Are Plasma TVs the Next BetaMax? 514
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."
LCD backlights will fade unevenly (Score:5, Informative)
Since so many of these are new, they won't fade for about two years - if Plasma is still around, you may see the tide change....
Video Games (Score:5, Informative)
Re:VHS vs. Betamax (Score:4, Informative)
That just isn't so. The super-high-end TV market is driven by the sports fanatics. For every one wall-sized unit sold to a movie nut, ten are sold to (American) football nuts.
Re:I bought a Rear Projection TV (Score:5, Informative)
Why?
1. Rear projection CRT may look the best, but they are way too bulky for the space. I wanted a sleeker TV, not a bigger one than my old standard CRT.
2. My wife sees the rainbows on DLPs. It's less obvious with higher-priced models (where the color wheel spins faster), but it renders them unwatchable for fast content (like sports or action movies) for her.
3. Plasma versus LCD came down not to their performance with hi-def content, but with their performance with standard content. I've had my plasma TV for more than a year, and most stations I watch are still standard def. In my opinion, standard def TV looks better with plasma than with LCD. I looked at lots and lots of TVs, and I switched them in the stores to standard def broadcasts instead of leaving them on the hi-def channel the retailer wanted to show. Of course standard def content looks worse on a big-screen TV than on a small TV, but the static and artifact pixels were far more visible with LCD than with plasma.
This whole discussion is silly, anyway. Both types of TVs can play the same content, as can rear-projection TVs, DLPs, and even those polymer TVs in the Slashdot article yesterday. There's no reason they cannot all co-exist in the marketplace. As long as there are people like me who dislike LCDs, there will be a market for them. (I don't even use LCD computer monitors - CRTs still look so much better it's unbearable.)
Fade? (Score:2, Informative)
LCD backlights will fade unevenly...And when they do, they're prohibitively expensive to replace. Since so many of these are new, they won't fade for about two years - if Plasma is still around, you may see the tide change.
Mine is going on 4 years and no fade at all.
One thing I never liked about plasma was the power consumption. Do they still suck 300+ watts and emit a lot of heat?
Wrong, Entrenched Ideas on Technology (Score:5, Informative)
As a writer of an article, one should do more than research the televisions of one company and base all aspects of technology on it. That company, would be Sony as indicated by the author of this article as it is the only manufacturer that is being represented.
This article is filled with entrenched ideas of plasma technology from about half a decade ago, when LCD televisions were prohibitively expensive and small.
It does not need to be restated that this article has no resemblence to the Beta vs. VHS wars as all televisions will continue to be able to display a standard picture, but here are the wrong ideas being perpetrated by this author.
Plasma's burn-in has been eliminated due to algorithms developed by both Samsung and Panasonic to essentially shift on-screen images ever so slightly to avoid a single image to stay in one place. In fact, even if you blasted a pure white image on the screen to purpose for a day (a standard accident, perhaps?) then the technology can even cure that over a day period of standard use.
Black bars will not cause burn-in on today's plasma televisions. Television station logos that sit non-stop in the bottom-right corner are the only culprits. Even most stations have figured out to shift the logo a bit or make it transparent enough that the older plasma television crowd will not have burn-ins.
Sony abandoned its plasma television technology because it just couldn't win. Sony was using glass from another manufacturer, which is a very expensive part. Consumer Reports and CNet routinely choose Panasonic plasmas as the very best because they manufacture the key plasma television components. Likewise, the article states that Sony abandoned it in favor of LCD technology. Sony also abandoned the tube television technology which was a cornerstone of the company's name. One would imagine a specialist, nay a leader, in tube television technology would have been most adept at establishing plasma technology.
Plasma televisions are not hot. Hovering one's hand above the vents of plasma televisions today reveal no more heat than a standard television, except suspiciously on brands such as Sony or Akai. Go through a Best Buy and feel the lack of heat emanating from a Pioneer, LG, Samsung, or Panasonic. In fact, Samsung did use to have fans to cool its plasma, but over time it has been eliminated.
Now for some editorializing... I pass by three plasma televisions every day in a work environment. A Samsung plasma hangs suspended from a ceiling displaying a static computer display giving graphical and textual read-outs. The display never changes interface except a screensaver comes up every thirty minutes. It does not have burn-in when somebody gets caught surfing the web on it by accident (I always find that one funny). A Sony plasma hangs in the boardroom, it is hardly on except for a teleconference, and it works day in and day out with just a face on it most of the time. A Panasonic plasma plays video non-stop in the breakroom and is only turned off at night. That display is smaller than the rest at 42 inches, but it is phenomenal color-wise and it hasn't failed either. Plasma technology is not terrible. It's very good. LCDs do not offer lighter weight or thinner enclosures than plasma (so far). LCD panel televisions will defeat plasma in the situation where it becomes thinner, lighter, larger, and more beautiful displaying images (this encompasses the entire image quality and motion playback attributes) in a fast enough time with a matching price to plasma on size. The problem is that plasma if you look online is far cheaper than an equivalent LCD panel television. Retail chains are making a load of money off of plasma units in-store. LCD television technology is priced exactly as it is worth in both on and off-line venues.
I'm just glad the author of the article didn't compare this to the Wii vs. Playstation 3 war or the Zune vs. iPod war.
Re:I predict.... neither. (Score:2, Informative)
DLPs require fans to keep the bulb cool. This can produce unreasonable noise while trying to watch something.
I had a Toshiba 46" DLP a couple months ago with two sets of fans in it. One was on when the TV was on, which was very loud. You had to run the TV way up just to make sure you could understand everything.
The other was on whenever the TV was plugged in, even when it was "off". You could really hear it across the room. (They claimed it was to "keep the bulb cool". To which I asked "Can I unplug my TV?" "Yes" "So then why does the fan need to be running???")
Quiet fans are something that a lot of manufacturers don't really pay attention to. (I know Toshiba didn't) Even if fans start out quiet, they often get louder as they age.
(Toshiba claimed the fans were "silent", and tried to fix it. Naturally they broke the TV more when attempting to fix it, so they authorized a refund and I bought a Samsung LCD and love it)
Anyway, my LCD is actually "silent", and I love it. Unless DLPs become fan-less I'll never buy one again.
Re:No (Score:2, Informative)
Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly (Score:5, Informative)
back in the old days... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly (Score:4, Informative)
So, not in a way that I can convey here.
But you can check it out for yourself. Google may help. If you look into the subject at all you'll see it's no secret.
Here's a pdf from Dishnetwork:
http://tech.dishnetwork.com/departmental_content/
It lists the Pros/Cons of the different technologies. It says:
"Direct View LCD"
"Cons"
"Expensive, pixels viewable with large screens, picture can fade over time, slow pixel response time can cause motion blurs."
Here's another view from Planar's Ali Gard:
http://blog.planar.com/embedded/2006/01/crts-lcds
An excerpt:
"LCD's luminance is controlled by the luminosity of the backlight / edgelight. The backlights in LCD monitors are almost always CCFL (cold cathode florescent lamps). The life of the backlight is determined by how long it takes until the lamp reaches half of its original luminance. Similar to CRTs phosphors in CCFL's age and their efficiency declines. LCD's don't suffer from flicker, or image burn just a few years ago that time was about 30,000 hours. Newer lamp technology has increased that time to 60,000 hours to reach half brightness."
That puts it at 3.5 to 7 years (if you accept the manufacturer's claims). What he doesn't address is that the CCFL will fade unevenly which is most obvious in large panels.
MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:5, Informative)
WTF are you talking about? If you don't know, don't post. And moderators, don't fall for something that just *sounds* informative.
CRTs offer *far* better resolution at the present time than LCDs, plasmas, LCoS, DLP, and every other non-military display technology. It's better by a factor of 3 to 5, at each point of the market scale.
The other parts of your post are fairly reasonable, and CRTs will almost certainly go the way of the dodo before long. However, *RESOLUTION* is *NOT* one of their weaknesses. It's pretty much their greatest advantage against other technologies, with their next-best advantage being high contrast ratio.
Re:I bought a Rear Projection TV (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not true HDTV... (Score:2, Informative)
MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:3, Informative)
You should try taking your own advice.
Digitimes better explains situation w/out the FUD (Score:3, Informative)
Plasmas vs LCDs, I'm rooting for Plasma (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't touch LCDs over 40". I work in retail and I hear both sides of the story. Sharp and other brands like Sony push LCDs through like mad, while Panasonic is primarily a plasma brand.
Power consumptionPlasmas and LCDs use a comparable amount of power. A 42" Panasonic plasma uses at most 350W (TH42PA60). An LCD of the same size would use about 300W at most. The difference is that the plasma only consumes 350W when it is displaying a full white picture. If it is a dark scene, it consumes less power (since the pixels are not arcing as often). LCDs consume a rather fixed rate of power since the backlight is always illuminated.
Brightness
Plasmas work by emitting light, whereas LCDs work by blocking light. Since LCDs block light, it is difficult to stop light from leaking around blocked areas. Philips' latest LCD is capable of dimming certain areas of the backlight, but the leaking is still there. Plasmas on the other hand won't get leaking. In fact, in darker scenes the detail will always prevail over an LCD.
Lifespan
Panasonic now boast that their plasmas will last 60,000 hours, which is now comparable to LCDs. Like LCDs, plasmas lose brightness over time. Panasonic's 60,000 hour figure is the length of time it takes to become half as bright. Philips, Sony, Sharp and Toshiba all boast similar figures for their LCDs and plasmas.
Price
Well, here it becomes weird. Panasonic invested a huge amount of serious dollars into a new factory which aims to pump out hundreds of thousands of plasmas each year. A 42" plasma is generally cheaper than a 42" LCD. The difference is that it is immensely expensive to create large LCDs that will not have poor constrast and brightness and remain responsive (i.e. 10ms or less). Plasmas on the other hand "prefer" to be big. It is impossible to create small plasmas because of the size of the pixel. So if the TV screen size gets bigger, the price increase from plasma to LCD will too.
My biased opinion
I work for a company which exclusively sells Fisher & Paykel, New Zealand's largest whiteware manufacturer. Until recently, F&P were Panasonic's importers in NZ, until they were big enough here to take care of themselves. They still work closely together (one of F&P's double ovens has a built in Panasonic microwave) but because of their reputation together and because of where I work, I sell more Panasonic appliances than any other brand. Panasonic's primary interest in terms of TVs is plasma, and from all the evidence that I was given from all brands saying that x was better than y, Panasonic's was the only evidence that remained consistent over the course of 3 or 4 years. It concluded for anything big (say, 42" or larger), go plasma, for anything small, go LCD.
I cannot see Plasma TVs failing. Over the last year, Panasonic's TH42PA50 plasma was the top-selling TV of any classification throughout Australia, and the top-selling 42" TV in New Zealand. The PA60 model boasts even more features for the same price.
Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Beta max, c'mon! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:If Plasma is betamax (Score:3, Informative)
Technology changes fast, and with LCD's price coming down and quality going up they will soon offer the same performance as CRT's for the same price. But as of last year this is what I found when I looked into buying a new moderate sized TV (32 to 36 inches):
I went with a 34" widescreen high-def CRT. At the time it was the best picture at that size and price with zero expected maintenance. As for High-def - it really only improves the picture for sets about 36" and bigger. I only wanted a modest size set as the room it is going in is not that big.
Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly (Score:5, Informative)
LCD backlights prohibitively expensive to replace? The fact is, they CAN be replaced, and aside from a few manufacturers who INSIST on gluing or epoxying the cases together, they are relatively easy to replace, and the tubes themselves cost anywhere from $2.00 to $30.00. Compare that to plasma, where to replace the screen you may as well just buy a whole new set (it's the equivalent of replacing a picture tube on a conventional television or monitor).
Buy a set based on:
- Response time
- color purity
- contrast ratio and black level
- Image burn-in possibility (a potential issue for static displays and console gaming)
Until OLED sets become available, Plasma will win color purity and contrast ratio hands down. LCD will win for weight/ease of installation and possibly versatility.
Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly (Score:1, Informative)
Re:No (Score:3, Informative)
Burn-in is a potential problem in CRTs and Plasma displays because they ultimately use the same technology to represent colors -- phosphors. The two display types use different technologies to excite the phosphors, but plasma is still a phosphor-based display. Compare that to LCD or DLP, where color is generated by light (via filters on the subpixels in an LCD, or a color wheel in a DLP). Phosphors wear out with use, and burn-in happens when they wear out unevently. There are ways to combat this, but you cannot totally eliminate it in phosphor-based displays:
- Turn down your contrast. Brighter pixels will wear out the phosphor more quickly. Most TVs ship in a "torch" mode, which looks good in the store but is way too bright for normal usage. It's a good idea to have your set calibrated [imagingscience.com] after a break-in period. (This is a good idea for LCD and DLP displays as well, but CRTs and Plasmas need it to tweak colors as the phosphors age.)
- Get a set that shifts pixels. By occasionally shifting the image around by a few pixels, you'll spread the image out across more phosphors. This makes it less likely for static images to burn in (or more precisely, it will cause surrounding pixels to wear out at around the same frequency, which makes any burn-in you might suffer seem less by smoothing out the sharp edges).
- Always use the set in full-screen mode (on widescreen sets). If you don't like everything looking shorter and fatter, use a sidebar mode with a ~50% gray color rather than black, and that periodically adjusts the position of the interior picture. The gray sidebars will keep the unused phosphors in the sidebars wearing out about the same as the interior phosphors, and shifting the interior image position will help smooth out any sharp edges on the under-burn.
CRTs and plasmas are both good display technologies, and they've come a long way from years past where burn-in was a common issue, but they do still inherently have the potential to burn in. Modern sets do try to prevent burn-in as much as possible without user intervention (well, except for "torch mode"), but you still should be a little careful about how you use the set.Re:MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:1, Informative)
Standard Definition CRT: 640x480 = 307,200 pixels (ie: 480i, 480p)
High Definition CRT: 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels (ie: 1080i)
Typical 23-46" LCD: 1366x768 = 1,049,088 pixels (ie: 720p)
1080p >40" LCD: 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels (ie: 1080p)
Typical 37-60" Plasma: 1366x768 = 1,049,088 pixels (ie: 720p)
Plasma >60": 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels (ie: 1080p)
Note that almost all CRT's display an HD image in 1080i regardless of its input format (ie: 1080i, 720p), and due to the interlacing of the two fields, your eyes effectively see half the resolution on the screen at any given time.
While the newer LCD sets are available with 1080p resolution, the only *mildly* popular method of receiving this quality input is via Blu-Ray through HDMI or by PC. Flat panels are not the only sets to display this format though. Sony's SXRD Silicon X-tal Reflective Display technology and TI's 1080p DLP technology can both be found in projection sets and a *very* few limited projectors at this point.
Therefore, the only logical conclusion to assume is that you, sir, are unfortunately misinformed about the more recent emergences in non-CRT display technology. These displays can, in fact, display a more wholesome image than any consumer CRT.
Drop by Circuit and ask to see their Samsung 1080p and Mitsubishi 1080p demos. They're impressive.
Re:Why not LED's (Score:3, Informative)
Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly (Score:3, Informative)
So, the bulb can potentially explode, but he will be picking shards of glass out of his projector? You're mixing up your words to bolster your weak point.
Projector bulbs are every bit as durable as regular light bulbs--blow outs rarely lead to explosions. I own a projector, used as a TV, and have already had its bulb die once. A little pop, a little darkness, and I let it cool down and replaced it, no big deal. Where do you think the projector industry would be if every blowing bulb exploded? Do you really think people who own projectors will replace bulbs before they wear out--unlike every single other thing they own? People will run their bulbs until they don't work any more and projector companies know this.
Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly (Score:2, Informative)
Any fixed-matrix screen will give you similar issues; plasma screens are also a fixed matrix. Same applies to DLP and LCD projection. You can only avoid this with a CRT if the gun has adjustable focus; otherwise, you'd get vertical gaps between the scanlines. Of course, focus on a CRT is just an adjustment of a magnetic field, so that's easy.
The scalers (zoomers?) can vary widely. In fact, in comparing similarly-specced LCD computer screens, I found the biggest difference was in the quality of the scaling. Low-end screens just multiply the pixels, so one dot becomes 4, or whatever is needed. High-end screens run an anti-aliasing filter on top of that, to smooth it back out, similar to what you'd get from a CRT. Filter quality varies, too--and spending more money mean you get a better set. On (some?) DVI screens (with an nVidia card anyway) you can pick between several approaches, so you can just use less of the screen at low res--black border the picture rather than scale it. (I only just switched to DVI, so still got some playing around to do. But Myst 4 looks good running in 800x600, scaled to 1280x1024, on my NEC 90GX2.)
Same is true of the TVs. (And bad source material looks bad on anything big--the only way around that is to move farther back so the screen doesn't look as big.) Try the same NTSC feed--and a proper feed, not those co-ax distribution amp things I've seen in most stores--and check out the different sets you are considering.
I also tend to buy stuff I'm not sure about at shops with a "satisfaction gaurantee" policy... it's still annoying to have to go through the return, but it beats being out the money for a set you're not happy with.
Re:LCD backlights will fade unevenly (Score:3, Informative)
As for the Panasonic...well, you get what you pay for when you buy cheap electronics.
Re:The inmates are running the asylum. (Score:3, Informative)
I have a TV tuner in my computer and a CRT monitor capable of that resolution. Therefore I have a CRT television capable of that resolution. Therefore, you are wrong. Thanks for playing, here's your copy of Slashdot: the Home Game.
Your UID shows me you are new here. Let me give you a little tip. Try not to sound like an arrogant know it all unless you are absolutely sure you are correct and you are directly responding to another arrogant know it all. Otherwise you will most likely be modded down.