Is plasma dead?

[Duffinator]

Bladerunner, my favorite top five movie! The piece Memories in Green was our wedding "song", my wife thought I was nuts, but I convinced her and now she loves that piece, haunting and beautiful.

Cool but I would have thought Love Theme would have been more appropriate. But then again it seems like I've heard that on a porn sound track before.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

With newer generation plasmas burn in is a myth that has been propagated by fear. With the pixel adjusting that has been implemented you can leave static images on good quality plasmas for quiet a while and have no fear of burn in.

As more and more flat screens are being integrated with the pc, lcd will overtake plasma by a landslide. Until plasma gets rid of the reflective screen/burn in/high temp issue, there is no comparison to the lcd flatscreen as I see it. Whites are much better on lcd compared to plasma. Blacks are only superior for the first 30% of the life of a plasma. After that, degradation comes on quickly - as does burn in. Pioneer better make their money quickly.

 

[zhimbo]

As more and more flat screens are being integrated with the pc, lcd will overtake plasma by a landslide. Until plasma gets rid of the reflective screen/burn in/high temp issue,

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that some of the new Panasonic plasmas have anti-glare screens (and the new highest end Samsung LCDs have shiny reflective screens!).

 

[obscbyclouds]

As more and more flat screens are being integrated with the pc, lcd will overtake plasma by a landslide. Until plasma gets rid of the reflective screen/burn in/high temp issue, there is no comparison to the lcd flatscreen as I see it. Whites are much better on lcd compared to plasma. Blacks are only superior for the first 30% of the life of a plasma. After that, degradation comes on quickly - as does burn in. Pioneer better make their money quickly.

It's pretty hard to burn in a new Plasma if you are even remotely careful with it. Blacks are (IMO) substantially better on a Plasma than an LCD, moreso than whites are "better" on an LCD. Fast motion (sports particularly) looks better on a plasma to me (try doing a comparison while watching hockey). I suppose it's all in the eye of the viewer though. 50% of a Plasma's life is at about 20-30,000 hrs (16 years of normal TV watching). How many people keep a TV for 16 years regardless of technology???

 

[patnshan]

Yep, plasma is dead. LCD is amazing, as is HDILA and some of the other new technologies on the horizon.

Pat

 

[midna]

From what I can tell, plasma is certainly not dead. At least on the 42" market. The TH-42PH9UK has a better quality (at least in reviews and display units, I don't own it yet) then many of its LCD rivalries at the same price point. That fact seems to hold true for many of the lower end 40-50" screens. Plasma seems to be the way to go if you want to spend less then 3Gs and still get a decent quality screen that's good for a variety of tasks. At least for now, the tide definately seems to be moving towards LCD fast, I just don't think it's there yet.

Take all this with a grain of salt, I'm very new to this game.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I still go into stores and can fairly easily tell the difference between a decent plasma and the LCDs that are on the floor. Straight on, LCD looks great, but as I shift around the room and view from different angles and raise and lower my head, LCD always appears to have color and image quality shifts. Plasma simply doesn't. LCD also always seems to have displays with poor image processing and so-so black levels, though that has improved with more recent models. I still see that many displays simply don't handle 480i material very well.

Perhaps the biggest issue is that I can pick up a Pioneer 60" display for half... or less than pretty much any LCD display approaching that size, which is simply way to much of a price difference when considering a display and the Pioneer will deliver incredible results.

I really do want the anti-reflective coating that the new plasmas deliver though.

 

[Hi Ho]

How many people keep a TV for 16 years regardless of technology???

Me? I have a 19" Sanyo CRT from 1977 in a bedroom. After 30 years of daily use it still works perfectly and has a very good picture. It was the primary TV in the house up until about 8 years ago.

I expect a TV that costs multiple thousands of dollars to last a LONG time. There are some TV's out there that I would never buy due to the incredibly high failure rates (Samsung DLP). LCD sets have been the most reliable so far. Plasma sets are right behind LCD but I see many plasma sets in homes with burn-in problems.

 

[The Dukester]

BMX, I'm with you 100%. I have yet to see a LCD that can match the picture quality of a good plasma, especially in the bigger screen sizes for anywhere near the price. I do think, however, that plasma is on it's way out. Pioneer and Pannasonic will keep making good ones with some other companies putting out really cheap ones for awhile but eventually LCD and some of the newer technologies will all but if not completely take them over.

I know when I see the new Pios, especially the 1080p ones, that I'll have to repent repeatedly for lust

 

[ParadigmDawg]

I am just glad I have a LCD and plasma so I can say I have the best "type" of flat screen...lol...

I would say that my plasma looks the best but the LCD is not far behind.

 

[AVRat]

Y'all aren't making my next upgrade decision very easy.

 

[obscbyclouds]

AVRat, I'm in the same boat, looking to trade in the CRT at some point....

 

[Method]

I have a Pioneer Elite 1540 60" Plasma in my living room (720p/1080i), and I have a 50" Sony KDLXBR 3 (1080p) LCD in my bedroom. I like the Plasma better. Smoother picture. Period.

For the guy who a few pages ago mentioned that Sony, Misubishi and even Panny are (or have already) abandoning the plasma market, all's I can say is I would try something new too if I continued come up short of first place (although Panasonic has done well in the plasma markets).

I plan on upgrading my Pioneer Elite 1540 this fall with the new 8th gen 60" Elite (which I hear are off the hook).

 

[j_garcia]

Plasma can't compete below 42" mainly on cost, which is why you don't really see them. The opposite is true of LCD, above 46", LCDs are expensive to produce compared to plasma, so there is still a market for large plasmas. That will change though as plants ramp up production of larger LCDs. The LCD industry has already figured out that 32-50" is pretty much the bread and butter range though.

 

[Romulus]

With newer generation plasmas burn in is a myth that has been propagated by fear. With the pixel adjusting that has been implemented you can leave static images on good quality plasmas for quiet a while and have no fear of burn in.

I would like to believe this as there are some really nice plasma's for sale on the cheap. however, I recently went to my local store and asked the salesman if burnin was still an issue. he didn't say anything, but walked me over to the plasma section and flipped a few tv's to the white screen in the setup menu.. Keep in mind that the store had only been open about 3 weeks, so the tv's were brand new. All of the displays had either a bar across the bottom from a news channel being played or a black line down the center from the demo movie which repeats itself.

Burn in is an inherent flaw of plasma technology and can be minimized, but not done away with.

 

[mr-ben]

I would like to believe this as there are some really nice plasma's for sale on the cheap. however, I recently went to my local store and asked the salesman if burnin was still an issue. he didn't say anything, but walked me over to the plasma section and flipped a few tv's to the white screen in the setup menu.. Keep in mind that the store had only been open about 3 weeks, so the tv's were brand new. All of the displays had either a bar across the bottom from a news channel being played or a black line down the center from the demo movie which repeats itself.

Burn in is an inherent flaw of plasma technology and can be minimized, but not done away with.

With my plasma, if I have been playing some static image for a while and do this, I see a ghost of it too. This isn't necessarily burn-in though, since if you just wait a few minutes it will go away. It will also go away if you simply change the channel. So if you watch CNN for a week and then switch to a movie you might barely see a bit of that bottom ticker at the beginning, but it will go away, and is not permanent.

 

[avaserfi]

I would like to believe this as there are some really nice plasma's for sale on the cheap. however, I recently went to my local store and asked the salesman if burnin was still an issue. he didn't say anything, but walked me over to the plasma section and flipped a few tv's to the white screen in the setup menu.. Keep in mind that the store had only been open about 3 weeks, so the tv's were brand new. All of the displays had either a bar across the bottom from a news channel being played or a black line down the center from the demo movie which repeats itself.

Burn in is an inherent flaw of plasma technology and can be minimized, but not done away with.

Most plasmas also come with a "clear screen" of sorts that helps image ghosting along side the pixel shifting options. I highly doubt all those new plasmas had burn-in unless the option taken to prevent burn-in weren't being used properly.

In one of the AVRants Tom said he left a plasma he was reviewing on overnight with a static image and that didn't burn in. While this isn't my only source for saying burn in is gone it is a pretty credible one.

 

[Diapason]

Maybe this has been said already and it's probably a slight tangent, but if you're buying a TV today it really shouldn't matter whether plasma is a dying technology or not. I've had colleagues say this to me as a reason to by an LCD but I just don't get it. Even if the technology is totally defunct next year it won't matter, you'll have a nice TV on your wall. The only problem I can think of with a dead technology is repair, but if the screen breaks you're going to get a new TV anyway, so it doesn't really matter if repair is difficult. Any other problem is electronics, so should be repairable by anyone competent.

My advice to anyone buying a TV is always the same: buy the one you like the most and that you can afford. Don't worry about the technology.

 

[stratman]

I've had my Panny 42" now for 2 going into 3 years (August), not one problem and we use it a lot. My LCD (DELL/Olevia) is about 18 months old, it turns on when it wants, Dell won't fix it, they want to sell me another at a discount. Moral of story: 90% of this tech is expensive throw away, it'll cost you just as much to fix or get an extended warranty and pray for the best. In my experience with the Panny, I'll keep buying it as long as the quality is there.

 

[hemiram]

I heard so many bad things about Dell's TV support that I didn't even consider one when I was buying. A friend had all kinds of problems getting them to replace a 20" LCD monitor that went bad soon after it was bought. It had an intermittent problem that could be temporarily cured by slapping it on the left side. He sent it back, and they returned it, with a note saying it was "working normally". Finally they caved and replaced it with a better monitor, but it took over a month.