LED or Plasma

[Philo]

Hi all

Looking to buy a new TV for Xmas, which is best, LED or Plasma. Im leaning towards an LED, but there as so many choices out there and so many makes. The best Ive viewed is the Panasonic brand, does any one agree. Ive got ?700 to spend on a 40"-42". What are te main points I should be looking for.

Thanks in advance

[ruudvandan]

depends what you want it for. Look at the connections you need - how many HDMI sockets, SCART, whether you need an RGB for a computer monitor lead, does it have an optical out for your surround sound? Do you need component or s-video connection

If I were you I'd look at what you currently have, and what you're going to use your TV for and make sure you get one that meets your needs.

[squeezy]

m8 got panasonic plasma 37 " viera no complaints very good pic quality with hd channels and excellent with xbox would recommend plus 5 year waranty

[chroma]

There are everal different types of display.

Plasma
This is essentialy a grid of cells filled with mixtures of noble gasses (Xenon, Neon and Helium) as current is passed through these cells the gas excites a phosphor coating and makes it glow at roughly 1000 lumens (a conventional 100w lightbulb glows to 1500 lumens) the same technology that allows fluorescent strip lights to work.
Essentialy its a large array of flourescent bulbs.

The benifit of this is that you get an insanely high contrast ratio due to the fact theres no backlight which improves the realism of an image, the downside is that it takes a lot of power to work so expect it to make a dent on your electricity bill.

Another downside is that although plasma has a wide gamut of color it has difficulty reproducing certain frequencies accurately not that this is really an issue unless your a serious videophile who uses screens as a cock measuring contest.

Another serious downside is that they work in mch the same way as CRT televisions and are subject to phosphor burn in.
Leave it on a channel long enough and those icons like SKY 1 etc wind up permanently burned into the screen.

Manufacturing costs are high with pasma so theyre not cheap.

LCD
This tech is more a series of filters than anything else.
Start with a backlight which emits light.
This hits a polarizing layer which makes sure only waves allgned horizontaly can pass.
This is passed through a grid of liquid crystals untill it comes to the next polarized layer which only allows vertical waves to pass through.

When nothing is running no light can pass through the system, both layers cancel each other out, its only when voltage is applied to a cell that the crystal will bend the light from horisontal to a vertical wave allowing it to pass through.

The advantages of this is that it requires very little power to run the actual crystals, the bulk of the power is consumed by the backlight.

There are serious drawbacks to LCD displays though.
First off they only like to work in native resoloution, if its a 1440x900 panel then displaying resoloutions other than that become sketchy at best, things will look jagged and riddled with artifacts, this is why standard tv 720x576 will look completely garbage on a high definition lcd screen.

Secondly because its backlit the contrast ratio is generaly lower giving pictures a more artificial feel to the human eye.

Thirdly is the response rate, this tends to be higher than any of the other technology, meaning that it takes considerably longer between drawing one picture to clearing the screen and drawing the next one. in a nutshell this causes ghosting and blurring if a scene is fast paced, say a car race or a football match or an action movie.
Games are sketchy also unless its a high quality panel with low response time.

LCD's are mass produced nowadays and relatively straightforward to manufacture so theyre relatively cheap.

OLED
The new kid on the block, Organic Light Emitting Diode Displays are formed from rows and columns of led's that have an organic substrate.
Its essentialy the best of bothworlds, think LCD without the backlight, so they use considerably less energy than an LCD and orders of magnitude less than plasma, theyre also exceptionaly light.
Plasma screens weigh a ton, LCD's are heavy and oleds are almost weightless, the bulk of the mass is composed of the circuit boards and the housing.

The advantage is that the displays can be printed from a standard inkjet printer, meaning manufacturing costs are significantly less, this also has the bonus of meaning you can have a curved display that wraps around your field of vision, think of a screen that you can see even out the corners of your eyes, so you can have a totaly immersive setup.

The downside is that LED's burn out fairly quickly so a tv would only last around 5 years before needing repaced.

There are only a few displays on the market at present, but expect them to take off in a big way soon enough.

[adrian_]

plasma tv eats lots of energy and fades away, in time (so i heard) think a bit environmental and get something that uses less power

[thered]

There are everal different types of display.

Plasma
This is essentialy a grid of cells filled with mixtures of noble gasses (Xenon, Neon and Helium) as current is passed through these cells the gas excites a phosphor coating and makes it glow at roughly 1000 lumens (a conventional 100w lightbulb glows to 1500 lumens) the same technology that allows fluorescent strip lights to work.
Essentialy its a large array of flourescent bulbs.

The benifit of this is that you get an insanely high contrast ratio due to the fact theres no backlight which improves the realism of an image, the downside is that it takes a lot of power to work so expect it to make a dent on your electricity bill.

Another downside is that although plasma has a wide gamut of color it has difficulty reproducing certain frequencies accurately not that this is really an issue unless your a serious videophile who uses screens as a cock measuring contest.

Another serious downside is that they work in mch the same way as CRT televisions and are subject to phosphor burn in.
Leave it on a channel long enough and those icons like SKY 1 etc wind up permanently burned into the screen.

Manufacturing costs are high with pasma so theyre not cheap.

LCD
This tech is more a series of filters than anything else.
Start with a backlight which emits light.
This hits a polarizing layer which makes sure only waves allgned horizontaly can pass.
This is passed through a grid of liquid crystals untill it comes to the next polarized layer which only allows vertical waves to pass through.

When nothing is running no light can pass through the system, both layers cancel each other out, its only when voltage is applied to a cell that the crystal will bend the light from horisontal to a vertical wave allowing it to pass through.

The advantages of this is that it requires very little power to run the actual crystals, the bulk of the power is consumed by the backlight.

There are serious drawbacks to LCD displays though.
First off they only like to work in native resoloution, if its a 1440x900 panel then displaying resoloutions other than that become sketchy at best, things will look jagged and riddled with artifacts, this is why standard tv 720x576 will look completely garbage on a high definition lcd screen.

Secondly because its backlit the contrast ratio is generaly lower giving pictures a more artificial feel to the human eye.

Thirdly is the response rate, this tends to be higher than any of the other technology, meaning that it takes considerably longer between drawing one picture to clearing the screen and drawing the next one. in a nutshell this causes ghosting and blurring if a scene is fast paced, say a car race or a football match or an action movie.
Games are sketchy also unless its a high quality panel with low response time.

LCD's are mass produced nowadays and relatively straightforward to manufacture so theyre relatively cheap.

OLED
The new kid on the block, Organic Light Emitting Diode Displays are formed from rows and columns of led's that have an organic substrate.
Its essentialy the best of bothworlds, think LCD without the backlight, so they use considerably less energy than an LCD and orders of magnitude less than plasma, theyre also exceptionaly light.
Plasma screens weigh a ton, LCD's are heavy and oleds are almost weightless, the bulk of the mass is composed of the circuit boards and the housing.

The advantage is that the displays can be printed from a standard inkjet printer, meaning manufacturing costs are significantly less, this also has the bonus of meaning you can have a curved display that wraps around your field of vision, think of a screen that you can see even out the corners of your eyes, so you can have a totaly immersive setup.

The downside is that LED's burn out fairly quickly so a tv would only last around 5 years before needing repaced.

There are only a few displays on the market at present, but expect them to take off in a big way soon enough.

very good analasis i have a 42 phillips lcd it is a decent picture but as chroma says is prone to a bit of motion blur at high speeds but it doesnt bother me in the slightest

peoples plasma's i have seen are better pictures than lcd but i went for lcd because they suppsedly last longer and are more reliable i didnt have a clue about the energy consumption so i suppose that is another bonus with lcd

i myself would buy another lcd over plasma simply because i dont need or want any bigger than a 42" and i am more than happy with the lcd i bought if however as chroma said if you want to join the cock measuring contest get a plasma because you dont see too many big tv's 46" and up in lcd they are mainly plasma

[gmb45]

very good analasis i have a 42 phillips lcd it is a decent picture but as chroma says is prone to a bit of motion blur at high speeds but it doesnt bother me in the slightest

peoples plasma's i have seen are better pictures than lcd but i went for lcd because they suppsedly last longer and are more reliable i didnt have a clue about the energy consumption so i suppose that is another bonus with lcd

i myself would buy another lcd over plasma simply because i dont need or want any bigger than a 42" and i am more than happy with the lcd i bought if however as chroma said if you want to join the cock measuring contest get a plasma because you dont see too many big tv's 46" and up in lcd they are mainly plasma

the missus neice has got a samsung 50inch lcd, what bout this plasma red ---> Panasonic 150-Inch Plasma Next To That Tiny 103-Incher From Last Year - Displayus Giganticus - Gizmodo

[thered]

the missus neice has got a samsung 50inch lcd, what bout this plasma red ---> Panasonic 150-Inch Plasma Next To That Tiny 103-Incher From Last Year - Displayus Giganticus - Gizmodo

~~~ me its bigger than me house

i must be out of touch m8 sign of getting old last time i looked all the 50" ones were all plasma i never seen any lcd that big are they common that big now

[thered]

just had a look you can get 60" lcd now

saying that my tv is still black and white

[stinker]

i have a panosonic 42 inch vierra plasma and have had no problems perfect picture every time

[Gumbo]

I'd concur that Panasonic plasma's are currently the best TV's available on the market. You really can't go wrong with any one, oh and don't worry about all that full 1080p crap as well, it's just marketing and at sizes under 80" is not really needed.

[davieboy.rfc]

i got 42" lcd from argos 399.99 superb i think its bak up 2 500.oo

[Philo]

Thanks for the replies, all Im looking for is a standard TV, not worried about HDMIs, 1080p, HD etc. My only concern woul be motion blur, what should I look out for.

[chroma]

Thanks for the replies, all Im looking for is a standard TV, not worried about HDMIs, 1080p, HD etc. My only concern woul be motion blur, what should I look out for.

Fast response time, anything under 5ms (miliseconds) should be adequate to eliminate most ghosting, expect to pay a premium for this though. averges are between 8 and 6 ms, anything below 5ms is outwith the scope of the human eye so effects wont really be noticable.

[dogsdinner]

Plasma all the way, you can?t beat the richer picture, quicker response time especially watching footy when a ball moving fast on an lcd just looks like a blob of pixels shooting across the screen.

I bought a 42 inch 1080p lcd and ended up putting it in my bedroom, now have a 52inch 1080 sammy plasma in the living room.