When shopping for a flat screen HDTV, you’re quickly confronted with one of life’s great questions: Plasma or LCD?
In the past, the gap between Plasma and LCD flat-screen monitor technologies was significant. But TV manufacturers have steadily narrowed the differences between the two. Still, some differences remain. While both plasma and LCD technologies deliver very thin televisions with sharp, high-definition resolutions, they do so in totally different ways. Plasma uses gases (neon and xenon) and colored phosphors to create a moving image, while LCD TVs use liquid crystals housed between two panels of glass that are illuminated from behind. Because the technology under the hood is different, plasma and LCD TVs behave or display images differently. These differences are highlighted in a few key areas.
Contrast
Because the back light in an LCD is always on, it’s traditionally been difficult for an LCD TV to deliver a truly deep black. Plasmas, on the other hand, can offer “blacker blacks” and thus, better contrast (i.e. the difference between light and dark images on the screen). With that being said, new LED technology now allows LCD TVs to catch up. We’ll cover more about LEDs below.
In Room Viewing
In general, plasma sets have the widest possible viewing angles, while the colors on an LCD panel will shift as you move away from the center of the screen. LCD manufacturers such as Sharp have pushed the viewing angles of LCD TVs beyond their traditional limits, however.
There’s also a difference in performance depending on room lighting. Plasma TVs generally perform better in darker rooms, while LCD TVs produce a better picture in a room full of bright light.
Longevity
One the big knocks against plasma TVs used to be their longevity. The phosphors floating around inside a plasma set can lose their color over time. However, new plasmas, such as those in Panasonic’s Viera line, boast a half-life of 60,000 viewing hours. That means you’d basically have to watch TV for 24 hours a day, non-stop for seven years until your plasma was half as bright as it was on the day you took it home.
Another plasma disadvantage was image retention, or “burn-in.” That is, if you hit pause on your DVD player and walked away from your plasma set for 30 minutes, that frozen image would burn into the set, leaving a ghostly reminder of itself for days or even months after. Technologies like Panasonic’s “pixel wobbling” have now been brought to bear on the problem and burn-in isn’t really an issue for plasmas when used by typical consumers.
Fast Motion
LCD TVs used to struggle with fast moving subjects – they’d leave a faint trail of pixels across the screen. However, companies such as Philips, with their HD Natural Motion technology, have improved the performance of LCD TVs to the point where sports fans shouldn’t worry about firing up an LCD set for the big game.
Size & Price
Plasma TVs at 50-inches and larger tend to be less expensive than similarly-sized LCD TVs. Manufacturers such as Vizio have helped drive down the price of larger sized LCD screens, however, and the price gap between the two at the large-end of the TV spectrum continues to shrink. If you’re in the market for a television under 40-inches, though, LCD is considered the best and most popular way to go.
Energy Use
One area of increasing attention and also offers significant difference between plasma and LCD that persists to this day is energy consumption. Plasma TVs consume more energy than LCDs, particularly as the screens hit the 50-inch and above mark.
LED TV
A new acronym has recently popped onto the TV scene: ‘LED,’ which stands for light-emitting diode. LED TVs are actually LCD TVs that use an LED as their back light (traditional LCD sets use Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (CCFL) for back lighting). So there really is no such thing as an “LED TV.” It’s really an LCD TV with LED backlights.
What’s the Big Deal With LED?
LED LCD TVs can produce darker blacks and better contrast than a CCFL-lit LCD. That’s why LCD TVs from LG, Sharp and others will use LED light sources in their top-of-the-line models for the best performance.
The second benefit to LED LCD TVs is reduced energy consumption compared to LCD TVs with CCFL lights. So an already energy friendly TV technology only gets better with LED.
Photo-Friendly Options
If differences persist in the performance of plasmas and LCDs when it comes to moving images, both have become much more accommodating to digital photos. One manufacturer, Panasonic, has gone so far as to incorporate SD card slots in its flat panels, so you can pop out your camera’s memory card and drop it directly into the TV for viewing on the big screen. Many digital cameras now come with HDMI outputs, so you can connect them directly to your TV.
If your photos are stored on a PC or online, the latest plasmas and LCDs offer home networking features – such as Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity– and on-screen widgets for viewing content on your HDTV.
All in all, the choices are not only getting cheaper, they are getting better.
