Plasma TVs vs. LCD Projectors for Your Home Entertainment?

Kent Brewster asks: "We're working on making the presence of a TV set in our living room as unobtrusive as possible. The two main flat-or-invisible screen choices seem to be plasma and LCD projection. Gateway has a $3000 42-inch plasma screen, but I see ominous comments on Usenet about how that one's not really an HDTV and therefore to be avoided. Projector Xpress has a page of Sony projectors that are at or around that $3000 mark, and the street price for a home system that's HDTV-compatible seems to be working its way down to $1000. I would love to hear from anyone who's actually owned one of the Gateway models and might be willing to discuss pros and cons; same goes for anyone who's watching TV on a video projector. How's your bulb life, and what do they cost? Is the thing hot and noisy? Was it hard to set up? Have you integrated it with your home theater? Are you using a screen, or just shooting it onto the wall? If I do this, am I going to feel like an idiot a couple of years from now when LED bulbs replace everything?"

Comments

Wait a little if you can

[feyhunde]

I work for a midsize company that does displays in R&D. My advice is to wait. There are huge issues with Plasma that make it a ripoff. Projectors are better, but only good for dedicated home theater. It is like this, Plasma is photo-emissive. It depletes itself constantly, but not on a linear scale. The first thousand hours are key. That means, you turn on your TV from outta the box, turn on a test screen, leave for a few hours, and the screen is damaged forever. The damage can be localized too. Watching a TV station that uses a bug will burn in the bug after a while. The full color gamat is not being used, so the depletion is not equal and the image suffers. This holds true for all emission displays. If you hook up your plasma to a computer that has a fixed image, say a start menu or a dock, or a SCO logo burning as a backround, it will burn in. It is only possible to remove by reverse driving the image, and that requires 1337ness and an understanding of colors. As for LCD projectors, they choke with the lights on. They are good for home video, and do great there, but are not normal TV's. My advice is to wait. The gen 6 LCD plants will be here soon. With them will come 42 AMLCDs that will be fast enough and bright enough for this use. They should also be much cheaper, possibly low end models for under $1500. There are a few good ones that exist now, but are more expensive due to reduced capacity. You can get a beautful 42 inch AMLCD for about $10,000 now, but that price will drop very quick very soon.