Brain Assassin

Well, this topic came up at work today – twice – so I thought it’s about time to write a few lines about it. Puh, where do I begin? How about this: Don’t even think about a plasma TV if you intend to buy a model with a size of less than 42 inches. It’s sim­ply not worth it. Why? Because man­u­fac­tur­ers haven’t yet fig­ured out how to cram mil­lions of pix­els on a smaller dis­play. There’s no way you’re going to enjoy HDTV on a screen with so few pix­els. Because LCD and plasma TVs are very dif­fer­ent in the way they deliver the image to the viewer, the same restric­tion doesn’t apply to LCD TVs.

So, if you want to buy a 43” or larger flat panel HDTV, there are quite a few things to con­sider. First, there’s the color. A plasma dis­play cov­ers a far greater area of the vis­i­ble light spec­trum and deliv­ers more dynamic col­ors than a LCD does. Plus, a plasma dis­play has supe­rior black lev­els. Good black lev­els are impor­tant to pro­vide a sense of depth. As far as the con­trast and the black lev­els are con­cerned, the plasma is supe­rior. Color accu­racy is not so eas­ily deter­mined, though. That depends on room light, man­u­fac­turer and model, but as a rule you can assume that a plasma will pre­vail in a room with nor­mal or lower light­ing. LCDs should per­form bet­ter in brightly lit rooms. (That hap­pens because plasma TVs have a glass sur­face where a mir­ror effect can take place when extremely bright light shines on it.) Then again, your liv­ing room shouldn’t be as brightly lit as it is the case with many show-​​rooms. All in all, the plasma has the advantage.

Sec­ond, a plasma TV has bet­ter view­ing angles. Con­trast ratios for a LCD TV drop by a con­sid­er­able amount if you move off the cen­ter. Check it out for your­self: Stand in front of a LCD TV and slowly move side­ways. That’s another point for the plasma TV.

Third, there’s clar­ity of vision. Because of the bet­ter view­ing angle and really fast response times, the image on a plasma TV will be much clearer than on a LCD TV, if some­thing is mov­ing quickly on across the screen. Think of soc­cer, foot­ball or fast-​​paced action movies. Granted, LCD TVs have made con­sid­er­able progress since the early days, but the plasma still has the advan­tage. Point three for the plasma.

Next, there’s the price. Big­ger LCD TVs are mostly more expen­sive than their plasma coun­ter­parts. Don’t get too excited though, the play­ing field is lev­el­ing slowly but surely. There’s another point for the plasma.

As far as the power con­sump­tion is con­cerned, the LCD has the edge over the plasma TV. The plasma man­u­fac­tur­ers have gone a long way since the early days but still, the aver­age plasma con­sumes around a third more power for the same size dis­play. The newest plas­mas are pretty good though, and I would expect them to fur­ther improve in the future. Here you have it, first point for the LCD TV.

Another thing to con­sider is the burn-​​in. While a burn-​​in can occur in mod­ern plas­mas, the effect is mostly tem­po­rary. Many enhance­ments reduce the risk of a burn-​​in and it has got­ten so much bet­ter that it shouldn’t be an issue any­more. Still, it can hap­pen on plasma TVs. Mod­ern plasma TVs do have a few meth­ods to clear a burn-​​in which should ren­der this issue moot. Any­way, that’s the sec­ond point for the LCD TV.

Next, there’s longevity. Most LCD tele­vi­sion man­u­fac­tur­ers claim that their dis­plays last 50,000 to 60,000 hours on aver­age. Most plasma man­u­fac­tur­ers state a half-​​life of 60,000 hours for their plasma TVs. The half-​​life is the esti­mated amount of time you have to spend watch­ing tele­vi­sion until the panel bright­ness is reduced in half. I recall a plasma TV with aston­ish­ing 100,000 hours being announced recently but I don’t remem­ber which man­u­fac­turer it was. Let’s call it a draw, this time around. And who owns one and the same TV for over 20 years, anyway?

Of course, res­o­lu­tion should also be impor­tant. If you’re going to watch HD con­tent, the HD-​​Ready logo may be enough for you or it may not. In my opin­ion, if you bother get­ting a HD-​​compliant TV you should get a device that’s capa­ble of dis­play­ing 1080p. Peo­ple may refer to it as 1080p24 or Full HD. This pro­vides an image res­o­lu­tion of 1920 by 1080 pix­els. As both PDPs and LCDs are able to pro­vide this res­o­lu­tion, that’s a draw.

Well, I’d say, that’s a clear win for the plasma TV. But wait, you think, I’ve heard some­thing about SEDs and OLEDs. What is wrong with them? SEDs are flat pan­els pro­vid­ing the qual­ity of cathod-​​ray tubes (CRTs) at lower power lev­els than a LCD. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Too bad it’s not there yet. OLEDs need almost no power and they pro­vide a very high con­trast, vibrant col­ors and a wide view­ing angle. What’s the catch? Sony’s 11” OLED TV costs more than two grand. Nice, eh?

This is by no means a guide or some­thing resem­bling it. That’s just what I know – or think to know – of this mat­ter. I hope it’s helpful.