plasma versus lcd displays pricelist

OLED and plasma displays output their own light, which allows them to produce true blacks, whereas LCDs rely on their backlight which makes blacks look grayish in comparison unless there’s local dimming.

Plasmas were quite popular due to their incredible picture quality with true blacks, as well as a rapid response time speed. However, they also suffered from having a too reflective screen, which washed out the colors in very bright rooms.

Although LCD TVs can’t produce deep blacks like plasma TVs, they slowly replaced them as they were a lot cheaper to make and had a much thinner design.

Similar to plasmas, OLED TVs and monitors are capable of producing true blacks for life-like picture quality. Besides, they have impeccable viewing angles, meaning that the picture doesn’t shift in color and contrast when the display is viewed at skewed angles.

Although early OLED displays had issues with high input lag, awful image burn-in, and high price tags, newer models have managed to solve these problems.

The older models were backlit by cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL), but nowadays, all modern LCDs have a mini LED or LED backlight, which requires less power and also allows for the display to be even thinner.

IPS displays have the most accurate colors and the widest viewing angles, while VA panels offer the highest contrast ratio for deeper blacks. Lastly, TN panels have the quickest response time speed, which is why they are mostly used for gaming monitors, but they have inferior image quality.

While QLED displays can be brighter than OLED, many prefer the infinite contrast of the latter, and since both types of these high-end TVs cost roughly the same, OLED is usually more favorable at this time.

Some LED displays feature local dimming as the means to compensate for the limited contrast and grayish blacks. This feature basically dims parts of the screen that are supposed to be dark, without affecting bright areas.

In some high-end LCDs, this can do wonders for the image quality, but if the local dimming is poorly implemented, it can also cause undesired defects, such as halo and bloom.

Finally, modern OLED and LED-backlit LCD TVs offer a high screen resolution. 4K or Ultra HD makes the picture incredibly crisp and sharp in comparison to the standard 1080p HDTVs.

Generally, OLED and QD-OLED displays are better for viewing in a dark room due to their infinite contrast ratio, while mini LED LCDs are preferred for bright room viewing thanks to their stellar peak brightness.

LED HDTVs (properly known as LED-backlit LCD TVs) use light emitting diodes (LEDs) as a backlight for the LCD. Some of this light is blocked by vertical or horizontal liquid crystals, creating an image. These should not be confused with actual LED or OLED TVs.

Plasma HDTVs create images using phosphors, tiny plasma containers placed between two sheets of glass. These emit ultraviolet light at colored spots of phosphor on the screen, which then glow to create the picture.

Plasma TVs tend to have deeper blacks, and stabler color over the screen"s breadth from a variety of angles, leading to smoother, more natural images than seen on LED-lit LCD screens. Plasma screens also show crisp, fast motion without blur or ghosting.

According to CNET, LED-lit LCD TVs are the brightest available. They are capable of 100 footlamberts, although this is bright enough to cause eye fatigue in a dark room. Plasmas are less bright, so they might be more difficult to see in a bright room, and will dim over time.

Plasma screens normally range from 42 inches to approximately 65 inches. Panasonic also offer some larger models, including a 152 inch TV. Plasma screens also weigh more than LED-lit LCD screens.

Plasma TVs are less energy efficient than LED-lit LCD TVs. According to Which magazine, a 42 inch screen LED-lit LCD TV will use an average of 64 watts, while an average 42 inch Plasma TV uses 195 watts.

HDTVs are generally highly reliable. LED-lit LCD TVs are considered to have a lifespan of 100,000 hours, although they have not been in use long enough to have extensive information on their long-term reliability.

According to PC World, users of Panasonic’s plasma TVs rate them highly reliable, with very few serious problems. In 2010, just 1 in 20 Panasonic users reported a major problem with their TVs. Older plasma TVs have a lifespan of 20,000 hours, although some newer TVs have up to 60,000 hours.

LED-lit LCD TVs are typically more expensive than Plasma TVs. For example, on Amazon.com a Panasonic LED-lit LCD 42 inch TV was listed for $900 while a Panasonic Plasma 42 inch TV costs $600.

LCD screen TVs are the most popular, followed by LED-backlit screens (which are also LCD screens, by the way). Plasma screens are less popular and more commonly available in larger sizes.1,274 LCD TVs

All major TV manufacturers sell LED-lit LCD TVs. Panasonic focuses its TV range on the Plasma TV, while other brands, such as LG and Samsung, only produce a few models, and some, such as Sony and Toshiba, no longer produce Plasma TVs at all.

Plasma technology consists of hundreds of thousands of individual pixel cells, which allow electric pulses (stemming from electrodes) to excite rare natural gases-usually xenon and neon-causing them to glow and produce light. This light illuminates the proper balance of red, green, or blue phosphors contained in each cell to display the proper color sequence from the light. Each pixel cell is essentially an individual microscopic florescent light bulb, receiving instruction from software contained on the rear electrostatic silicon board. Look very closely at a plasma TV and you can actually see the individual pixel cell coloration of red, green, and blue bars. You can also see the black ribs which separate each.

Plasma technology has certainly achieved quite high contrast ratios, a measure of the blackest black compared to the whitest white. Many plasma display manufacturers boast a contrast ratio of 100,000:1 these days though our tests using a standardized ANSI checkerboard pattern have not proven these numbers out. Plasma TVs achieve such impressive black levels by using internal algorithms to block the power to particular pixels in order to render a pixel "dark" or black. While this can limit a plasma television"s gray scaling, it does produce exceptionally black blacks - depending on the manufactured plasma display element (i.e. glass). A plasma TV uses maximum power when it is producing full white. As a result, some 2nd tier manufactured brands of plasma TVs have an audible buzz or whining sound when displaying white or very light images.

LCD (liquid crystal diode) displays, by contrast, utilize electric charges to twist and untwist liquid crystals, which causes them to block light and, hence, emit blacks. The higher the voltage passing through the liquid crystals in a given pixel, the more fully those crystals untwist and effectively block light - all of which makes these pixels darker. As opposed to plasma, LCD TVs (and LED) use the most power when displaying a very dark or black image. This is a difficult process, and despite recent improvements in LCD black levels, only the best LED LCD televisions have managed to match plasma technology in contrast ratio. The one continual drawback here for LCD is off axis viewing, when black levels and contrast consistently drop. We call it contrast degradation in our reviews. We have noted some improvement from LCD manufacturers lately in off axis viewing contrast, especially with the higher end LED backlit LCD TVs.

ADVANTAGE: Closer than a year ago, but still Plasma. By better utilizing the LED backlit technology, LCD TV manufacturers have made great improvements in black levels and in many cases have nearly managed to match the contrast ratio of plasma TVs. However, Plasma displays still maintain an advantage on average in this category due to fading blacks when viewing LCD TVs from side angles. For scenes with a lot of dark and light images shown simultaneously - as with content originating from DVDs, video games, and NTSC TV signals - plasmas still consistently outperform LCD TVs.

In plasma displays, each pixel contains red, green, and blue elements, which work in conjunction to create 16.77 million colors. Insofar as each pixel contains all the elements needed to produce every color in the spectrum, color information was more accurately reproduced with plasma technology than it was with other display technologies. The chromaticity coordinates were more accurate on most plasma displays. Though the color saturation resulting from the pixel design of plasma displays is remarkable, LCD technology has nearly caught plasma in gray scaling color accuracy. Plasma continues to exhibit more richness in color information and more natural coloration. Today, SMPTE color coordinates in top plasma displays still normally outperform those in LCDs, which tend toward oversaturation.

ADVANTAGE: Preference to plasma but depends upon room light, manufacturer and model. Plasma TV color richness and naturalness will prevail in rooms with lower to normal lighting - yielding a more realistic picture. LED LCD TVs perform better in very brightly lit rooms due to their inherent anti glare technology and brightness.

Plasma manufacturers have made much of their near perfect 180 degree viewing angles, which is about as good as horizontal and vertical viewing angles get. This owes to the fact that each pixel produces its own light, rather than light being spread across the screen from one central source. Hence, each pixel is more readily visible because its brightness is consistent with every other pixel on the screen. One consistent area of superiority of plasma viewing angles is demonstrated when viewing dark material content, especially DVDs. A Plasma display holds the black levels from off axis, while LCD TVs lose black level intensity/contrast more as the angle off axis increases. This usually occurs after around 45 degrees off center.

LCD TV manufacturers have done much to improve their displays" viewing angles. The substrate material on newer-generation LCD models by Sharp and Sony has helped to expand those units" viewing angles, though they still have some ground to cover before catching plasma. Expect the best LCD HDTVs to have around 120 degree viewing angles.

Generally the performance should be about the same in terms of displaying the video image provided that the resolution of the plasma or LCD TV is 1080p or higher. Some plasma TVs still have 720p resolution and this would be a drawback to a defined static image.

ADVANTAGE: LCD and LED LCD, although I would rather look at the more pleasant light of a plasma display. The LED in an LCD TV could give me a headache.

Plasma technology gets the easy nod here because of their excellent performance with fast-moving images and high contrast levels. It"s an inherent quality of the technology. Plasma manufacturers have recently started publishing a specification of 600Hz with relation to the equivalent refresh rate speed of a plasma compared to an LED or LCD TV. It"s really just for comparisons sake as each individual pixel in the plasma displays its color. There is no motion lag, drag, or blur in plasma TVs nor side to side judder when panning.

LED LCD TV manufaacturers have worked hard to overcome the motion lag/judder issue. Last years models saw the introduction of true 240Hz refresh rate (up from 120 which was up from 60). This year few models were introduced with a "manipulated" 240Hz refresh rate that is stated as 480Hz. The 120Hz change drastically improved the response time and the subsequent increases helped a little more. However, it also introduces unwanted video information by sharpening the picture background information and taking out necessary blur. This may seem like a positive, but with 90% of your viewing material, it is not. Depending upon the manufacturer, we advise turning off the 120Hz or 240Hz feature with all but live sports programming. See our full article about 120Hz/240Hz refresh rate here.

There is a reason LCD flat panels are the preferred visual display units for use on airplanes: LCD TVs aren"t affected by increases or decreases in air pressure. Their performance is consistent regardless of the altitude at which they"re utilized.

This is not the case for a plasma. The display element in plasma TVs is actually a glass substrate envelope with rare natural gases compressed therein. So, at high altitudes (6,500 feet and above), an air-pressure differential emerges, which causes plasma displays to emit a buzzing sound due to the lower air pressure. This noise can sound rather like the humming of an old neon sign.

LED LCD television manufacturers claim that their displays last, on average, 100,000 hours. LED lighting technology has indeed changed the picture life for LCD TVs. The reason is that LED lighting does not change color over time, while the older CFL flourescent syle backlighting does. When this happens in an LCD TV the white balance of the TV will be compromised. Current LCD TVs will probably last the same length of time as the LED LCD TVs, though your color quality will likely degrade. In theory an LCD TV will last as long as its backlight does. Since it involves nothing more than light passing through a prismatic substrate, there is little to wear out in an LCD TV except the backlighting. Pixels may become stuck over time. From our research, flourescent bulb backlighting in LCDs cannot be replaced cost effectively - contrary to opinion. LED backlit LCDs provide a longer lasting stability, with little to no degradation in white balance over time. One question we have with LED LCDs is how they will actually perform over time. We have not had enough time to know for sure.

Plasma TVs, on the other hand, utilize slight electric currents to excite a combination of noble gases (i.e., argon, neon, xenon), which glow red, blue, and/or green. This is an essentially active phenomenon, so the phosphoric elements in plasma displays fade over time. Many manufacturers state a new half life of 60,000 hours. While I am skeptical of this spec, I do believe strides have been made to nearly even the playing field with LCD and LED LCD. At half life, the phosphors in a plasma screen will glow half as brightly as they did when the set was new. There is no way to replace these gases; the TV simply continues to grow dimmer with use.

ADVANTAGE: LED, then Plasma, then LCD. Some manufacturers of both plasma and LED LCD state up to 100,000 hours use. At 4 hours use per day that"s 68 years of employment. Where do they get these specs??

LCD technology is not prone to screen "burn-in" or "ghosting" (premature aging of pixel cells) due to the nature of the technologies "twisting crystals."

With plasma, static images will begin to "burn-in," or permanently etch the color being displayed into the glass display element. The time it takes for this to occur depends greatly on the anti burn-in technology of the manufacturer. Recent improvements by plasma manufacturers have certainly extended the time it takes to burn in a plasma pixel cell. In the past I was concerned to place a DVD on pause 15 minutes. Now, many of the enhancements such as improved green phosphor material, oscillating pixels, and motion adaptive anti burn-in technology are greatly reducing the risk of burn in. It"s gotten so much better that I don"t even worry about it anymore. In a new model plasma from any top tier manufacturer I would put "ghosting" estimates at hours of use (Ghosting can be "washed" out by displaying static gray material or full screen images). Permanent burn-in I would put at more than 10 hours.

Both plasma and LCD TVs are becoming more readily available in larger sizes though plasma still leads the size battle by a great margin. Pioneer and LG produce 61" plasma sizes while Panasonic has a readily available 65" model. Though it is not being imported into the U.S. yet, Samsung has produced a gigantic plasma of 100 inches. Though such mammoth monitors are expensive, they exhibit none of the "kinks" one might expect with such large displays. In other words, even the largest plasma displays are reliable. Large plasma displays will consume power - try 675 watts for a 65 "display compared to around 330 watts for a 42" plasma.

ADVANTAGE: Plasma, though the playing field is leveling. Even though production costs and retail prices have come down for both technologies, plasma still has the edge as far as production cost and capacity go..

This is a complicated topic: when choosing between LCD and plasma TVs, you"re actually selecting between two competing technologies, both of which achieve similar features (i.e., bright, crystal-clear images, super color saturated pictures) and come in similar packages (i.e., 3.5 to 5 inch depth flat screen casing). To complicate the decision-making process further, price and size are two previous considerations that are rapidly becoming non-issues as LCDs are now being made in larger sizes and at competing prices with plasma TVs.

Plasma flat screen technology consists of hundreds of thousands of individual pixel cells, which allow electric pulses (stemming from electrodes) to excite rare natural gases-usually xenon and neon-causing them to glow and produce light. This light illuminates the proper balance of red, green, or blue phosphors contained in each cell to display the proper color sequence from the light. Each pixel cell is essentially an individual microscopic florescent light bulb, receiving instruction from software contained on the rear electrostatic silicon board. Look very closely at a plasma TV and you can actually see the individual pixel cell coloration of red, green, and blue bars. You can also see the black ribs which separate each.

Whether spread across a flat-panel screen or placed in the heart of a projector, all LCD displays come from the same technological background. A matrix of thin-film transistors (TFTs) supplies voltage to liquid-crystal-filled cells sandwiched between two sheets of glass. When hit with an electrical charge, the crystals untwist to an exact degree to filter white light generated by a lamp behind the screen (for flat-panel TVs) or one projecting through a small LCD chip (for projection TVs). LCD monitors reproduce colors through a process of subtraction: They block out particular color wavelengths from the spectrum of white light until they"re left with just the right color. And, it"s the intensity of light permitted to pass through this liquid-crystal matrix that enables LCD televisions to display images chock-full of colors-or gradations of them. LED TVs are a new form of LCD Television.

As the advantages show, plasma technology has the better picture quality in normal to low room lighting conditions and are better in 4 out of 5 picture quality categories. Plasma technology will almost without exception triumph during night time viewing. LCD televisions are great for sunroom/breakfast room type environments. Also, LCD monitors are generally better for public display such as airport signage and retail store signage due to the bright room light environment. See full article on plasma vs. LCD picture quality.

LCD monitors display static images from computer or VGA sources extremely well, with full color detail, no flicker, and no screen burn-in. Moreover, the number of pixels per square inch on an LCD display is typically higher than other display technologies, so LCD monitors are especially good at displaying large amounts of data - like you would find on an Excel spreadsheet for example - with exceptional clarity and precision. LCDs are also available in many more sizes, especially the smaller sizes most often used for a computer display.

Plasma technology has increased anti burn in tactics as well as computer and static signal handling. There are still issues with each depending very much on the model and manufacturer. For example, 720p plasma televisions do not handle a computer input well and product a very jaggy image on plasma"s larger sizes.

Plasma displays get the nod here because of their excellent performance with fast-moving images and high contrast levels. There are still some 2nd tier manufacturers whose plasma product displays some phosphor lag, a dragging from brights to darks.

While the "response time" of LCD TVs has markedly improved in the last couple of years, especially with the advent of 120/240Hz displays they still suffer from a motion blur effect, where the individual pixels are just slightly out of step with the image on the screen. The high refrash rate LCD televisions can also have some undesireable effects on the picture. During fast moving sports scenes, the most discerning eyes can detect this slight motion response lag.

There is a reason LCD panels are the preferred visual display units for use on airplanes: LCDs aren"t affected by increases or decreases in air pressure. Their performance is consistent regardless of the altitude at which they"re utilized.

This is not the case for a plasma TV. The display element in plasma TVs is actually a glass substrate envelope with rare natural gases compressed therein. So, at high altitudes (6,500 feet and above), an air-pressure differential emerges, which causes plasma displays to emit a buzzing sound due to the lower air pressure. This noise can sound rather like the humming of an old neon sign. NEC has been effective in producing several plasma models that are rated to 9,500 feet.

LCD manufacturers claim that their displays last, on average, 100,000 hours. In fact, an LCD TV will last as long as its backlight does - and those bulbs can sometimes be replaced! Since this is nothing more than light passing through a prismatic substrate, there is essentially nothing to wear out in an LCD monitor. However, one nasty little known fact about LCD technology is that as the backlight ages it can change colors slightly (think of florescent office lighting). When this occurs the white balance of the entire LCD will be thrown for a loop and the user will need to re-calibrate, or worse, try to replace the backlighting or ditch the unit altogether. Some of the early purchasers of larger LCD screens will be learning this tidbit in a couple of years. One thing that I’ve found in this industry, it is not easy to find out whether the backlighting on LCDs can be replaced. Manufacturers are either hesitant to discuss the topic, or they just don’t know.

Plasma, on the other hand, utilizes slight electric currents to excite a combination of noble gases (i.e., argon, neon, xenon), which glow red, blue, and/or green. This is an essentially active phenomenon, so the phosphoric elements in plasma displays fade over time. Many manufacturers state a new half life of 100,000 hours, that"s just over 68 years if the TV is on 4 hours every day. While I am skeptical of this spec, I do believe strides have been made to nearly even the playing field with LCD. At half life, the phosphors in a plasma screen will glow half as brightly as they did when the set was new. There is no way to replace these gases; the display simply continues to grow dimmer with use.

LCD technology is not prone to screen "burn-in" or "ghosting" (premature aging of pixel cells) due to the nature of the technologies "twisting crystals."

With plasma displays, static images will begin to "burn-in," or permanently etch the color being displayed into the glass display element. The time it takes for this to occur depends greatly on the anti burn-in technology of the manufacturer. Recent improvements by plasma manufacturers have certainly extended the time it takes to burn in a plasma pixel cell. In the past I was concerned to place a DVD on pause 15 minutes. Now, many of the enhancements such as better green phosphor material, and motion adaptive anti burn-in technology are greatly reducing the risk of burn in. It’s gotten so much better that I don’t even worry about it anymore. In a new model plasma from any top tier manufacturer I would put "ghosting" estimates at an hour or more now (Ghosting can be "washed" out by displaying static gray material). Permanent burn-in I would put at more than 10 hours.

Both LCD and Plasma televisions are becoming more readily available in larger sizes though plasma still leads the size battle by a great margin. Pioneer and LG produce 61" plasma sizes while Panasonic has a readily available 65" model. Though it is not being imported into the U.S. yet, PanasonicSamsung has produced a gigantic plasma television of 150 inches. Though such mammoth monitors are expensive, they exhibit none of the "kinks" one might expect with such large displays. In other words, even the largest plasma displays are reliable. Large plasma displays will consume power – try 675 watts for a 65" display compared to around 330 watts for a 42" plasma although plasma manufacturers have reduced power intake and made the product more efficient, some even qualify for an energy star rating now.

ADVANTAGE: Plasma. Even though production costs and retail prices have come down for both technologies, plasma still has the edge as far as production cost and capacity go.

Not a very important issue but worth noting. Because LCDs use florescent backlighting to produce images, they require substantially less power to operate than plasma TVs do. LCD displays consume about half the power that plasma displays consume. The reason: Plasmas use a lot of electricity to light each and every pixel you see on a screen - even the dark ones. Though plasma manufacturers have improved voltage consumption requirements a plasma TV will consume around a third more power for the same size display.

Our value ratings continue to be reason that plasma TVs generally receive higher marks in our overall TV ratings. See the full Comparison Ratings Chart here.

Plasma televisions, along with LCD TVs, are a popular type of thin, flat panel TV display. Plasma TVs often have better contrast and black levels (intensity of the various shades of black), more accurate color reproduction and better viewing angles than LCD TVs. However, plasma TVs consume more power, can be heavier than LCD TVs and are still slightly susceptible to screen burn-in.

Plasma TVs generally display 720P or 1080P lines of high-definition vertical resolution, meaning each frame of video is fully displayed with either 720 or 1080 lines.

The smaller plasma TVs have a viewing diagonal of 42" ($600to $1,000) and 46" ($1,000to $1,300), such as the Panasonic VIERA X1 Series TC-P42X1 42" Plasma 720P HDTV at only $600or, for 1080P resolution, the Panasonic VIERA G10 Series TC-P42G10 42" for $900. The Panasonic VIERA G10 Series TC-P46G10 1080P TV is a 46" panel at around $1,100.

The next sizes up are 50" ($1,200-$1,800), 54" ($1,600to $2,400) and 58" ($1,800to $2,900) displays. The Samsung PN50B650 is a 50" 1080P display for around $1,200. For a 54" display, the Panasonic VIERA TC-P54G10 is $1,600. The Samsung PN58B650 58" plasma TV at $1,800has received good reviews.

In larger sizes, plasma TVs come in 60" ($1,800to $4,000), 63" ($2,400to $4,000) and 65" ($2,700to $5,000) diagonals. The 60" 1080P 600Hz LG 60PS60[1] is $1,800; the Samsung PN63B550 at 63" is around $2,700; and the 65" Panasonic VIERA TC-P65V10 costs around $4,000.

The technology behind plasma TVs consists of hundreds of thousands of tiny pixel cells containing gases which are held between two sheets of glass. When the gases in these cells are excited by electricity, the gas is turned into plasma and light is emitted, which in turn is translated into color and images.

In addition to the plasma TV panel itself, there should also be a remote control and batteries, a cleaning cloth and a ferrite core (used to shield cables from interference).

To wall mount the plasma TV, the cost can range from a few hundred for materials and a simple self-install to several hundred for more difficult setups requiring professional installation.

Panasonic[2] , Samsung[3] and LG[4] are the larger and more reliable manufacturers of plasma TVs. Store retailers such as Best Buy[5] and Sears[6] offer plasma TVs.

If you"re in the market for a flat-screen television, then you probably have one big question you want answered: plasma vs. LCD; which one is right for you?

The two different camps of flat-panel display standards will, of course, gladly spruik the advantages of their own standard and the deficiencies of the other. But what type of display — plasma or LCD — is actually better? And which will give you more bang for your buck?

Plasma and LCD panels may look similar, but the flat screen and the thin profile are where the similarities end. Plasma screens, as the name suggests, use a matrix of tiny gas plasma cells charged by precise electrical voltages to create a picture. LCD (liquid crystal display) screens are in layman"s terms sandwiches made up of liquid crystal pushed in the space between two glass plates. Images are created by varying the amount of electrical charge applied to the crystals. Each technology has its strengths and weaknesses, as you"ll read below.

It"s not what"s happening behind the screen that"s important — it"s how the screen performs as a television that matters the most. In that regard, both plasma and LCD TV sets produce excellent pictures, and the differences between them aren"t as pronounced as they used to be. While the latest plasmas are particularly good, LCD sets are quickly catching up in terms of quality, with advances like LED backlighting.

For basic home cinema-like usage, plasma screens have a slight edge over LCDs. This is because plasma screens can still display blacks more accurately than LCDs can, which means better contrast and detail in dark scenes. The nature of LCD technology, where a backlight shines through the LCD layer, means that it"s hard for it to achieve true blacks because there"s always some light leakage from between pixels. As LCD/LED technologies such as polarising filters and dynamic backlights improve, the quality gap between the technologies grows narrower.

Apart from better contrast due to its ability to show deeper blacks, plasma screens typically have better viewing angles than LCD. Viewing angles are how far you can sit on either side of a screen before the picture"s quality is affected. You tend to see some brightness and colour shift when you"re on too much of an angle with LCDs, while a plasma"s picture remains fairly solid. Plasmas can also produce richer, more natural colours, due to both light leakage and to a limit on the hues that LCD can reproduce.

Plasma pundits will also tell you that some LCD screens have a tendency to blur images, particularly during fast-moving scenes in movies or in sport. While that was true for older generation LCD screens, newer models have improved significantly — so much so that the differences in performance between LCDs and plasmas in this regard is almost negligible. (While the pixel response time, measured in milliseconds (ms), can give you some indication of an LCD"s performance with fast-moving scenes, it"s not always reliable.)

Traditionally, the biggest advantage that plasmas have had over their LCD cousins is price, particularly in the large screen end of the market. Depending on the resolution, plasma is still able to beat most equivalently priced LCD screens. Plasmas currently sold in Australia generally run between 42 and 65 inches wide, with the cheapest 1024x768 standard-definition 42-inch selling for under AU$1000.

At present, the mainstream plasma size is 50 inches, but sizes of 60 inches and above are becoming more common. At these sizes, plasmas tend to be two thirds or less than the price of the equivalent LCD, due to the high manufacturing cost of LCD panels.

Apart from becoming increasingly price-competitive, LCD has the edge over plasma in several other key areas. LCDs tend to have a higher native resolution than plasmas of similar size, which means more pixels on the screen.

LCDs also tend to consume less power than plasma screens, with some of the newer "Eco" LCD panels able to use half of the power than equivalent plasmas, with the trade-off being lower brightness.

In terms of bulk, LCDs are also generally lighter than similar-sized plasmas, making it easier to move around or wall-mount. This is because LCDs use plastic in their screen make-up, whereas plasmas tend to use glass.

LCD pundits point to the belief that LCDs have a longer lifespan than plasma screens. While this may have been true of earlier plasma models — which dropped to half-brightness at 20,000 hours — many modern plasmas have the same 60,000-hour lifespan as LCDs. This means that both types of TVs will last for almost seven years if left on 24 hours a day.

You might have also heard that plasmas suffer from screen burn-in, an affliction not commonly associated with LCDs. Screen burn-in occurs when an image is left too long on a screen, resulting in a ghost of that image "burned in". Newer plasmas are less susceptible to this, thanks to improved technology and features such as screensavers, but burn-in can still be a problem. However, after a few days most burnt-in images will fade — they are no longer permanent.

If you"re in the market for a big-screen television — and we"re talking 50 inches and above — then we"d suggest plasma as a safe bet. Plasmas give you more bang for your buck at the big end of town, and while LCDs can give you better resolution, plasma still has the edge in terms of picture quality.

At the smaller end of things (17- to 42-inch TVs), LCD is the only way to go if you want something slim and tasteful. And the best thing is that LCDs are getting cheaper all the time.

There has also been a lot of debate surrounding use in bright environments versus dark, cinema-like conditions. The traditional wisdom is that LCD performs better during the day due to its backlighting system, and that plasma works best in a dark environment, as it uses a glass front. Nonetheless, products like the non-reflective glass plasmas and LED-backlit LCD panels with their better blacks completely turn this logic on its head.

In the past couple of years, several new features have cropped up, but the most pertinent to this discussion is 3D. While it"s possible to manufacture a 3D screen with both LCD technology and plasma, based on our extensive testing, a plasma screen is the best at producing 3D images and reducing the artefact known as crosstalk, or ghosted imaging. Be aware that there is still very little content available in 3D, and that the technology is still evolving. Buy a set for its 2D abilities first, and then consider 3D.

While most screens are now full high-definition (1080p), resolution is a consideration when you"re looking at budget screens. Budget LCDs and plasmas feature either 1366x768 or 1024x768 (720p) resolutions. If you"re buying a screen that"s 42 inches or larger, though, there"s now no reason to get anything less than 1080p.

Many people become confused by what type of flat-panel TV—plasma or LCD—they should purchase. The technology you pick will depend on a number of factors, including screen size, viewing conditions, price and, ultimately, your perception of which one looks the best.In terms of size, LCD flat-panels start as small as 10 inches and go up to 65 inches. Sets above 52 inches, however, can get expensive. Unlike smaller LCD TVs which typically have old-style 4:3 aspect ratios, all plasmas are widescreen. Plasmas start at 37 inches and go up to 103 inches.

LCDs are available in smaller sizes, allowing them to go where a 37-inch plasma will not fit. They also provide incredibly bright images when viewed on center. If you plan on watching your TV in a room with a lot of light, LCD has the edge over plasma, both with its bright picture and its special surface coatings that reduce room reflections.

LCDs generally have slower video response times than plasmas, which is noticeable primarily on sports and fast action scenes. They also have a narrower viewing angle, meaning that as you move off center, the image contrast and brightness drop off. Most LCD panels (as well as plasmas) are factory preset to stand out in the very bright lighting at most stores. When you get them home and out of the box, however, they are way too intense. You should change the menu setting from factory preset (usually Vivid) to Movie, Cinema or Standard (depending on your set) and lower the contrast (also called Picture Control) to the halfway point for the best picture.

If your television is going to be in room with normal lighting, plasma will provide superb image quality, dark blacks and bright whites over the widest viewing angle. However, if you need a screen below 37 inches, LCD is really the only choice available. Enclosed patios, really bright rooms with skylights or untreated windows, and sunny kitchens are all excellent spots for LCD displays of all sizes.

Plasmas have wide viewing angles, meaning you can sit off-center and still see a very good picture. They have high contrast ratios, excellent color, deep blacks, fast response times for viewing scenes with a lot of motion such as sports, and generally lower prices than LCDs above 42 inches. Today’s plasmas have a long life expectancy. Many of the top tier brands are now rated at 60,000 hours, which is equal to over 16 years of use when operating the set 10 hours a day, every day.

Plasma disadvantages are few. In the early days, the most common criticism was that they suffered from “burn-in,” meaning that when a static image such as a video game logo is on the screen for too long, its shadow may linger even after it’s gone. Burn-in really is the uneven wear of the phosphors within the plasma panel. The risk of burn in has been greatly reduced by the set makers and can be minimized with a simple precaution. Like with LCD, upon unpacking and connecting the set, change the “picture mode setting” from factory preset (usually Vivid) to Movie, Cinema or Standard (depending on the TV) and lower the contrast (also called the “picture control”) to about one half level for the best picture.

In the age of High Definition TV size matters most. What many shoppers and salesmen don’t realize, buying a screen that is too small or sitting too far away from the display will rob you from seeing all the high definition the set has to offer, thereby wasting your money. HDTV provides a more immersive viewing experience than old style 4:3 standard definition TV, as well more picture detail than you have ever seen on a home display. In order to fully resolve all the detail within HDTV, you must sit in the optimum viewing range. Sit further and your eyes will not be able discern all the detail within the image. There are three levels of resolution for flat TVs. The first level is not HDTV; it is called Enhanced Definition at 480 vertical lines. The two classes of HDTV grade displays are 720p/768p with the display showing either 720 lines (or 768 lines) of resolution from top to bottom and 1080 (i or p), the highest quality HDTV display, with 1080 lines of resolution. For ED sets you can sit as far as 3.4 times the screen diagonal to see all detail. This means up to 142.8 inches (just under 12 feet) from an ED (480p) 42” set. Using the same size screen a 720p/768p you need to be at a viewing distance of at 2.3 times the screen size or closer, which is equal to 96.6 inches or eight feet. With a 1080 (i or p) 42inch set you should at no more than 1.55 times the screen size or 65.1 inches (just under 5½ ft.) to distinguish ever pixel within the image.

There are a number of high-definition LCD and plasma displays that are sold without tuners. These are called “HD monitors,” and, like a computer monitor, they are useless without a signal source. Most monitors come with speakers, but some do not. With an HD monitor, you must connect it to a high-definition source to receive a true high-definition picture. You have three good high def options— over-the-air tuner box, cable box and satellite. Do not confuse “digital cable” for high definition. Make sure your cable provider is supplying you with a high-definition signal. An integrated HDTV has a built-in digital tuner and can receive over-the-air HD broadcasts.

LCD – The big myth, the liquid will leak out of LCD panels. This is not true; all LCD panels are sealed and never need to be refilled. You should always handle the panel by its frame, never lie the panel face down and never press on the screen. The front glass is very thin (much thinner than the front glass found on Plasma TVs) and cracks quite easily.

Plasma – The big myth, the Plasma gas will leak and need to be recharged. Like LCD, plasma panels are factory sealed and won’t leak or ever need to have the internal gases refilled.

Another myth, Plasma TVs consume more electricity than LCD. Fact, in recent HD GURU tests, plasma TVs used fewer watts of electricity than comparably sized LCD flat panel televisions.

Has there ever been a more alluring gizmo than the plasma TV? The first time you see one, you really do gasp. The screen is so big and wide, the image is so bright, the set is so amazingly flat, just a few inches deep—you could hang it on the wall. And if you’ve been taking peeks for a while, you’ve noticed that the prices keep coming down. So, you’ve bought the DVD player, hooked up the satellite dish or the digital cable. Is it time to take the next step, to junk the clunky cathode-ray picture tube and flick on the gas?

If you have more money than you know what to do with, and if you heed certain warnings (details to come), then yes, go ahead, do it. If you have some money but hate to feel ripped off, then wait a year, maybe two. Plasmas are going to get a bit better and a lot cheaper. Just a year ago, they were toys for rich boys, a work in slow progress, a lousy TV set. If you bought one back then, you made a serious mistake. Now, all of a sudden, they’re not only cool, they’re very good—or at least some are.

How good, and how (relatively) cheap, could be seen at last week’s InfoComm trade show in Las Vegas. Panasonic and Zenith announced that their new 50-inch plasmas are now listing for $11,000—a crazy price for a television, but two weeks ago they were $15,000 and the year before that, $20,000. The 42-inch plasmas, which last spring went for $10,000 to $12,000, are now going for $8,000. And that’s retail. The street price is less—on some streets,

DTVs (which include projection televisions, LCD screens, and high-definition monitors) tell a strikingly similar story. Since becoming a serious item, sales are up 16 times, from 121,000 to 2.1 million. Average wholesale prices are down by nearly 50 percent, from $2,433 to $1,300.” [Editor’s note: When this piece was first published on June 24, some of the numbers in the previous sentence were in error. On June 28 they were corrected.]

The price-demand curves for plasmas are, so far, a bit less steep. Since 1999, the year they were introduced, sales have risen by 30 times (from 18,000 to 550,000) while wholesale prices have fallen by just 30 to 40 percent.

But there are two reasons for believing plasma prices will plunge more steeply very soon. First, this is a new, incredibly complex technology. The glass screens alone must be baked in huge ovens, which require a large, ultramodern factory and resulted, early on, in very high reject rates. As the “learning curve” and economies of scale take hold, manufacturing costs will plummet, especially since nearly all plasma screens are built by three mega-companies (Panasonic, Pioneer, and NEC). Other companies sell plasma TVs, but they buy the screens off-the-shelf from one of those three.

Second, Samsung and Lucky Goldstar (Zenith’s parent company) have set up a plasma-screen factories in South Korea, while a division of the computer firm Acer announced at InfoComm that it’s built one in Taiwan. Both countries offer low labor and land-use costs. This move will soon seriously underprice the big three, which will have to respond even if it means cutting profits. (Competition has slashed the prices of DVD players so deeply—as low as $60, good ones $150—that profits barely exist.)

Gary Merson, editor of the retailprices of plasma TVs will drop by one-third each year until they hit parity with conventional televisions. If he’s right, 50-inch plasmas will list for $7,000 next year, $4,000 or so in two years; 42-inch models will go for $5,500, then $3,700. Not long ago, these prices might have seemed insanely high. But given that my exterminator just spent $5,000 on a large-screen rear-projection television, I think we’re talking mass market here.

Before you take out the credit card, though, you should know that plasmas still have some technical bugs. Consider how they work. A plasma screen consists of two layers of glass, embedding between the layers an array of electrodes, phosphors (red, green, and blue), and millions of tiny gas cells (usually neon and argon). Turn on a video signal and the electrodes zap the gases, producing an intense burst of ultraviolet light, which is flooded by the phosphors.

It’s amazing that the thing works at all; it shouldn’t be amazing that it doesn’t work perfectly. One problem is how it deals with the color black. Unlike normal TV sets, plasmas have no black backdrop; every gas cell is illuminated, and it takes a lot of energy to create pure black through illumination. So blacks can look faded or splotchy.

There are problems with dark shades generally. Until recently, plasma screens were 8-bit displays. In other words, each color phosphor had only eight bits of variety. Eight bits means 28, which equals 256—just 256 shades of brightness between black and white, not enough to capture all the shades of nature.

TV dealers know this. Go into a store selling plasmas, and what are they showing? High-definition video loops of nature films (lots of bright, outdoor scenery) or football games (bright lights and primary-color jerseys). They look fabulous. But take the set home and watch a non-high-definition TV show, or even a DVD, with dark scenes, and you start wondering if you were better off with the 20-year-old Trinitron.

The good news is that these problems are being solved. Most new plasmas are 10-bit displays—210 equals 1,024 shades of brightness, which means much less splotchiness, more natural color. Designers have also devised various ways around the black problem.

Plasmas have one more serious problem. The resolution of the signal (480 horizontal lines for normal TV sets and DVD, 720 or 1,080 lines for high-definition) must be reprocessed to fit the image that the television is capable of displaying. The electronic processors inside plasma TVs, for now, all stink. So count on spending another $2,000 to $4,000 for an external processor (or “scaler”) to do the job right. Internal scalers are getting better; external ones are getting cheaper. This too will take a year or so. I’ll wait a little while longer.

Prices have been basically stalled since the retail wars of the 2006 holidays, when LCD TVs, once luxury items, went almost mainstream. But prices will probably plunge again by the end of the year.

A 42-inch set selling right now for an average of $1,877 could be going for $1,175 -- a drop of more than 35% -- just in time for the winter holidays, the ISuppli industry analyst group said Tuesday. Already, at some discount and membership stores, you can find an off-brand 42-inch LCD set for under $1,000.

“I have a 20-inch LCD set across from me that was $1,500 just four years ago. Now, I could get it for $149,” said analyst Richard Doherty at Envisioneering Group. “The prices have fallen faster than any consumer electronics item in years, with the exception of DVD players.”

If the price falls as much as expected this year, the average 42-inch LCD set will cost only about $80 more than a plasma flat-screen of the same size. For years, plasma was the undisputed flat-screen king, largely because the technology was far cheaper. But now LCDs could rule -- especially among the environmentally and weight-conscious.

“LCD TVs use a lot less electricity,” Doherty said. “People who consider themselves green tend to buy LCD. And the weight of two 37-inch LCD TVs are about equal to that of one plasma set the same size.”

This year, the number of LCD screens -- each of which contains a liquid crystal gel divided into hundreds of thousands of individual pixels -- shipping from factories will reach 75.2 million, up from 52.7 million in 2006, ISuppli said. And the price of the screens to TV manufacturers is forecast to fall 17% in just the first half of the year.

“At the beginning of 2006, we were seeing 42-inch LCDs at about $3,500 or $4,000,” said Ross Rubin, an analyst at NPD Group. “But they were from just a handful of manufacturers. By the end of the year, many more manufacturers were offering LCDs and there was very aggressive retail discounting during the holidays.”

The latest plasma and LCD TVs are thinner and lighter, but not nearly as durable as the big honking cathode ray tube TVs or even the first generations of plasmas introduced in the late 1990s, metro area technicians say.

Repair technicians say the growing use of cheaper components is one reason prices on flat-panel TVs — LCDs and plasmas — have drastically dropped in recent years.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, a 32-inch LCD TV sold for an average price of $511, down from $1,566 in 2005, according to market research firm iSuppli. The average price is expected to fall to $374 in the fourth quarter of this year.

“Our plasmas are (built) to last 100,000 hours, at which point they achieve half brightness, something discernible only if you have a new set for side-by-side comparison,” said Jeff Samuels, a spokesman for Panasonic. “Lower prices are the result of continual R&D engineers constantly working to build better, less expensive sets.”

Despite the shorter life spans, flat-panel sets now represent the vast majority of TV sales. Nearly 34 million LCD and plasma TVs are expected to be sold this year, up from 13.4 million in 2006, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

VIEWING ANGLELCD televisions tend to have smaller viewing angles than plasma sets. So if your friends are over to watch the game, those sitting on the left and right of the screen will see an image with blacks that look gray; whites that are darker; reduced contrast; and colors that have shifted.

To counter that effect, Mr. Merson said, consumers should look for LCD televisions that use I.P.S., or in-plane switching technology. I.P.S. is available on Hitachi and Panasonic sets; Samsung and Sony have a similar technology called S-PVA.

But now flat-panel plasma televisions are on sale at Circuit City and other mainstream television retailers nationwide. They are expensive _ $10,000 or more _ finicky and fragile. And the technology has not been perfected. Nonetheless, for a variety of reasons, they almost certainly represent the future of television, almost within reach.

Almost every TV manufacturer that showed products at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas had plasma monitors on display, even though the high prices ensure that they will remain a specialty product for now.

Flat-panel plasma sets can be as large as they need to be, and still be relatively unobtrusive, because they are extraordinarily thin. In fact, Pioneer Electronics is selling a 50-inch plasma monitor capable of displaying high-definition images. And it is less than 4 inches deep, about as wide as your hand, so it can easily fit through a door.

I tested the Pioneer and three other plasma sets, manufactured by Fujitsu, Philips Electronics and Runco International. All of them are wide-screen sets. And all but one are just monitors _ to function, a monitor has to be attached to a television tuner, such as a VCR. Their prices range from the startling to the absurd: $10,999 to $25,000.

At first glance, a plasma set is arresting. Anyone spying it invariably walks up and peers around the back to be sure more equipment isn"t built into the wall somehow. But there isn"t.

But that is not to say there are no problems. It turns out that the plasma process is extraordinarily inefficient. As a result, plasma displays are dimmer than conventional television sets, which means plasma displays cannot render the color black.

Direct-view sets are generally as bright as torches so the picture is strong, even when projected through black-tinted glass. But plasma sets are so inefficient that the picture would be too dim to watch if it had to pass through black-tinted glass. As a result, the darkest images most plasma sets can render are a dark gray. That gives the picture a noticeably washed-out look.

Now, however, Fujitsu is selling a second-generation model with a 42-inch screen at half the price _ $10,999 _ and the picture is much improved. This one can render a very dark gray, so the problem is much less obtrusive. This is among the least expensive plasma sets using current technology, and one of the best.

Philips licensed Fujitsu"s plasma technology and used it to produce its own plasma set, called the Flat TV. It is heavily advertised in national magazines and costs $15,000, even though the Philips set produces a picture not quite as good as Fujitsu"s. But the Philips system includes its own television tuner, so there is no need to connect it to a VCR to receive television programing.

But plasma technology is evolving quickly. Each new entry is notably better, giving power to the idea that plasma displays will eventually become a mainstream product for consumers not interested in deciding between a new car and a new television. And the two latest entries in the market, from Runco and Pioneer, prove the point.

Runco, a high-end manufacturer of home-theater products, sells a 42-inch plasma monitor that is based on a plasma mechanism manufactured by the NEC Corp., the Japanese computer company. Brightness measurements show that it projects more light than any other plasma display on the market. That means it can come closer to portraying true black. This unit costs $13,995, partly because it comes with a nifty (and expensive) touch-screen remote control.

Finally comes the Cadillac of the category, Pioneer"s high-definition plasma display, so nicknamed because you could buy a Cadillac for the price of this television: $25,000. It is 50 inches wide, wider than any conventional direct-view television sold in the United States. Yet it is only about 4 inches deep.

But then, this is a brand-new product category. Researchers at several major consumer electronics companies are still trying to overcome the hurdles that will make plasma displays a mainstream product, so bumps along the way are not only understandable, but expected.

A plasma monitor is like a honeycomb sandwiched between two sheets of glass. Each cell in the honeycomb represents a pixel, or picture element, and holds a mixture of neon-xenon gas and a tiny bit of phosphorescent material in one of the three primary colors: red, green and blue.

A tiny, transparent electrode is attached to the front of each cell, and another to the back. When a charge is applied to these electrodes, it passes through the cell, exciting the gas so it enters a plasma state and begins emitting ultraviolet light. That excites the colored phosphorescent material, or phosphors, which then project light to create a picture.

"We"re already seeing 32-inch LCD models under $400. Typically they are $500, or more," he said. "And we"re also seeing prices drop from about a $1,000 for 40-inch screens to $800."

One example, Target (TGT, Fortune 500) is reportedly featuring a 32-inch Westinghouse LCD HDTV for $246 as a "doorbuster special" on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when holiday shopping kicks off in earnest.

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) searches in the past 90 days for 32-inch LCD HDTVs have been 44% higher than searches for 37-inch LCD HDTVs, and 24% higher than searches for 42-inch LCD models.

Even without deep discounts on the bigger TV models, experts say consumers are still paying less versus last year as industry prices retreat about 20% overall on HDTVs.

But if you"re determined to bag a bargain on a bigger screen, here"s a useful tip: opt for a 720p model. "Your best chance on a great bargain is on a plasma 720p 50-inch TV for maybe a $1,000," said Swann.