Are Plasma TVs the Next BetaMax?

Lev13than writes "An article in the Toronto Star questions whether the battle between LCD and Plasma is the next VHS vs. Beta: "LCD is now in plasma country, and this means war — a war some say plasma can't hope to win". Rationale for LCD's victory include plasma's burn-in vs. LCD's ruggedness, improved images and falling prices. While the Beta analogy isn't particularly helpful (since both technologies play the same content), the article does raise interesting points."

Comments

Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly

[non-sequitur]

I suppose I don't like to see judgement until all the evidence is in, and I think it's very difficult to get a balanced view on anything noawadays - including things that seem very straightfroward.

I have a Sony CRT-based HDTV, and I really would love a flat-panel big screen. I think right now I'd favor LCD, but that preference is partly based on hearsay about Plasma (supposedly high power and supposedly short life), not direct experience.

I have had direct experience with LCD, and I love it - except for the uneven fading of the CCFL backlights (maybe LED would improve this?), and the poor image quality when viewing non-native resolutions (which is improving with newer technology, and is mainly a problem only with PCs or SDTV).

I haven't really warmed up to DLP - poor off-angle viewing and relatively dim image - but I can see the economy in it.

So, I'm torn - each have strengths and weaknesses, but I'd hate to see one drop out simply because some information wasn't brought up.

I imagine if people knew that Betamax was capable of better image quality without breaking backward-compatibiltiy, it might have trumped VHS (okay, there was also the closed-source problem, and the legendary porn industry influence).

Neither's good enough

[Bertie]

Neither plasma nor LCD are good enough to persuade me to part with my cash. Why should I pay about twice as much as I would for a CRT when the quality's not as good? Plasma's got the burn-in problem, and the power consumption's colossal. LCD screens can't do proper black. Neither cope well with anything but their native resolution, and both completely fall to pieces when there's any kind of fast action on the screen.

The way I see it, they're both stopgap technologies that are persuading impatient people to part with their cash until they can iron the creases out of SED or OLED technology and get them production-ready.

That's a good thing

[rsilvergun]

for the TV industry, sell a product that needs replacing every few years. Worked for bike racks. Yakima and Thule used to sell racks so durable they were only replaced when someone bought a new car and you couldn't buy compatible roof clips. Nowadays critical components are made of cheap plastic that'll wear out in a few years (and good luck buying just the components). I gather it works well for cars too. What's annoying is all the landfills full of busted consumer goods. I mean, would it really be that hard to design these things to be repairable? Probably no more so than making a refillable ink cartridge.

Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly

[Rande]

I've got a Sanyo DLP projector, which has an auto bulb kill at 2500 hours. However, once I did the reset sequence to tell it that I'd put in a new bulb (even though I hadn't), it came back and is still running 3500+ hours later.
I suspect that I'll just buy a new projector than replace the bulb - an equivalent new projector would only cost 50% more than the bulb itself.

Re:I predict.... neither.

[Dahamma]

Anyway, my LCD is actually "silent", and I love it. Unless DLPs become fan-less I'll never buy one again.

Funny you should say that... Samsung finally shipped their LED-based DLP a few weeks ago.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/06/samsung-hl-s567 9w-dlp-with-led-backlight/

I don't know if they have removed the fan altogether, but they have removed the color wheel (one less thing spinning at 10k+ RPM...) and the LEDs generate a LOT less heat than the traditional bulb, so I'd imagine it's effectively silent.

Going a bit off topic (well, not really, we're talking TVs!) Sony was showing off a prototype SXRD (ie LCoS) TV at CES 2006 that was about a foot deep (they had it hanging on a wall). Combine these innovations in projection TVs (true 1080p DMD/LCoS chips, LED lamps, thin cabinets, etc) and amazingly they may start taking some of the plasma/LCD market segment, ie low footprint HDTVs - especially in the 50"+ range, where there is a huge price advantage for projection TVs.