Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: West Sussex
LCD vs Plasma
Ok so here's a little bit of what I have learned, this is just a friendly post i'm not expert or anything and do not claim to be.
Plasma television technology is based loosely on the fluorescent light bulb. The display itself consists of cells. Within each cell two glass panels are separated by a narrow gap in which neon-xenon gas is injected and sealed in plasma form during the manufacturing process. The gas is electrically charged at specific intervals when the Plasma set is in use. The charged gas then strikes red, green, and blue phosphors, thus creating a television image. Each group of red, green, and blue phosphors is called a pixel (picture element).
Although Plasma television technology eliminate the need for the bulky picture tube and electron beam scanning of traditional televisions, because it still employs the burning of phosphors to generate an image, Plasma televisions still suffer from some of the drawbacks of traditional televisions, such as heat generation and screen-burn of static images.
LCD televisions, on the other hand, use a different technology,
Basically, LCD panels are made of two layers of transparent material, which are polarized, and are \"glued\" together. One of the layers is coated with a special polymer that holds the individual liquid crystals. Current is then passed through individual crystals, which allow the crystals to pass or block light to create images. LCD crystals do not produce their own light, so an external light source, such as florescent bulb is needed for the image created by the LCD to become visible to the viewer.
Unlike standard CRT and Plasma televisions, since there are no phosphors that light up, less power is needed for operation and the light source in an LCD television generates less heat than a Plasma or traditional television. Also, because of the nature of LCD technology, there is no radiation emitted from the screen itself.
Plasma vs LCD
The ADVANTAGES of Plasma over LCD are:
1. Larger screen size availability.
2. Better contrast ratio and ability to render deeper blacks.
3. Better color accuracy and saturation.
4. Better motion tracking (little or no motion lag in fast moving images).
The DISADVANTAGES of Plasma vs LCD include:
1. Plasma TVs are more susceptible to burn-in of static images.
2. Plasma TVs generate more heat than LCDs, due to the need to light of phosphors to create the images.
3. Does not perform as well at higher altitudes.
4. Potentially shorter display life span - this used to be the case. Early Plasmas had 30,000 hours or 8 hrs of viewing a day for 9 years, which was less than LCD. However, screen life span has now improved and 60,000 hour life span rating are now common, with some sets rated as high as 100,000 hours, due to technology improvements.
LCD television ADVANTAGES over Plasma include:
1. No burn-in of static images.
2. Cooler running temperature.
3. No high altitude use issues.
4. Increased image brightness over Plasma.
5. Lighter weight (when comparing same screen sizes) than Plasma counterparts.
6. Longer display life used to be a factor, but now LCD and Plasma sets both have at least 60,000 hour or higher lifespans.
DISADVANTAGES of LCD vs Plasma televisions include:
1. Lower contrast ratio, not as good rendering deep blacks.
2. Not as good at tracking motion (fast moving objects may exhibit lag artifacts) - However, this is improving with the recent implementation of 120Hz screen refresh rates and 240Hz processing in higher-end LCD sets.
3. Not as common in large screen sizes above 42-inches as Plasma. However, the number is growing fast, with 46 and 47-inch screen sizes becoming more common, and some LCD sets having a screen size as large as 65-inches also available to the general public.
4. Although LCD televisions do not suffer from burn-in susceptibility, it is possible that individual pixels on an LCD televisions can burn out, causing small, visible, black or white dots to appear on the screen. Individual pixels cannot be repaired, the whole screen would need to be replaced at that point, if the individual pixel burnout becomes annoying to you.
5. LCD televisions are typically more expensive than equivalent-sized Plasma televisions (although this is changing), especially when comparing EDTV Plasmas to HDTV-LCD Televisions.
I have the Samsung LE40B620R, I play my xbox360 on it as well the picture is amazing both on tv or gaming the sound is great as well, all in all I love it at the end of the day everyone has views on which is the best but I prefer LCD over Plasma any day. Also ive just ordered the SERANO S105BG09 black glass stand for £79.99 which was reduced in sale from £89.99 and also the Sony HTPBD36SSE1FIYG Surround sound home system which was reduced as well to £299 from £499 and it comes with a blueray player as well.
Join Date: Jan 2010
Re: LCD vs Plasma
Not to mention the better blacks...
While plasma is admittedly not for everyone, I'm less sure that LCD's preeminence is due to any technological superiority than it is due to marketing. The fact is, the latest generation of plasmas address most of its perceived shortcomings (screen glare, burn-in, high electrical consumption and heat) while offering better picture quality at a cheaper price than LCD. This trend should continue as Panasonic (now the standard bearer for plasma) incorporates Pioneer's state-of-the-art KURO technology into its sets. If you are a hard-core film buff, and can live with the sacrifices that plasma requires (mainly a dimmer viewing environment), plasma is worth checking out.
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Winnipeg, Canada
Re: LCD vs Plasma
Having just returned from CES 2010, I learned that the new generation of plasmas may actually consume less energy than equivalent sized LCDs. Peak consumption may be higher on plasma, but there is greater variation with much lower dips in consumption, while LCDs are more steady in consumption. Samsung had a pair of panels setup with watt meters on each and the
plasma would vary from about 28 watts to 180 watts while the LCD varied from 80 to 160 and had a consistently higher average reading.
Contrast ratio is vastly more significant in terms of picture quality than maximum brightness IMO and off axis viewing on plasma is
vastly superior. I still have not seen an LCD that comes close to my Elite PRO141FD plasma-RIP.
Several manufacturers are now using Pioneer's system of bonding the plasma cells to the front glass with no space between
and in the next generation or so, will likely catch up to what Pioneer had in their last year of manufacturing plasma.
Join Date: May 2008
Location: New Zealand
Re: LCD vs Plasma
Pioneer have stopped manufacturing PLASMA and both LG and SAMSUNG intend discontinuing manufacturing also.
LCD have over80% of the market share whether we like it or not and do out perform PLASMA in all areas now .
Remember the other big issue with PLASMA is the Decay factor exactly the same as CRT TV's. This starts as soon as the set is turned on and slowly degrades the Peak colour output of each cel. This like the "burn-in " factor are irreversable
OLED screens are still 3-4 years away and these will displace both Plasma And LCD. Im still not convinced of the longevity yet , which has to be proved over time.
Meantime go with yer heart, I bought LCD in 2009 and this unit exhibits none of the shortcomings listed in previous blogs.
Happy 2010 everyone
|2009, 2010, angle, audio, forums, great, hard, lcd, market, output, plasma, radiation, share, versus, vs|
|Thread||Thread Starter||Forum||Replies||Last Post|
|What is better, LCD or Plasma?||AVRevForum.com||Plasma and LCD HDTV||49||03-31-2010 08:08 PM|
|lcd vs. plasma||waltc||Plasma and LCD HDTV||23||04-25-2009 07:56 PM|
|Plasma/LCD Question||cujo8||Plasma and LCD HDTV||1||04-12-2008 07:38 PM|
|Deciding whether to go w/ Plasma or LCD?||cujo8||Plasma and LCD HDTV||10||04-05-2008 09:30 AM|
|Plasma and/or LCD TV's outside||Robinson_A||Plasma and LCD HDTV||2||06-30-2007 02:54 AM|