LCD or PLASMA?

[phoenixtaku]

Get a LCD!

 

[Algot]

Here in sweden its getting hard o find a plasma...
Plasma screens was better when the screens get bigger than around 40 inch. but nowdays the LCD tecnology is more developed and you can get bigger LCD Screens.. I wuld go for a LCD or projection.



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Please dont complain on my english...
we learn english in school.. and as you all know school is not that fun ;-)

 

[T-hug]

Europe are in the process of banning plasma tvs as they use way more power than any other type.
You also need to have maintenance on them every few years which costs a lot.

http://www.evertiq.com/news/read.do?news=13183

 

[Costello]

hah so you went for a plasma screen... too bad!
I've had the chance to try both plasma screens and LCDs and I swore on oath to never buy a plasma screen, ever.
First because of the burn in effect which is horribly annoying (played a sports game, when you pause the game the pause menu shows up, when you unpause it, the menu still shows on the screen augh!!), the high power consumption and the lower life span.
I've always had satisfaction with LCD screens particularly samsung ones. These ones are truly the best I've seen!

As for projectors, I've also tried many, and it's usually pretty good except...
1) projectors that have wifi support are good, except you can't use wifi to watch films or play games as the bandwidth is too poor
2) projectors have a rather short life span: you have to change the lamp quickly and trust me that is very very expensive.
So all in all I'd go for a LCD screen.

 

[Spikey]

Plasma: the basics
People first started using plasma TVs as far back as 1997, at which time their hang-on-the-wall design was widely hailed as the holy grail of home entertainment.

Plasma pictures are made up of individual pixels, each one of which sits at the front of a tiny chamber filed with gas (a mixture of neon and xenon). At the front of each of these chambers are phosphors, at the rear of each chamber is an electrical source. This electrical source is used to ionise the chamber's gas generating unltraviolet light which excites the phosphors into glowing in the way required by the picture. There are three sub-pixels; red, green and blue - for each plasma dot, giving you a potentially emormous pallette of colours.

Why Buy Plasma?
Grey scale response / contrast - Plasma technology can deliver superior subleties - which means plasmas can generally give you more detail in dark picture areas.

Response Times - Response time is the amount of time, measured in milliseconds, that it takes for a pixel to go from inactive to active and back again. Athough the latest LCD screens have made big improvements in this area, plasma is still considerably better, so its picture quality generally suffers less.

Size - LCD is catching up, but it's still cheaper for manufacturers to use Plasma for really big screen sizes - certainly 42in and above - than it is for them to use LCD. On the other hand, plasma isn't really viable at sizes smaller than 32in.

Viewing Angle - LCD screens frequently boast viewing angles of anywhere upto 175 degrees. But our experience suggests that these figures are very optimistic, as LCD pictures start to lose lots of contrast and colour at angles much less than than those quoted. Pretty much all plasma screens, on the other hand, retain their quality upto around 160 degrees.

Colour Saturation - Plasma traditionally scores high here because of the way it blocks light, turning off pixels when they're not needed so that no stray light can dilute its coulours. With LCD there's always smoe stray light in the mechanism, which adds a greying influence to colours thus makes authentic tones more difficult to see.

LCD: the basics
Contrary to what you might think, LCD technology has been around longer than plasma. It's that plasma affinities with larger screen sizes gave it a head start over LCD, which has only recently started to conquer its size demons and break free of its traditional PC shackles. LCD TVs work like so. A liquid containing individually controlable crystals is suspended between two transparent panels, and when these crystals are activated by voltage , they align themselves so that they either allow a certain amount of light (produced by a fluorescent tube behind the panel) to pass through the panel, or else block it off. Both the lit and unlit crystals create visible pixels that together compose the final image on the screen.

Why Buy LCD?
Screen life - We've seen some industry claims that LCD can last twice as long as plasma (around 40 years at 4hrs a day versus 20 years at 4hrs of use a day). Even though we suspect that such claims show a distinct LCD bias on the part of the source, it does seem that LCD can last a bit longer than plasma.

No screenburn - Plasma screens are suspectible to something called screenburn, which occurs when a bright image, like the sky news logo, is displayed on screen for an extended period of time. The constant saturation 'tires' plasma's phosphors, leaving a permanent shadow of the bright image behind. LCD technology is pretty much immune to this problem.

Slimness - Because there is no need for gas filled or heavy glass fronts in a LCD screen, LCDs tend to be slimmer and lighter than plasmas.

Brightness - LCD technology can generally deliver brighter pictures than a plasma - though more brightness isn't automatically better if it is used to disguise a lack of contrast.

Power consumption - LCDs generally use less power than plasma TVs because they dont need to power hundreds of electrodes to stimulate phosphors.

Let me just say that the cons of LCD, that plasma usually wins on aren't so true on the 650 series of LCD TVs from Samsung. I can't speak too much on the response time, cause the 120hz of the TV delays things a bit(but there's a Game mode to reduce this). The 120hz reduces motion blue usually associated with LCDs. The viewing angle is very good in real time usage. At the maximum angle while still being able to see the screen, the colors look just as crisp as they do from the front. Almost looks like the picture is actually a photo on the TV. And then the contrast ratio is superb, with nice deep blacks and lots of detail able to be seen within.

I can't speak for all TVs, but this one in particular is probably one of the best TVs on the market still.

 

[jtroye32]

just wait for laser.

http://popsci.typepad.com/popsci/2008/01/m...-ha-ha-las.html

 

[playallday]

im also sure LCD can still get burn in but its just also in the less than 1% region as my brand new dell SW2209 has an LCD burn in cleaning function...

I know! LCD get burn in's so easily! I mean, I only left the TV on for 40 hours or something!!

Get a LCD, all the n00bs think that Plasma's rocks just because that's what they have.

EDIT: Never mind, I saw you wasted your money already. Enjoy your burn in's.

 

[Pizzaroo]

aw, I was about to say, rear projection TVs are great, cheap (I got a 61" for $1000), and you just need to replace the lightbulb once every 6 months-a year or so.

And projector does not equal rear projection. I accidentally said digital projection

 

[Leon1977]

Thanks imz!!! That was very informative. I ended up getting a 50' PLASMA. In the end it came down to what the wife wants! HAHA!

Now this is a very, very wise man.

 

[becker2384]

gotta keep the little lady happy. I won't be playing games on it though so I'm not too worried about burn-in. 50 inch's! Now all my buddies can kiss my ass in HIGH DEF! haha

 

[delta123]

after 100 hours of it being used to watch tv etc. not gaming, i read that burn becomes a less of an issue. although it is still there. i myself got a 47` LDC tv, but i am a gamer. where as my brother is getting a 50` plasma because he watches movies more. but plasma`s are usaually $700 cheaper here and are also bigger. my 47` cost 2700 where as my brother is looking at a 50` plasma $1500.

 

[Leon1977]

gotta keep the little lady happy. I won't be playing games on it though so I'm not too worried about burn-in. 50 inch's! Now all my buddies can kiss my ass in HIGH DEF! haha

congratulations!!
here's some useful info i picked up few days ago by coincidence..

http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/home_av/tvs/0...62038526,00.htm

enjoy your set folks!

 

[moodswinger]

I vote for LCD tv since it has a longer lifespan and they're cheap nowadays.

 

[XeNoGeaR]

i should go for plasma! i got a sammy 50inch plasma and i love it.IN the start there was image retention or what you call pre-burn ins or whatever.But when you used the plasma for awile its all save and gone.

Plasma is way better for lower resolution as well.LCD will make it look horrible.Take an exxample of a wii on a 50inch lcd.Its not playable at all.Well 50/60 hz games is always horrible at flatscreen so for wii rather use a old crt hehe.

For all other things with 720p/1080p support plasma is so much superrior.Even from close watchin plasma still looks nice compared to a lcd.Response time is way faster like ghosting etc.Black levels get better and better on plasmas and most important for most people The price of plasma is very nice lately.You get a 50 inch plasma full hd for 1000 euro already at some stores and they are even 100hz lately what ive seen.

Anyway PLASMA IS THE WAY TO GO ^^

 

[Deleted User]

Projection, definitely.

 

[ether2802]

I would vote for projection, but in my tinny appartment the screen will look like a 32"

so I bought a LCD 32" Sanyo $500 usd on WalMart he he he, way cheaper than 2700 aus-dls

 

[Giga_Gaia]

Get LCD, you don't want to get screenburns on your pricy plasma

 

[Banger]

A lot of the misconceptions about plasmas are from older models. Yes burn ins still happen however the main period id does happen is within the first 100 hours or so of use (IIRC many of them now come with an "anti-burnin" disk which you use to "breakin" the tv for normal useage". And they no longer have a short life span that older models had. Now they are up to par and some times even longer then LCD's on the market. The more power usage of plasma is true but after you calibrate it to your liking chances are it will use ~ the same amount of "juice" of an LCD.


I am not saying one is better then the other but each has their own pros and cons and it all comes down to what you want to use it for.


LCD's are usually lighter by about 10 to 20lbs at the 42 inch size.


Also something that should be noted, when you get into the bigger screen sizes >42 inchs plasma's are usually cheaper where as LCD's get more expensive and if you look at those

 

[Artheido]

I heard Plasma TVs are being banned here in the UK because they drain too much power... Could be wrong

 

[Deleted-119707]

arn,t bulbs for the projectors expensive though?