How long before Plasma RIP ?

Flukester

Flukester

Flukester

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Hi all

Know nothing about this kind of thing but whenever browsing HIFI / Visual shops I notice less and less Plasma.

I'm guessing LED Array Backlit (and I mean full array not edge lighting) LCD has made the gap in visual quality very close. When looking at sets running HD content from what I see the LCD looks better... SD I guess is another story due to the way Plasma tends to blur the poor picture to it's advantage.

I know larger displays are still Plasma as LCD way too much money.... but if any of you Plasma owners could buy a set with no cost considerations would it still be Plasma ?

LCD seems thinner, lower power, better in strong light and viewing angles not far off. Black levels are also now on par if not better than Plasma ? ...in summary all the old advantages of Plasma seem to be gone bar price on larger panels.

Main reason for asking I was looking at moving up from 40" LED Backlit and 50"+, and anything apart from Plasma is still crazy money.

btw, demo'd a 40" sony 3D LCD and was really impressed... what a amazing picture, though you would have to sit close to it I guess to get the effect.
 
I still find LCD/LED TV's have a far less natural colour definition. Dunno what you mean by plasma bluring the picture, this isnt true in my experience, Plasma is able to give sufficient sharpness that you have to turn the sharpness down a little if you use a THX setup etc.

Plasma blacks are still improving, and still are able to resolve greater detail in the blacks. Viewing angles, well Plasma viewing angles are good enough that there is no point in even measuring them. I dont see any colour shift, or darkening on my plasma, even when the picture is so distorted that its not funny (IE perspective making the tv looking taller than it is wide etc).

Power consumption. Remember plasma panels have a dynamic power requirement. Their peak power draw is only achieved when displaying every pixel on the panel at full intensity. During "normal" use, the average power draw of a plasma is very close to an LCD of a similar size.

I would still buy plasma at this time. OLED displays may be a strong contender in the future, but for now... Plasma all the way thank you. ;)
 
Flukester said:
LCD seems... better in strong light
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None of the rooms in my house are as brightly lit as the average department store - so the extra light power of LCD is a waste IMO. Second, very few TVs are set up correctly in shops anyway - so the apparent brightness is often at the expense of white detail and it messes up the colour saturation.

For picture quality Plasma is still the technology of choice.... But then again when did quality ever matter to the average AV buying punter ;)

Flukester said:
btw, demo'd a 40" sony 3D LCD and was really impressed... what a amazing picture
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Well, all I can say to that is "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

I demo'd Sony's 40" 3D set and couldn't believe how wrong the picture looked. They played me the demo scenes from the American Football game and Monster House, then followed up with some live TV. All of the pictures looked waaaay too blue and over sharpened.
 
I'm not sure the advantages of plasma have disappeared- certainly array LED tech has come on in leaps and bounds, but there are still compelling reasons to go for a plasma if it floats your boat.

No cost consideration? Difficult question, and I'm not sure- cost is always a consideration! ( unless you steal TVs :) )
 
Black levels on LCDs are getting better, but will never touch a great plasma.

The problem being that since the discontinuation of the Pioneer Kuro, there hasn't been an evolution with plasma panels, just a plateau.
 
EVH said:
Black levels on LCDs are getting better, but will never touch a great plasma.

The problem being that since the discontinuation of the Pioneer Kuro, there hasn't been an evolution with plasma panels, just a plateau.
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hopefully next years panasonic range will conintue where pioneer left, i wouldnt buy a lcd again, now ive had plasma, and as for power consumption, this years range use a lot less than they used to, and if set up correctly can save even more.
 
EVH said:
Black levels on LCDs are getting better, but will never touch a great plasma.

The problem being that since the discontinuation of the Pioneer Kuro, there hasn't been an evolution with plasma panels, just a plateau.
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I disagree. Panasonic purchased all of the technology and patents for the Kuro from Pioneer as well as migrating their entire development team into Panasonics Labs. Pioneer pulled out of the Plasma business as the cost of manufacture of the Kuros was way to high (at the time) to support a viable manufacturing business. Since then the Panasonic / Pioneer team have worked to bring the cost of the technology down, to a point where it is viable.
Whether the current, high end Panasonic Plasmas are better then Kuro's is debateable. The Kuro, although the 'holy grail' of plasmas for many enthusiats, were far from perfect as they suffered from a slightly softer image, compared to many modern plasmas, although their Blacks, were the best available. Whether you see this as a flaw or not is debateable, but the new VT25's have near Kuro Blacks, a slightly sharper image and 3D capability and it gets a better Energy Rating.

I will agree that there hasn't been a significant improvement in plasma PQ since the Kuro, but the Kuro itself was a massive jump in its own right.

Finally is plasma dying, I dont think so. Its market share may have shrunk somewhat, but for many (including me) it is still the viewing medium of choice.
 
Bassmansam said:
Slightly off topic but are edge lit LED's worth it? Saw an LG for 600 had been reduced from 850 in curries, wondered what others thought of these?
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I don't think they are worth it.. you lose the benefit of localized dimming of a LED array lit panel which produces much higher contrast and deeper blacks

There are some about though, I got a cheapish sharp 40" with LED array and it's ok (tesco even sell them now for £650 odd), samsung do some fantastic ones
 
Even top end lcd's look wrong now after owning a mid range plasma, they always look slightly over sharpened, and unnatural colours. Quite a few sets also exibit artifacts, like the avatar demo loop that most shops show, if you look at some of the detail parts of the fly by all the LCD's screw up but the plasmas are fine? No idea why, it's like all of them require too much processing to make the image look good.
 
DanF said:
Even top end lcd's look wrong now after owning a mid range plasma, they always look slightly over sharpened, and unnatural colours. Quite a few sets also exibit artifacts, like the avatar demo loop that most shops show, if you look at some of the detail parts of the fly by all the LCD's screw up but the plasmas are fine? No idea why, it's like all of them require too much processing to make the image look good.
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LCDs always seem too digital to me, plasma's have a softer feel to the image while still having sharp and vivid colour quality's aswell, my friend wont touch plasma's and brought into the lcd tech is newer and better propaganda that was spread when lcd was being pushed hard, on the flipside i cant see any reason for me to buy lcd
 
Bassmansam said:
Are plasmas good for using as a pc monitor and gaming?
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Gaming there fine for i game on mine all the time not had one problem, i would have though pc use should be ok, some screens LG do have more image retention than others, as long as its not left on the same thing for hours at a time it should be ok.
 
After standing next to a Sony 52' LED, I doubt I will even look at Plasma or LCD again. Plasma perhaps, but not LCD. I'll be buying a TV over Christmas after I got paid my bonuses, so will be looking at a 50'+ LED. Sony preferably.
 
regulus said:
After standing next to a Sony 52' LED, I doubt I will even look at Plasma or LCD again. Plasma perhaps, but not LCD. I'll be buying a TV over Christmas after I got paid my bonuses, so will be looking at a 50'+ LED. Sony preferably.
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Its still an LCD tho ....

All LED means is that the back light is an LED rather than a bulb/inverter.

Plasma will die the same time LCD does - when OLED happens ;)
 
I'm not so sure, i think led LCD will outlive plasma... We still have several years before oled goes mainstream, i can't wait
 
Flukester said:
I'm not so sure, i think led LCD will outlive plasma... We still have several years before oled goes mainstream, i can't wait
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Why ?

Plasma is better, people buy LCD because they are cheap and dont understand technology but buy on spec lists. There is still a market for Plasma because people will always pay for quality and demand will be there until something better comes along.

OLED will be better than both so wipe them out at the same time
 
I don't think plasma is better than the latest gen led LCD, just different

LCD is still constantly advancing where as plasma is now fairly static. Don't get me wrong, plasma can look fantastic, but it's still a old tech that is quite expensive to produce.

I like the sharp look of the latest LCD panels, and once your used to it i find plasma looks abit blurry, i guess that's down to the way every pixel is self lighting in plasma....has that effect on your eyes.

My prediction is within next couple of years plasma will die simply because it will be priced out by similar performing and cheaper led LCD, LCD will die a couple of more years down line when oled kicks in
 
LCD will never be as good as Plasma due to black crush and viewing angles - im looking at my screen from about 70 degrees offset at the moment - it looks the same as front on. The nasty 7 series Samsung i had for a horrible horrible week was unwatchable from about 30 degrees offset.

Having seen the Sony 903 i think its got about 40 degrees where you can watch it and it still can not do motion or dark scene detail as well as my first plasma - a PHD6 from 1823 ;)

If we got to per pixel lit LCDs i would cast my eye over them again but as OLED is where all the money is going (LCD improvement is only for 3D and while i have no interest in 3D the LCDs are laughably bad at it with more crosstalk than an angry beaver ) in R&D terms i still suggest LCD and plasma will die with affordable OLED.

I do have a 27" LCD too, bedroom telly and LCD is passable for that!
 
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