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New Larger TVs Favor LCD Over Plasma
Information Week is carrying a Reuters story examining the shift towards LCD technology in recent large-screen television models. Though some analysts acknowledge that plasma displays have faster response times over large surfaces, the industry seems to be betting that consumers will prefer higher resolution images over time. From the article: "CPT's Wu agrees that plasma panels, especially 50-inch and larger ones, do excel LCDs in some aspects of picture quality, but he says the sheer size of the LCD camp will help LCD panels overcome whatever drawbacks they have in a timely manner ...With the 40-inch-class market gradually taken over by LCD TVs, plasma models need to migrate to the market for 50-inch TVs and above, but demand is not as well developed there, analysts say. 'The United States accounts for more than 70 percent of demand for 50-inch plasma TVs and larger. In other words, there is virtually no 50-inch-class plasma TV market outside the United States,' DisplaySearch director Hisakazu Torii said."
It may not be a factor in the US market, but here in Europe plasma's have a bad reputation because of their energy consumption.
Household equipment is rated in the shops on an energy efficiency scale, and LCD screens score much better than plasma.
Furthermore, plasma has a tendency to burn in. Of course every manufacturer and salesman will tell you that "this is no longer true", but once the problem has happened they are not so firm in their statements anymore.
This causes trouble when watching 4:3 transmissions in true 4:3 format (rather than stretched to 16:9).
It also sometimes causes station logos or newstickers to burn in.
Most people don't have a spare wall to use as a TV screen. Besides, many people don't have the space for a projector. You need to have nothing between the projector and the wall, which is difficult to realize in a small room.
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Plasma power consumption BAD
LCD power consumption GOOD
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LCD monitors do get imprinted but the image is lost when power is cycled. Perhaps you should switch the monitor off when booting into ubuntu.
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I find your comment puzzling. I live in Japan and many of my friends have projectors because their apartments are too small to be able to fit even a modest sized television. With a projector they can have a large screen while taking up very little space. Newer LCD projectors are no bigger than a regular sized laptop and fit easily on a shelf or projector mount. Add to this a screen that you can hang from the ceiling on some hooks, and you can get a 50" TV in a tiny space.
What you're missing is 2-fold.
First you have contrast ratio. Unless you keep the display compleately dark, a black screen isn't really black. Normal lighting sources boost the dark areas and destroy contrast and to a lesser extent color balance. You can get around this by keeping the room compleately dark, but thats not really practical. It might be workable for movie night, but I'd hate to be forced to do all my TV watching in a dark room. Not to mention windows and other possible light sources that might not be under your control.
This issue could be resolved soon with a new screen that only reflects very specific wavelengths of light (namely the same exact RGB hues used in the projector). Since normal ambient light is somewhat evenly distributed amoung a broad spectrum of colors, only a very small percentage will be reflected from most sources and the screen looks very dark grey when the projector is off. However, since all of the light from the projector is in the wavelengths reflected by the screen its just as bright as on a normal white screen. This boosts the contrast ratio and eliminates most ambient light interference problems. Eventually, this will be the way to go for projector viewing, but currently, its still in the "is that a price tag or a model number?" stage and needs more development before being practical. (And I can't seem to find a link to a description of this screen, anyone else have better luck?)
Second you have space constraints. My walls aren't smooth and white. The rooms in this house are a bit odd, and I don't think I could easily find a large flat space thats unobtrusive, especially one that could have furnature arranged around it with room to put the projector far enough away. If you have such a space, then thats great for you, but it doesn't work for everyone.
There are a number of reasons why people don't want or can't use front projection.
f aq/f/htbasicfaq5.htm
I'm suprised nobody has mentioned lamp life yet. It's a pricy part and has a short life.
2. Video projectors have a very limited bulb life. In other words, if you are watching TV on your video projector about 3-4 hours every night, you would have to replace the light source bulb about once a year at 200-400 dollars a pop.
snipped from
http://hometheater.about.com/od/hometheaterbasics
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made by data display, a UK based company. I used to work on these displays. They also specifically mention the short lifespan of the plasma displays.
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That sharpness is not a nice, crisp, clear image, but artificial edge enhancement. The fact that it looks hideous with the sharpness up is not a fault of your plasma; it's the case with LCD and even CRT as well.
If anything, I've got too much softness by default on my LCD; I've been using the upscaler in the XBox 360 for DVDs instead, to avoid it.
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This discussion mirrors an article that appears in the current issue of the IEEE Spectrum magazine. They review the pros and cons of LCD and Plasma technologies, with a brief look at DLP, SED, LCOS.
Their take on it? It won't be settled for another couple of years, and there will be two distinct categories: screens below 50" (or 42"), and screens larger. LCD will dominate the smaller screen size market, though SED may replace that when the cost comes down (after 2010?). For larger screens, don't discount projection technology, particularly in terms of cost.
Incidentally, the cover article for this issue is on Blake Ross, whom they call the Firefox Kid.
I was working on a project where we had large LCD overhead displays in a facility that operates 7/24. They got "image persistance" as a result. The manual for the monitors recommended having them turned off for a few hours a day to prevent this. This was not an option for our application so we made a change to the application to periodically swap the displays around. I do wonder how the LCD displays they use at the airport avoid this. The good news with LCD "burn-in" is that it is generally reversable.
You can do a google search for "LCD image persistence" to read about it. Or you can just go here.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
DLP has the following limitations:
1. It is inherently a projector technology, which means:
a. For a front projection situation, DLP image quality is directly dependent upon the illumination within the room and the screen.
b. For a rear projection situation (i.e. the one that looks like a stand-alone TV), DLP requires a screen that has inherently poor viewing angles, particularly when viewed above or below the vertical screen limits. Even older LCDs without the "180 degree" viewing angle are far better than any DLP RPTV screen.
2. It is a technology dependent upon light sources that (currently) have inherently poor lifetimes. Lamps are expensive replacements. When LEDs and lasers come more into the fold, this should alleviate this problem.
(Note: this could also be construed as an advantage since you'd have all new luminance and you can't replace the CCFL backlight in an LCD which has a tendency to degrade unevenly over time).
3. It is a technology that, unless you use three separate DLP chips for the primary colors, will be prone to rainbow effects. Even in the 3DLP setups, convergence can also become an issue.
DLP is good for certain applications but will never be the primary volume driver of the market. Two years ago, it was the only way to get a decent screen size for HD, but not any more. The whole industry has dogpiled onto LCD direct-view, and it'll only get cheaper from here.