDTV manufacturers get their act together.