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."

Comments

Energy efficiency

[pe1chl]

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.

Re:Energy efficiency

[Osty]

LCDs also burn in.

No they don't. Plasmas suffer burn-in because they emit colors in the same way as a CRT -- using red, green, and blue phosphors. "Burn-in" happens when the phosphors age non-uniformly, such as when a static image is held in place too long. You can combat this by properly setting your contrast (TVs are set to torch mode in the stores because it looks better under the flourescents; at home you should have your contrast set to a much lower level) and by pixel-shifting, but you can't eliminate it so long as the technology uses a consumable resource for emitting colored light (phosphors).

LCDs and DLPs don't burn in because they use filters over white light to emit colors. DLP does this with a color wheel rotating anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 times per second, with the DMD adjusting for each window of the wheel to emit the correct amount of the base color of light (basic wheels contain red, green, and blue filters. Better wheels double up on the colors and often add several different shades of blue and green since our eyes are more attuned to those colors than red. Non-consumer high-end models have individual DMDs and filters for each color). LCDs have discrete filters for red, green, and blue, and the liquid crystal is set to a state to allow just the right amount of each through (thus you can do sub-pixel rendering, such as Cleartype font-smoothing). But it's still all about emitting filtered light, not emitting colored light from a phosphor. Your backlight may go out, but that's replaceable. Good luck replacing individual phosphors when they burn out.

Re:Energy efficiency

[GTMoogle]

If it happens to 5 of 30, it's a manufacturing defect, although one possibly deemed acceptable (or went unnoticed). So a poorly made LCD can have issues with pixel response - it can probably even be fixed by massaging the screen while having it flicker through the color spectrum. YMMV. It works for dead pixels, at any rate. "L" stands for liquid, so gooshing it around may very well have restorative properties. I've never seen a burned in LCD, so I can't say from experience.

The point was phosphors have a lifespan directly related to their average intensity, and for plasmas it's measurable in a matter of years if not months (for the difference between neighboring pixels).

Re:Why would anyone buy either?

[kisielk]

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.

Re:Memory

[glittalogik]

LCD burn is fixable. Make a screen-sized white image and a screen-sized black image and run a slideshow of them alternating for a few hours. This basically 'flexes' the light-blocking bits in each subpixel and gets them unstuck. I used to work at Philips and that's how we fixed it on any of the monitors in the office.