n/t
I am about to purchase an HDTV, and i am leaning towards a plasma, i have been told that plasmas burn out much sooner than LCD, is that a fact or these people telling me this don't have a clue? Thanks.
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General discussion
Plasma TV's
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19 Posts
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There are a lot of reasons to pick either LCD or Plasma, but which will last longer is not really one of the top ten or even 50. Perhaps what you heard about is "burn-in" a condition that can happen to Plasma, but you really have to try...
I have both and can say without any reservations that my Plasma produces a far better picture than a similar quality LCD set, the colors pop better, there is never motion jitter, and it is just a "cleaner" picture all the way around.
That said, you can now get more LCD TV than Plasma for the same price, LCD is better in bright rooms, plasma has improved with anti-glarre screens like mine, but LCD is better at dealing with bright conditions. Plasma will generally give you wider viewing angles.
At the right price you will likely be happy with either, alas, the battle of plasma vs LCD has become more religion these days than anything else.
Go look at both and see what yoy like better.
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That's news to me. I don't know if I agree. Which LCD would you compare PQ wise to the 50" Panny G10(?) I believe the current list price @ BB is $1799.
-Pedro
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Pansonic 54G10 for $1850 
Try and find a brand name LCD close to that size and price, your not.
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hello buddy
well yeah i have heard that also that plasma burns and blah blah
well it is all rumor as the early models may have this problem but now there is nothing like this....people are swithing to plasma if there is such a thing in plasma they would be dead till now as the technology is growing in every minute...
you should go for this model G10 i bet you will enjoy it very much,
http://www.nextag.com/Panasonic-G10-TC-P54G10-659691456/prices-html
just visit this link and choose the best seller and best price seller of your choice....and go for it buddy if you wish to buy online.
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Regardless of the buy-this-here links below (like you care since you already found a shopping place), the short answer is no, plasmas don't burn out sooner than LCDS. The long answer is, sure, EVERYTHING burns out eventually, but will a TV, any TV, burn out before you decide to buy a new one? And the sure answer to that is probably not.
Even running your TV 8 hours a day, every day, for 10 years, a Plasma won't be unwatchable at the end of that time. And the likelyhood is, in our disposable society, unless you're giving your TV to Gramma as an heirloom, you'll decide to buy a better TV before the old one expires.
I have a 3-year-old 42" Panasonic Plasma TV (notice there's a common element in these threads regarding Panasonic?) which I watch on average about 20 hours a week. It certainly looks as excellent now as it did the day I brought it home, and at this rate it'll look good for another 20 years.
But, as standards for HDTV get better and technology changes (Blu-Ray? HD-DVD? Deep Color? etc.) I will certainly succumb in the next five years and buy another, if only because I desire an even bigger screen to watch on.
So the short answer is no, comparable plasma TVs have lifespans similar to LCDs these days, and the long answer is no, but it's irrelevant because you'll want a new one first. Good luck and enjoy your TV (I recommend plasma, they have deeper color and more contrast, especially off-axis from your screen, and no motion-jitter problems).
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Plasma TVs use an ionized gas to generate the individual pixels and do tun hotter than an LCD. This does not affect the life or aging under normal conditions. What does limit the life of a plasma set is the intensity needed to provide a viewable diaplay. This is subject to each individuals preference and conditions the unit is in, such as a brightly lit room where more intensity would be required to provide a pleasing display. LCDs have intensity sttings that are more likely to be set higher but this doesn't affect the display elements themselves but the amount of backlighting intensity to provide a pleasing display. Some early plasma units did have "burn in" problems from a fixed display being left on the set for an extended period. This caused a premature burnout of individual pixels that did affect the picture quaality but it has been overcome by the manufacturers during the production of the display element and limiting the intensities available to prevent this effect.
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If you find contrast and black levels at a specific price point to be the most important factors in your decision, and you have a genuinely ideal viewing environment, then go with plasma.
Plasma sets also have a somewhat broader viewing angle than LCDs, but this isn't as big a problem with modern (meaning within the last two years) LCD sets as you've been led to believe by a lot of articles in the technical press. My old Sony KDL52XBR4 LCD set can be viewed quite satisfactorily right up to the moment that my line of sight moves behind the screen, and new ones have even less degradation of color and contrast.
Plasma sets used to have a problem with burn-in. This has been largely solved.
If you have a less-than-ideal viewing environment, with objects in the room like lamps and windows that create glare, or sometimes watch TV in a brightened room, or desire energy efficiency, or can spend a little more money, then LCD is your thing. The most expensive LCD TVs now approach the contrast ratios of the best plasmas, and the new LED TVs equal or surpass them.
Plasma is probably a dying technology. The disadvantages are too great for it to survive for long.
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LED LCD's can make good blacks but only when no content is displayed. LCD companies have drop local dimming for edge lite LED just so they can make a 1" TV. LED LCDs have the worse off angle viewing of all TVs. Clouding, cartoonish colors, crushing shadow detail, high prices per inch. 55" is the largest one can get.
Plasma yes they use more power, but just a few years ago LCD where power hogs too. I have a 32" LCD that is about 4-5 years old, it uses almost 200wts. Plamsa are cutting power rating by about 1/4-1/3 every year. They have great shodow detail, great blacks, real colors and great gray scale. You can get as large as 65".
What will kill plasma is OLED not LCDs
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A lot of good posts, but I thought I'd add a few things. Plasmas generally weigh a lot more than equivalent LCDs. They also consume a great deal more electricity. In both cases, two to three times as much. All that extra power becomes heat. Properly calibrating your picture can reduce the power consumption (and improve the picture).
The price/performance comparison is also affected by size, with the market for smaller sets dominated by LCDs, larger sets, plasma (although LCDs have made recent inroads into the larger set market).
The reliability for plasma has gone up, but burn-in isn't the only issue. Like a CRT, the picture will degrade slightly over time, also lose intensity. Purists will recalibrate their sets from time to time. Then again, backlights in LCDs also age and wear out. As was said before, either will last a long time, though. Then again, I have a 20 year old 31" Panny tube set in my den, a thirty year old 19" magnavox in my garage that still works, and a fifty or sixty year old b/w Magnavox set in my basement.
Personally, I prefer the picture on most of the plasma sets I've seen, but ultimately bought a Sony 40" LCD, Z series. As mentioned, Panasonic plasmas are a real bargain, too, and look great.
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The reason you keep seeing Panasonic plasma TV's is that they have the only factory makeing plasma's.Everyone else has moved on to other technology's.What this means I don't know but the industry seems to have made a decision.
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You forgot Samsung, LG and there are a few others that make plasmas.
Pioneer was a very small % of plasma sales, around 10% market share.
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well LG, samsung, panasonic, Hitachi, and Vizio did not so we will look at the rest.
Sharp- does not make or never did make plasma.
they where the First LCD tv maker to hit the market.
although they did make the media boxes for the older pioneers.
Sony did because they found it was cheaper to have Samsung or sharp make LCD panels for them, and fujitsu plasma panels where to much for them and wouldnt give them first chioce panels.
Pioneer was just selling to high end customers that know quality and with everyone not having much money and not knowing quality.
well you get the point.
Toshiba...... well who cares about toshiba any more, they have sliped out of the race.
Mitsubishi is still stuck on DLP they are also the last company to leave CRT projection as well. they have treble moving on for some reason.
You keep seeing panasonic because they are the best TV this year.
just like every year a plasma has been on top.
its the same story every year plasma, plasma, and plasma.
plasma is also rated to be the top by sound and vision, home theater mag, image science foundation, and wide screen review.
I think the only review that stated a LCD is any way better was by PC mag, and maybe Consumer reports and what do they know, they rate a TV based on the Remote you want use if you have cable or sat, and the menu you might us once or twice, they might aswhile rated the user manual, and what the back of the TV looks like.
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have been pushing LCD sets hard because, at large volume manufacturing, they anticipate significantly lower unit cost & hence, fatter margins. We the consumers have benefitted well the past few years from the amount of competition, but a lot of the makers have made little profits during that period. They were disappointed margins got cut so thin. They know they worked very hard in that time frame for slim pickins.
Again, they really would like to make some money making TVs.
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You're right. Plasmas have a higher failure rate at the factory (on average, more bad pixels per foot, so a higher rejection rate) and more expensive production costs, so it's harder to profit on them. Since 2006, the flat-panel market has been a manufacturer's bloodbath, with prices dropping like stones, consumer value expectations sky-high and no profit margins at all. No wonder Pioneer bowed out and Vizio stuck with LCDs. It's a shame, but sometimes the better technology cannot survive in the marketplace.
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LED models nowhere close to everyperson's budget yet but if there are enough competitors in that technology, it's PQ/price will overtake plasma and spell the end. Would rue if Panny bowed out of PDP but can't see how it won't happen.
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as far as i think LED do not have pottential to take over LCD and PLASMA at any stage.although LED is an advance and more sophisticated technology but LCD and PLASMA still ROCKS.
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it won't be because they are thin. The 1" thick LCD's are only edge lit meaning they have sacrificed picture quality to get thin. Panasonic is coming out with a line of 1" thick plasmas that have no such issues. The black levels are every bit as good as their current models.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/07/eyes-on-with-panasonics-1-inch-thin-plasmas/
I agree with those who say that plasma's are safe until the OLED's arrive at a reasonable price.
Rusty
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