Plasma or LCD?

WeeBit asks: "I saw a news article on why you should buy Plasma instead of LCD TV's. It just sparked my interest. Flat panel TV's have the market now, and our analog TV's are on their way out. I am sure many will be thinking of purchasing their new flat panel within the next couple years. Have you given this any thought? Panasonic, has been pushing ads that sell the consumer on the plasma TV's over the LCD's. Is this a good argument, or is it just hype? Which do you prefer Plasma or LCD? Why?"

Comments

LCD

[mgabrys_sf]

Screen burn. I play console games. New plasmas attempt to mask the dammage by doing an entire screen burn - which reduces brightness. That isn't a fix.

Re:LCD

[networkBoy]

That and reflection. TFA mentions flourescent lights which is bunk, we don't have shop lights in our living rooms, but we do have windows, which can be worse. Flipside is the contrast and dMax of the blacks on plasma are hands above LCD.

In a nutshell: GP TV? LCD
Theatre? Plasma.
That's it.
-nB

Re:LCD

[mgabrys_sf]

Don't forget rez. If you're ever going to see a 1080p Blue Ray movie - you're going to shell out huge bucks for plasma - and get a huge screen. That and a sizable power-bill.

Re:LCD

[datafr0g]

Nice troll. Saying that plasmas are more fragile than LCD's is like saying that automobiles are more fragile than happy meal toys. If you mean that automobiles are more complex, then you're right. If you mean that automobiles are made from cheap plastic and happy meal toys are made from tempered steel, then you're wrong.

Sorry dude, but you are full of crap. TVs, regardless of the tech they use, all have the same purpose - to display a video stream! Therefore, the comparison is legitimate. Automobiles and happy meal toys however, do not have this common use and a comparison would be redundant.

Given that you're an idiot, please let me explain.
You see, automobiles are primarily used as a form of transportation. Happy Meal Toys on the other hand, are intended to entertain children while they eat fatty foods. As you can see, both of these things have a different purpose so it would be rather difficult to compare them.

For example, it is pointless to compare:
Futurama to the Challenger Space Shuttle
Saving Private Ryan to an iMac
Tomato soup to the Latin language
Fish to skyscrapers

But we can easily compare:
LCDs to Plasmas
BMWs to Toyotas
PS3s to XBox 360s
Your brain to a wet sponge

Re:LCD

[mewyn]

Basically, the most popular way for PDP manufacturers to mask out burn-in is to burn-in all pixels equally. So, basically if the burn-in detection sees that you are likely to have burn-in in one small zone of the screen, it will drive that one zone with less intensity, and the rest of the screen harder to equalize the burn-in rate. This, of course, is less than ideal, as it leads to an overall loss of black level on the display, and driving one zone too hard with a static image will reduce the life of the PDP display overall.

Re:LCD

[mgabrys_sf]

Yes. Static images like score and gameplay gauges tend to burn into plasma very fast. The latest available fixes attempt to erase these burns by turning on every pixel very bright and for a long time to burn-in the whole of the screen (they call this "wear your new plasma's phosphors evenly" which is bullshit - they're basically burning down the remaining screen to match the burn). This of course lessens the life of the screen and reduces overall brightness. Basically it's a fix that breaks the whole of the screen. Unless brightness isn't important to you of course (or the lifespan of your screen), don't bother. It's the edsel of the 21st century in screen tech.

http://www.plasmasaver.com/

Re:LCD

[uradu]

> Theatre? Plasma.

Nah, projector. Cheaper and much larger picture. Not for everyone, but if you're on /. most likely yes.

Re:LCD

[jackharrer]

Good point. And for cash you'll save on plasma you can buy those nice electric blinds - I've seen them somewhere for less than 300 quid.
That will make true home cinema.

Re:LCD

[Anonymous Coward]

BOOM HEADSHOT!

Re:LCD

[jaymaxSEA]

LCD for me. I own a 30" LCD and a 42" plasma, both Philips. The LCD just rocks. It uses less power, runs cooler, and doesn't have glare. With my plasma, when the sun is out, you can't see the screen all that well, whereas with my LCD, it's not a problem. Having said that, however, I still like my plasma, I just think LCDs are better for my needs.

Re:LCD

[fyngyrz]

Nah, projector.

Absolutely agree. No box display can give you even a fraction of the quality a well-planned projection installation can. You go from getting a "that's nice" reaction to your media system to dropped jaws.

There are basically two types of projection systems. One is based on high-temperature, high density LCD panels. The other is based on Texas Instrument's DLP (Digital Light Processing) technology, which places many tiny mirrors on a chip and actually moves them to modulate brightness. Because the mirror can deflect the light entirely off screen, this results in deep, deep blacks. LCDs produce blacks by becoming as opaque as they can, but light still leaks through. Lately, compensating technology in the form of stopping down the lens to aid in darkening the overall projection range in relatively dim scenes has appeared, but this isn't really the same as a system that can actually go from very bright to deep black. Still, LCD projectors look very good, it's just that DLP looks astonishing.

And of course, you'll pay more for DLP — with the better picture, they do charge a premium and no one really has too much to say about it.

Prices seem to be settling at about $3000 for a 1080p system in the coming year; they've been about $5000 during $2006 and $10000 during 2005 for 1920 x 1080, though progressive scan is really just now appearing; 1080i was the top a couple years back.

You can shoot for 720p and really save a huge amount of money, and you still get a fabulous picture. The key here is to find the single largest surface you can dedicate to the projection system and then design around that. My sweetheart and I were looking for a place to remake, so we were looking at old stores, businesses, and so on. We found an 1940's church, and behind the pulpit was a blank wall space that was very close to 16:9 above the chair-rail; to make a long story short, we bought the church, made a home out of it, and we ended up with a display surface that is quite large. Not all projectors will focus on a large surface, so watch out for the spec that tells you how many inches they'll service, in focus. When you see 200 or 300 inches, you know you're good to go.

If you can't dedicate a wall, then a drop-down screen is just a couple of hundred bucks and you can easily get them in that price range up to 100 inches with remotes that command them to drop down.

There are downsides. The bulbs for the projector last a few thousand hours, and they dim over time. While life is advertised as 5000 hours or so, you'll probably be thinking about replacing them at closer to about half of that. And they are relatively expensive; typically several hundred dollars. On the other hand, if you put a dime in a jar for every hour you watch, you'll have "bulb money" all ready to go when the time comes. A dime an hour for the best home theater experience I can possibly have isn't too much for me; I don't use it to watch broadcast television more than a couple hours a month. We watch lots of movies and we spend a fair amount of time gaming in hi-def.

Here is a shot of my system with my sweetheart at the lower left for scale. You can see how close the wall space is to 16:9... we totally lucked out.

Re:LCD

[iocat]

DLP can cause fleeting rainbow images in whites (not just large white areas -- even tiny whites) that some people find very disconcerting. Some people see them, some don't. But you should check out a DLP image before you purchase. Also, at the consumer level, low-end DLP can be cheaper than low-end LCD.

I agree projectors are great for home theaters, but I find that they are not great for a wide variety of applications -- for instance, I am sitting in my family room right now, with no blinds pulled, and lots of light in the room, and my HD CRT looks a lot better than my projector would in this situation! (Yes, I said HD CRT. It weights a million pounds, but the picture quality is > than plasma or LCD with my 1080i cable input.)

Re:LCD

[Technomonics]

Further advancements in DLP now replace the single bulb approach with multiple bright LED's. With this new approach, there is no "rainbow effect" and the resulting resolution is now higher than the 1080i standard.

Here is a blurb about a new model by Samsung: "Samsung must realize those DLP bulbs don't last long enough and cost too much because the new 56-inch HL-S5679W DLP set uses LED lighting. Hey, Samsung, while you're under the hood, why not kill that color wheel too? Oh wait, they did that too with red, green and blue LEDs, which is killer because there's no gold at the end of that rainbow effect. The new tweaks give the HL-S5679W a sweet seven-second startup time and 20,000 hours of little lamp lives. There's no wobulation in this 1080p set, it's full 1920 x 1080 in a progressive format with dual 1080p inputs. Samsung states these will handle 1080p signals, so if it's the real deal, these should be paired up PlayStation 3's, no? Watch for it in April around $4,200."

So, it would seem the new DLP LED would be perfect to prevent burn-in while providing a incredible picture and resolution. -kevin

Re:LCD

[khelms]

I just bought a 52" LCD and it looks awesome. The unit has 1920x1080 resolution and supports 1080P. I passed on Plasma because they supposedly have a humming problem at higher altitudes (I'm at 6200") and I've been pleased with a smaller 26" LCD TV and with the LCD monitors I use with my PCs.

Re:LCD

[fyngyrz]

I agree projectors are great for home theaters, but I find that they are not great for a wide variety of applications -- for instance, I am sitting in my family room right now, with no blinds pulled, and lots of light in the room, and my HD CRT looks a lot better than my projector would in this situation.

No question about it. When you are sharing the room, that is, it isn't a "home theatre room" but just "a" room with a television in it, projection is not optimum. Projection pretty much requires the room be used as a theatre for the duration of the event, or else it'll suffer from ambient light. But really, non-dedicated or shared room use for media has always been a problem. If someone is in there talking on the phone, everyone else wants to stuff it down their throats. If kids are running in front of the TV, one wants to go buy a bundling bag. If lights are turned on in a theatre, one wants them off, and right now, too. If you can't design the space so that you can be reasonably assured that no one will be wrecking your experience with light, noise, display-blocking, telephone calls, and so forth, then you are probably better off with a less expensive system. Your irritation will go up with the amount of effort and cash you spend for each interference with your experience.

The thing is, there are so many interesting media things you can do now - computers, PS3, XBox360, Wii, HD-DVD, Blueray, HD-satellite, HD-cable, standard DVD, HD broadcast - even the old XBox and PS2 can do component quality output - that in my mind, at least, it has become more than worthwhile to dedicate a space for it. Think about typical room assignments in a home. Perhaps there is one that isn't really doing anything much beyond "being what it is", meaning, you don't really use it. Formal dining rooms are often mostly unused, living rooms too; it's difficult to generalize because there are so many different configurations for homes, but what I am getting at is that media is a big experience and dedicating a room isn't really that crazy an idea. I don't watch much TV, as I said (that's a whole 'nuther discussion) but most people do; given the hours people spend watching, divide the cost of dedicating a space into that time and if the space is simply available, I think for many people it makes immediate sense.

Re:LCD

[Junta]

Three solutions commonly exist for that.

One, most single-chip DLP units nowadays have the color wheel spin at such a high velocity as to render the effect impossible to perceive. My color wheel spins about three times as fast as color wheels during the time people complained some could notice the transitioning.

Second, on more expensive DLP they have multi-chip units, with a chip per color and no wheel. You are back to worrying about convergence, but rainbow effect is impossible.

Third, newer sets are starting to employ high-output LED arrays instead of lamps. This means that for one lower power and heat as well as longer life than bulbs (not to mention cutting out the need for some moving parts), and for another they can flash the different primaries very quickly to the chip. Of course, if they don't flash quickly enough, it could still happen.

Re:LCD

[Junta]

Oh wait, they did that too with red, green and blue LEDs, which is killer because there's no gold at the end of that rainbow effect The fundamental cause of 'rainbow effect' is not a wheel spinnig around, it's having only one primary on the screen at any given instant in time. The LED array if implemented properly will have the equivalent effect of very high RPM color wheels (which they already are doing). I haven't noticed rainbox effect, but if someone theoretically did notice with high rpm wheels, they might theoretically notice with LED array. I don't know how they time the LED array intervals and by extension what the equivalent RPM/size of a color wheel wold have to be to equal it, but at the end it's the same basic strategy.

The LEDs definitely have shorter time to full brightness, I hear they enable the sets to do a richer color gamut, and of course are much more longer lasting and less sensitive to power cycles. With LEDs DLPs ought be *the* sets to have if you have longevity in mind. LCD panels theoretically could break down more easily under heat, and I know damn well how easily LCD panels get dead pixels (every flat panel I've had developed at least one screwed up pixel within two years). The heat doesn't apply to flat-panel sets so much, but the dead pixels do. Plasma I hear has been criticized for losing quality over years, as well as burn-in. There have been improvements, but still... You're left with LCoS type systems, CRT, and DLP. DLP and LCoS may benefit equally from LED light instead of lamp. CRT projection has been very solid over the years, but subject to burn in.

Re:LCD

[zukakog]

1. Stores use fluorescent lighting which you are unlikely to have in your living room.

Quite a few people have florescent lights in their living rooms. Maybe not the big tubes, but the small ones that screw in to your lamp. I have 4 floor lamps with nice bright florescent bulbs, and the 4 of them togeather burn cooler and cheaper than one 100w incandescent bulb. Now, I'm not sure if these bulbs have the same drawbacks as the big tubes, concerning TV's.

Re:LCD

[larryj]

Wow. Someone is selling a DVD that you can download for free. Check out the plasma/lcd forum at htt://www.avsforum.com and download the image for free.

I recently upgraded my 2 year old Panasonic 42" plasma to a Panasonic 50" plasma. Even though I play lots of console games, I've never seen any sign of burn-in or image retention on either one. I followed the advice posted at avsforum, lowering my brightness and contrast (which matched my Video Essentials calibration results anyway) and just used common sense. Not only have the static images not burnt in 'very fast', they haven't burnt in at all.

Re:LCD

[lanc]

To save power - remove TV entirely. Sure it has its drawbacks - but besides power it saves a lot of time.

Re:LCD

[uradu]

Right, and even if you want a high gain screen, the GrayWolf II with a gain of 1.8 can be had for well under $200. The main problem with these is that they don't work very well with a ceiling mounted projector, which is where most permanent projectors end up. With reflector screens most of the light is reflected back to the source, so you as the potato on the couch are well off-axis wrt the projector up on the ceiling. A better approach for good blacks would be to get--or paint--a gray screen and a higher lumen DLP projector with still decent blacks such as the Mitsu HD1000U. That way, dark scenes will be darker because of the gray screen, but bright scenes will still be punchy because of the higher output of the machine.

PS I realize you probably know all this, I'm just adding it for the benefit of the crowd that seems to have gathered in this thread by the look of all the +5 Insightful moderation.

Re:LCD

[trentblase]

I am very sensitive to the rainbow effect. The other day I was watching my friend's new big screen tv... it was a black and white film. The rainbow effect was getting to me and I asked "is this DLP rear projection?" and he said "no, it's plasma". That's when I realized that plasma has the same problem with rainbow as old-school crt did: namely, it uses phosphors and those phosphors have different decay rates. I would have thought this would be eliminated because plasma doesn't need to SCAN. But apparently this plasma screen did scan, or something equivalent, which meant that I saw rainbows. Can someone please explain this?

Neither

[TERdON]

My old CRT TV from 1983 won't be replaced until it fails!

Re:Neither

[VernonNemitz]

I agree that neither LCD nor Plasma is enough better than the old-fashioned CRT that I would want to replace mine with one of those. The main thing against them is "pixel size"; the smallest possible pixel on a modern CRT allows it to easily and cleanly support a huge list of different screen-resolutions, while the pixels of LCD and plasma units are so much larger that they can only cleanly support a very limited list --else the image just plain looks ugly. So I'm waiting for flat-screen technology to advance to the point where pixel size has shrunk to roughly the same size that a CRT can do. So far as I know, the closest contender for that, still under development, is this one.

Re:Neither

[bytta]

Good plan!

If the (currently vaporware) SED TV ever gets out it will make plasma and LCD obsolete.

Re:Neither

[leenoble_uk]

I don't see why this was modded as funny, I completely agree.

LCDs and Plasmas are both being heavily marketed like we simply HAVE to have one or the other, a bit like Republicans/Democrats or Labour/Conservative. Personally I see problems with both technologies and I WILL stick with my 20+ year old Decca CRT until it actually fails. Just two months ago I recycled my old 14" portable which had served me well for around 20 years, but I haven't bothered replacing it since I can live without TV in the bedroom. I only hope that when the main TV does finally pack in I'll still be able to get a CRT to replace it.

I'm cynical

[blake182]

I presume that there is some amount of "we spent all this damn money making all this capacity to manufacture plasma, so we better recover that investment as much as we can". My assumption is that between plasma and LCD, LCD is going to win. If you believe that and you manufacture both, push plasma as much as possible to cut your losses, and LCD will take care of itself.

Re:I'm cynical

[catwh0re]

The warranty on my plasma (sanyo brand) reveals that they will not cover burn in from video games. My friend that sourced it for me reveals that they can get burn in remarkably quickly (hours not days). So for example a game's score counter on the screen will burn in quite quickly..

Re:I'm cynical

[jbreckman]

I had a plasma for 4 days.

On day 3 I watched an inning of baseball. Turned off the TV. Went to the store.

When I came back I could still see the score. (The red sox were winning). I was very angry.

The next morning the score was still there.

I returned the TV on day 4.

Re:I'm cynical

[thedletterman]

I bought a Pioneer plasma screen back in 2003 and it took no less than four months before I started getting burn in. I began leaving on a bright grey screen generated by my computer on it (second monitor output, grey desktop w no icons) and it reduced the effect but never wholly eliminated it. After about a year of owning this television, I began experiencing red/blue snow where there was supposed to be black. I literally threw it out, and have been using LCD ever since without complaint. Also, some of the newest generation LCD screens display at 120 hz, and alternate an all black frame between frames, this greatly increases contrast and eliminates motion blur. I think it's Samsung that is making these, I saw a demo a few months back and was quite impressed.

Re:I'm cynical

[Mateorabi]

> When I came back I could still see the score. (The red sox were winning). I was very angry.

Ah, a Yankees fan I see.

Re:I'm cynical

[Dragonslicer]

I watched an inning of baseball. Turned off the TV. Went to the store. When I came back I could still see the score. (The red sox were winning)

Yup, that's definitely a problem. The Red Sox could never hold a lead for that long.

Not that we life-long Red Sox fans are cynical or anything.

Panasonic say: Buy Our TVs Film At 11.

[iainl]

Panasonic are the best manufacturer of Plasma displays, bar just about none. Even those painfully expensive Bang & Olufsen plasmas are Panasonic panels with upgraded processing components and a nice box.

Meanwhile, their current range of LCDs aren't that great, and are generally considered to be, if anything, worse than their previous generation (they're cheaper to make, though). They're losing market share hand over fist to Sony right now.

Exactly how unbiased do you think a press release from them extolling the virtues of Plasma are going to be? Roughly as much as the one explaining why you should buy one of their Blu-Ray players, instead of Toshiba's HD-DVD, really.

Personally, I think both technologies have their place. Plasma really comes into its own at 50" and larger sizes, where LCD's finer dot-pitch is less of an issue, and you can't even get a decent-value plasma below 42" - the rare 37" ones are ludicrously overpriced in comparison to LCD. But Panasonic are definitely over-selling Plasma in their marketing.

Re:Panasonic say: Buy Our TVs Film At 11.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Disclaimer: I work for Bang & Olufsen.

Much of the added price is the name and the nice box, which is more expensive than you might think, being that "everything is what it seems to be", ie. the metal-looking bits really are metal all the way through (mostly aluminum, seeing as they have their own very highly regarded aluminum works), the build quality is very sturdy and well-built and so on.

But the internal components are also B&O-spec and developed in house with high-grade components, and the internal testing of both assembled components and finished products is very rigorous.

The image calibration and automatic adjustments ("Adaptive Black", contrast adjustments according to ambient light, image filtering and smoothing of analog inputs on LCDs and plasmas etc.) are very nicely done as well. You really don't notice the adjustments working until you really look for it, since it's so smoothly and non-intrusively implemented. Bang & Olufsen have long been known for having some of the very best and most consistent image quality.

Also, the integration between products of various kinds is second to none. The Beo4 remote controls every single Bang & Olufsen product from the last 25 years or so, and everything including lighting and curtains can be controlled using a single remote.

So yes, you pay for the name. Bang & Olufsen being a premium "scandinavian lifestyle" type brand, it's pretty much implied that a premium will be charged. But you also pay for the quality and the integration. You admittedly won't really enjoy the integration until you have lots of Bang & Olufsen stuff, but it is possible to control products from other manufacturers, via an IR receiver and IR blaster.

Bang & Olufsen is like Apple, in a way. They have the same "It just works" mentality, and lots of people really like that, especially after having tried it themselves. More tech-savvy people may scoff at their products for being to simple and too expensive, but they are not the target market. The target market is people with enough money to spend and no interest in tweaking.

Google is your friend

[subreality]

I was going to write up a quick bit about this, but then I realized that someone probably already has. Sure enough, second hit for "Plasma vs lcd": http://www.flattvpeople.com/tutorials/lcd-vs-plasm a.asp

They've already covered what I was going to say, and more.

Bottom line: Neither is superior in all ways. Pick the things that matter to you.

Re:Google is your friend

[iainl]

That's generally a good write-up, though I'd quibble with their first bit. Plasma being manufactured at generally larger sizes than LCD isn't really a 'win' for Plasma.

Most people choose where they want a TV to go, and buy one that is the right size for the space, or smaller if they can't afford one that big. If you've got a 50" space to fill, then sure, Plasma is the winner. If it's 32" or lower, Plasma can't fit your needs. Overall, I think it's a fairly neutral thing - 40" seems to be the hotspot, and both are fine there.

Re:Google is your friend

[karnal]

just go round a TV shop near the end of the day and feel for yourself.

I just got a funny picture in my head of a TV salesman punching me for "feeling for myself".

I like my CRTs

[simm1701]

For price, game performance, creen quality give me a nice 21" - 24" CRT

Ok so they are heavy and take up a lot of space... I have a big desk and work out - its not an issue.

For the living room? Well given the choice I'll go for a couple of projectors, a media linux box and a remote control for the curtains and the screen.

CRT

[KlaymenDK]

Why not go for a CRT?

There are still solid players on the CRT market, and apart from the form factor, there is nothing they can't do as well as the modern LCD/Plasma screens.

Gone are the days of insane power needs, gone are the days of 50Hz tellies.

Yet to come are the days of SED TV and even lower power needs, and there will always be that next thing coming up real soon now (tm).

If you have a modest amount of money, you get far more quality in the form of a high-end CRT than a mid-end LCD. (If you have oodles of money, nothing of this post applies to you...)

I'm not saying boo to NEW tech; I'm just saying that it is still VERY new tech, and the curve of improvement over time is still quite steep. Spend your money how you like ... but make sure you do what's right for you, not just what's modern.

Re:CRT

[iainl]

The problem (at least here in the UK, I don't know the US that well) is that ever since LCD went huge there isn't such a thing as "high-end CRT" any more. Anything over about 24" is going to show geometry problems to some extent (dear GOD am I glad I don't have to worry about geometry or convergence now I've gone to LCD), and when you get to 32" 16/9 sets its a pretty serious issue.

Then there's the fact that the two of us nearly did ourselves serious injury taking my 32" CRT up the stairs. The 32" LCD that replaced it weighed 17kg. Including the packaging, which never made it up with the CRT, because that wouldn't have negotiated the corner.

For small sets, CRT is still unbeatable on value and image quality. But for the living room it's dead as a dead thing.

Re:CRT

[xsonofagunx]

Then there's the fact that the two of us nearly did ourselves serious injury taking my 32" CRT up the stairs.

I'm 21 years old/5'7" [~170cm]/160 lbs. [~73kg] and a generally sedentary lazy ass and I didn't have much trouble moving a 32" CRT by myself. Was it made of lead?

Re:CRT

[gad_zuki!]

The 27" sony trinitron I just moved from the car to a second floor apartment (almost dying in the process) weighs 98lbs. Thats 62lbs less than what you weigh. Moving these things is a serious pain and with no good grips.

Re:CRT

[Listen Up]

I will tell you one reason, because CRT's are unbelievably fucking heavy. My fiancee and I have a 32" HDTV 1080i glass CRT. We just moved half way across the country and had to lift and carry that goddamn heavy HDTV with us. At one point we had to put the HDTV down and ask a neighbor to help us carry it. It was ridiculous to get it home in the first place, it was ridiculous to lift it up a flight of stairs into our living room, and it was ridiculous to have to repeat that exercise two more times when we moved. The CRT screen image is not better than a great LCD or plasma, that's just a bunch of bullshit. Sit 8-10' away from a CRT and it looks just like an LCD or plasma at 8-10'. Even at 3-4' there isn't any difference. And my Apple flat-panel display looks absolutely amazing. The major difference is that I helped my brother move his 42" plasma a few months before I moved and it barely took two of us to move it. Plus his plasma doesn't take up ~27 cubic feet of space in his house either like our 32" HDTV CRT does.

CRT my ass. Good riddance. A 1080p LCD is perfectly fine with me.

Re:CRT

[Secrity]

Well, yeah, the glass used in CRTs contains quite a bit of lead.

My CRT Sony WEGA weighs over 200 pounds and I think that most of the weight is in the face of the CRT. This set requires a special TV stand just to hold the weight and there is NOTHING to hold onto when moving it. The old Sony TVs were rectangular boxes that had carrying handles, the newer ones are odd shaped round cornered blobs with no handles; the only flat parts are the bottom of the cabinet and the face of the CRT.

It pissed me off when the set was delivered. I had paid for in-house delivery and box removal, which the salesman said was supposed to mean that the TV would be unpacked and set in place. I live on the 2nd story of a condo with a significant number of stairs from the parking lot up to the common door of the condo. I would have been happy if the set had been carried up the stairs and left in my living room, still in the box. I took the day off of work to be home when it was delivered. The delivery truck driver arrived by himself, with no helper.

The driver told me that the warehouse didn't know that the set weighted so much so they didn't send a helper and that either I had to help him carry it up the stairs or he would leave the set at the curb. I called the store that I bought it from and was told that the delivery was my responsibility and that they had just arranged it for me. I called the delivery company and was told that they didn't have anybody to send out to carry it in and that they would refund me the difference between curb side and inside delivery. I was also told that if the driver helped me carry to it upstairs that I wouldn't get the $15 refund. If I refused delivery, I would have to pay for the delivery attempt, pay for storage, and pay again for another delivery. I helped the driver carry it upstairs.

I talked to a lawyer about it and was told that I was out of luck; the law was on the side of the cartage company and the retailer was totally out of the loop, they had simply acted as my agent to arrange delivery.

LCD

[datafr0g]

Today, Plasma sets and LCD TV's are both pretty much the same in terms of quality. The only problems with Plasmas that I see are that they weigh a ton and are more fragile than LCD's but if you're not worried about dropping one it probably wont make much difference which one you'd choose.

Personally I'd go with LCD for reasons above but also because I believe that the technology has more longevity than Plasma. LCD screens are used in just about every device with a display these days - phones, desktops, portable media players, etc. and there's a lot of it about which means the cost of common materials comes down. Plasma tech on the other hand, as far as I know, is only used in TV sets.
Go for 1080p too, if possible!

Down with phosphors!

[Osty]

Plasma TVs still use phosphors to emit colored light, just like CRTs. This is the reason they're so prone to burn-in. The upcoming SED displays will also use phosphors. I say, no more phosphors!

LCD, LCoS, and DLP use filters to emit colored light rather than phosphors. There's no chance of burn-in with any of these technologies. I for one prefer my DLP rear-projection TV to any LCD or plasma flat-panel on the market today. I don't care to hang my TV on a wall, and the depth of LCD, LCoS, and DLP projection TVs are a mere fraction of older CRT-based RPTVs. While these technologies do have their problems (dead pixels, thicker form factor, rainbow effect on DLPs), to me they show much more promise than any phosphor-based technology currently or yet-to-be available.

Down with phosphors! No more burn-in!

Re:Down with phosphors!

[walt-sjc]

There isn't no chance

Syntax Error

LCD's don't have burn-in, they have retention. Retention can be fixed with a number of utilities (search Google.) There is nothing to "burn-in" on an LCD.

Don't trust em

[LordVader717]

There's a reason Panasonic are pushing Plasmas: That's their main market. If you want a Plasma, go for Panasonic, whereas you're best to go with Samsumg for LCD. It doesn't make them unbiased just because they do make a few LCDs too.

You can tell how useless their claims are when they come with shit like "LCD's are all right in kitchens", or that LCD's "cannot reproduce the full range of colors in a HDTV broadcast".

Then they come with some blatently false claims such as that Plasma's are environmentally freindly (they are the biggest electricity-guzzlers in consumer-electronics history), or that Plasmas have better viewing angles.

LCD's don't fade with time, and don't suffer from burn in. That's good for me.

Just bought an LCD

[AlXtreme]

A few days ago I bought a new LCD TV to replace my decades-old CRT TV. Why didn't I go for Plasma?

• Screen burn - Plasmas are known to 'burn in' after a few years. This is especially the case with static images, and I want to use my TV as an additional computer screen (gaming, movies etc)
• Longetivity - This LCD should last me another 20 years. Plasmas have been known to fail in less than 5
• Power usage - I don't want to pay 50 euros/month just to have my TV on. LCDs use less energy than CRT, which use less energy than Plasma.

The only pro's for Plasmas would be the 'warmer colors' and the larger screens. But I really don't need a 1.5m screen and if I want to be warmer I'll turn up the heating.

I'm no expert, but this was what I learned after searching the net and going around to a number of TV stores.

Re:Just bought an LCD

[Manmademan]

You do realize that the backlight in yout LCD screen will fail sooner or later - it will certainly NOT last 20 years.

replacing the lamp is ridiculously easy and currently costs about $100-200 and only needs to be done once every 3-5 years or so. Compared to the $1200+ cost of replacing an entire TV, it's peanuts.

You've seen Plasmas fail becasue you;ve seen a first generation screen fail - we're at 10th generation plasmas and let me tell you, there is a world of difference - (Apollo vs. Space shuttle). LCD screens of plasma size have not been around as long.

"tenth generation" plasmas still don't overcome a lot of the issues present when the technology was introduced. Burn in is STILL a problem (where this is NOT the case with LCD's and DLP) and the current method to "prevent" it ends up decreasing brightness- given that brightness is often touted as an advantage over LCD, this is less than ideal. Plasmas are also for some bizarre reason STILL ridiculously expensive under 50 inches or so, despite being "tenth generation" and proven technology.

LCD's also burn in - yes - I've seen it computer monitors to 32" TV's. The LCD shutters get "lazy" when consitantly displaying the same image and do not turn "FULL" on leaving a strange "coffee spill" effect on the screen.

While it's possible (but difficult) to get a burn in image on an LCD, displaying an all white image on the set for a minute or so will correct this immediately. "burn in" as it exists on Plasmas and CRTs does not exist on LCD sets.

Re:Just bought an LCD

[drsquare]

That may be the case, but plasma has a much better picture, which is what counts at the end of the day. LCDs look washed out whereas plasma looks vibrant. Longevity doesn't count for much, in five years HDTVs will have gone down in price so you can get one of those to replace it.

Big screens == large power bills

[GreatDrok]

I was horrified when I found out how much electricity these large LCDs and plasmas use, especially in the 50" or bigger sizes. My current front projection system runs at 70" although it is perfectly capable of throwing a 120" image in a bigger room. With the DLP projector, DTS/DD receiver and LD/DVD combi player running the whole setup draws 280 watts. An equivalent size plasma is going to draw >600 watts on its own. LCD is better but if you really want a large screen experience a projection system is cheaper and more energy efficient. Also, for normal TV viewing we simply have a small 28" widescreen CRT which uses about 80 watts. Material shot for TV still looks better on a smaller screen so the projector is used for movies rather than general viewing. Also, if colour fidelity are important to you then LCDs and plasmas are a poor choice.

Re:Big screens == large power bills

[Jearil]

But what if you want to watch TV or play a game or whatever with a light on in the house? Or better yet, a window open with sunlight coming in?

The best argument I've heard against projectors of any kind is: If you have a white wall, go look at it. Look at that white wall and think to yourself "Is that white wall an acceptable black level for watching TV? Because that's as dark as the image is going to get."

I know some friends who have some really nice projectors, but they all look washed out unless in a room with absolute darkness. I find not all rooms can achieve that. A lot of rooms in a house are connected to other rooms with an archway rather than a door. Someone else in the house might be doing something that requires light, and that will spill over into a room with a TV. Heck, even something as simple as a kid wanting to do their homework on a coffee table will become either impossible for the kid, or if they have proper lighting, the picture on the projection screen will look horrible.

Re:Big screens == large power bills

[tolan-b]

That's a bit misleading to be honest. Yes that white is your black, but if your actual white is 50 times brighter then your iris will close right down and that white will look a lot blacker. Try turning on your lights on a sunny day. They barely register.

A lot of home cinema projectors are designed for use in a properly prepared room with next no light, those are probably what your friends have. However if you have a higher lumen projector, especially with a grey screen instead of a white one, then you can get pretty good performance with the lights on. Daylight is always going to be pushing it sure, but that's the price you pay for a 150" screen :)

Flat displays

[Oryn]

Any flat panel display is only as good as its video processor. Usually its kindof related to the price.

LCD displays work by running a backlight at full whack and blocking light pixel by pixel and boy can you feel it, just put your hand in front of one and feel the heat coming from it. Larger LCD displays can be quite a drain on your electricity supply as well as your wallet. LCD also tend to run higher screen resolutions than plasmas.

Without decent video processing also tend to make standard (low definition) TV look horrific and seem to make MPEG artifacts look much more noticeable.

Plasmas on the other hand tend to be of lower screen resolution and also seem to mostly have non-square pixels ie run 1024x768 but stretched to 16:9, this is important if you want to run a PC into your display. Other things I have noticed are dithering to produce some colours and also flicker (which I have never seen on an LCD screen).

That said, Plasmas seem to give a much sharper looking image than LCD (I think this may be due to a small black border round each pixel) Low def TV looks great on a plasma and there are never any viewing angle problems.
Black looks black and not gray.
Power wize even on large plasmas the power requirements average out as less than those of LCD displays.

Alot of the larger displays I have come across (mostly LCD) seem to be at some odd ball screen res 1366x768 this is a totaly stupid size because its not divisible by 8. Most graphics cards have a hard time driving a screen of this resolution.

The screen I have is of this size but only supports a PC input of 1360x768@60 so anything I throw up from my PC has 5 blury areas because it tries to scale 1360 to 1366

If you are looking to run a screen from your PC check the following:
Does the display have both DVI and DB15 Inputs (useful not essential)
Does it support its native screen res on both the DB15 and the DVI (pretty essential)
Does it support a refresh higher than 60Hz on the DB15 (pretty essential)
Does it have at least one HDMI input (most if not all cable / sat boxes need this for HDTV)

Its worth a note that 1366x768 is not a hi-def broadcast resolution and any hi-def broadcast material is going to have to be scaled through that same video scaler that does such a bad job of upscaling low-def TV.

One way to get round this problem with upscaling low def TV is to do it on your PC.
I get outstanding results using a brooktree 848 based capture card (yup thats the old style wintv card) and a linux program called tvtime (http://tvtime.sf.net). As far as I know there is something for windows called descaler. Tvtime actually seems to reduce mpeg artifacting.

The problem with using a PC is that there is no way to sync whats going out with whats coming in. If both input and output are 60Hz you will get a problem known as tairing.

Tairing (for those who don't know)
Is where the top and bottom of the picture seems to break away from each other, its mostly noticeable on side to side panning movements and the effect is like that of a postcard where someone has cut it in 2 with a knife and put the 2 bits back together, but not quite in the right place

One way to reduce this effect is to run your display at a higher refresh IE 70-80hz. Its unlikely that the DVI connector will support this so you'll have to choose the DB15 analog route. This does not get rid of the tairing, but causes it to happen in a random place with every frame (which is less noticeable to the eye)

Its also worth noting that there are some displays that are native hi-def resolution ie 1280x720 and 1920x1080. These displays will give the best results when running at these native resolutions. I live in the UK and here our HD TV is broadcast in 1080i so there is very little point in getting a 1280x720 display.

If you want to run a PC at 1920x1080 its hard to read standard 11 point fonts at 10ft distance on a 42" display (which is what we have at work)

Finally My best advice is t

I got the burn...

[WeeLad]

I bought a Panasonic Plasma around May of this year. I can already notice the burn from the vertical bars that show up on non-HD channels to compensate for the aspect ratio. I watch whatever I can justified/stretched to fill the screen, but it makes everyone look short and squat.

Re:I got the burn...

[cjsm]

This reminds me of a local news station in St. Louis, that has a consumer watchdog reporter. They did a segment on a family having a problem with plamsa burn in, and what was burned into the plasma was their own station screen logo. The family was apprantly unaware of the burn in problem, so they just left it on that station all day long. No one from the station apologized for ruining their expensive plasma with their constant broadcast of the logo. Instead they contacted the store it was purchased at and the manufacturer to see if they would help with the problem.

On screen logos are one of the reasons I don't watch much TV, even though I have a HD receiver. On my DLP front projector system and 92" screen, a logo which is mildly annoying on a small screen, becomes hugely distracting. I can pick up Smallville in High Definition, but the local station has a large obnoxious yellow logo, which makes it unwatchable. So I just buy or rent the discs of TV shows I want to watch.

Third Option

[lbmouse]

Save your money. How about a book? You can save even more by frequenting your local library.

Be sure to *look* at them first

[elrous0]

Well, I just made the decision to buy an HDTV myself. At first, I was going to buy a LCD. It certainly looks a lot better on paper than plasma. But then I went and actually LOOKED at them at my local Best Buy (granted, not the best place to gage them, but a lot better than nothing). I found that (to my eyes, anyway), comparably-priced plasmas looked a LOT better than their LCD counterparts. Their color and contrast was way better (more vivid and rich) than the LCD's (which looked grayish and "washed-out"). And, despite recent improvements, I could still see some annoying "ghosting" during movement on the LCD's.

So, be sure to actually look before you buy. It sure changed my mind.

-Eric

Re:Be sure to *look* at them first

[Sargondai]

Never, never, never base your purchase on this!

It is very common practice to modify screen settings to sell the preferred (ie larger profit) display.

If you have the time (and patience), you can sit there and tweak each individual display to see the 'best' picture each can achieve.

Re:Be sure to *look* at them first

[smoker2]

... comparably-priced plasmas looked a LOT better than their LCD counterparts. Their color and contrast was way better (more vivid and rich) than the LCD's (which looked grayish and "washed-out").

You do realise that they turn the brightness / contrast up way too high in stores to compensate for the fluorescent lighting.

Re:Be sure to *look* at them first

[elrous0]

Yes, but the LCD's and Plasmas were both in the same place in the store. And the plasma I looked at was one of the cheapest models available ($200 cheaper than the LCD I was looking at), so it's unlikely they would have had any incentive to make it look better than the more expensive LCD's.

The fact is that the plasma had a 10000:1 contrast ratio and the LCD had a 1600:1 contrast ratio. You can't make up for that with a few adjustments in some menu.

-Eric

my plasma experience

[Rylfaeth]

I've got a 42" plasma EDTV from Zenith. I've had it for going on 2 years and bought it specifically at the lower resolution based on the fact that I simply wouldn't be using it for any other purpose than hooking it up to a living room PC via DVI connection and playing SD-DVDs or xvid downloads through it, as well as the occasional analog cable broadcast. The display itself is extremely bright and has a wide viewing angle (to the point where nobody notices a "bad viewing angle"), and out-shone all of the other displays at the store when I purchased it. The kid working there actually attempted to talk me out of buying it, insinuating that it's a waste of money compared to full HD displays despite my insistance that a person should buy a screen with features that compliment what they'll be using it to display.

I haven't experienced any long-term burn-in or any problems at all using the device. As long as you turn on the pixel orbiter function, you should be gold. I did notice that after a month or so of watching morning news for traffic reports daily, the station's very bright red watermark logo left a faint burn-in that quickly disappeared after leaving the screen on 'inverse' for a half hour and then turning pixel orbiter on (I thought it shipped with it turned on by default, but didn't).

Honestly, I couldn't be happier. I've got a display that is essentially tailored to the content that I own and consume (since I have no desire to mess around with HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, and I don't game at all). Also, YMMV but in the middle of the day, when the room is very bright, the screen is just as brilliant as it always is, and I can't say the same for LCD panels (albeit smaller, PC-oriented LCD panels) that I've set up next to it for comparison.

-Rylfaeth

What about the frickin' lasers?

[spudnic]

What happened to the promise of a cheap laser TV? Is this still in the works?

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/ 11/0214254

Re:what about DLP?

[MarkAD88]

When I was in the market for a new HDTV last year I desperatley wanted to get a DLP. To me the images seem clearer, the colors mor vibrant and the blacks are almost CRT level blacks. Unfortunatley for me my living room layout requires that my TV be placed in a media-nitch that sits roughly 4-feet off the ground so between viewing angle problems and size restrictions I could not get a DLP. If you're not one of the "oh look how thin it is" or "I've gotta hang it on my wall" crowd then I'd suggeest a DLP set. The 52" models start out at around 16" deep and go up from there. Mitsubishi and even HP offer some beautiful models all of which are 1080p.

It could burn in TV also...

[VGfort]

If you have CNN, Fox, NFL or a certain channel on all the time those logos, scorebars, scrolling bars are gonna burn in also.

wood grain...

[VGfort]

Ah... wood grain finish with rounder corners, convex screen, a 13 button knob and a UFH knob, might look into at least a 90s model :p I hear they have RCA jacks now

Re:HELP MEEEEEE

[chriswaco]

Plasma has better viewing angles than LCDs. Newer LCDs are coming close, though.

A good plasma set still looks better at rapidly moving images, like sports. Newer LCDs are coming close, though.

Plasma seems to have more color and contrast, but Sony LCDs look pretty nice too.

I suspect LCDs will win, but I'm pretty happy with my plasma right now. If prices keep coming down, we'll be able to afford a few of each soon. :-)

Why I Just Purchased a Rear ProjectionLCD Set

[tompatman]

I just bought a Sony 46" LCD TV. This is not the best technology on the market. It has lower contrast than CRT or Plasma. You can't mount it on a wall. Why did I buy it? I needed a new TV and this was the best combination of size, performance and low price. It looks great for video games and for HDTV (this one supports 720P) there is just no comparison to standard def TV. Others have posted that CRT is still the cleanest looking technology, and they are right. I almost bought A CRT HDTV, but they are on their way out. It is way too heavy to move those TVs and they take up a lot of space. My advice to anyone considering a new set but is hedging on technology and price to consider the following:

- Many stations don't broadcast in HD yet
- Those that do often are carrying 720P quality signals, so buying a 1080P set right now may be a waste of money
- Toshiba is developing a new technology called SED, which might obsolete all existing technologies in the next few years
- A flat panel is not that useful unless you are really tight on space

Given all that, spending $1300 on my 46" rear projection LCD TV was worth the money to me. And I do expect to replace it with a newer tech. in the next 4 to 5 yrs. By then, the costs of HDTVs will be much lower than they are today.

Re:LCD uses less electricity

[Ced_Ex]

On the flip side, they don't save you anything on heating if you live in a cold climate. ;)

Works for us

[leonbrooks]

DVDs can still be watched via computers, but our little ones get by just fine without any TV shows of any kind.

Small Miss did watch “Bird Television” one morning for breakfast, by sliding the curtains wide & looking out into the front yard. That’s the one regression we’ve seen — & it was cute.

As well as power, you save a lot of space; not just for the box itself, but for the watching area.