DEBATE: Plasma or LCD?

[mdost03]

Originally Posted by Spyderturbo007

Personally, I think Plasmas are much better than LCDs in almost every aspect. The only benefit LCDs have over plasmas, are in high ambient light situations. They handle excessive room lighting better than a plasma does.

Other than that, I feel that Plasmas are superior to LCDs. The life span of both panels is pretty much the same, so that really isn't an issue. I've never seen a plasma with dead or stuck pixels, but it's common occurance with LCDs. LCD manufacturers' even have specific warranty exclusions regarding dead or stuck pixels. Typically it's acceptable to have "X" number of dead pixels depending on the screen size.

Although you might not think a dead pixel with bother you, it does. My old RPTV had what can be described as a stuck pixel, although it was a burnt pixel on the phosphor gun. It was very annoying after you noticed it was there. Nothing like seeing a pink pixel all the time in the middle of the screen.

Additionally, LCDs suffer from what's called motion blurr. This is caused by the slow response time of the liquid filled pixels. It's the amount of time it takes for the pixel to change from one color to the next. Plasmas have virtually no response because the panel is gas charged. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.3ms. LCDs on the other hand, run in the neighborhood of 4 - 12ms depending on the panel grade. It might not sound like a lot, but during scenes containing fast moving images, you can get some serious motion blurr.

Theses days plasma burn in isn't even a concern. Years ago when plasmas hit the market, it was a common problem, but not anymore. I game on my 60" all the time, for hours on end and don't even notice image retention, let alone burn in.

Plasma also have better color reproduction and produce black much better than LCD panels. They are also more vibrant than their LCD counterparts.

Personally I think it's a much better technology, but that's just my opinion.

LCD's don't have as a big of problem with motion blur as they used to. At least the Sony, Samsung, Sharp tv's I have seen. My buddy just got a plasma for a present and he is trading it back in for an LCD. He said it burns in very easily and you have to use a "refresher tool" in the menu to reflash the screen or something to get rid of the burning in and make it normal again. He said that whole thing scares him so he is getting rid of it.

Sounds like you are stuck back a few years with your facts, LCD panel's black are getting quite close to Plasma's ability. Go out to a best buy or something and check out all the tv's and you will see they are quite close nowadays. As you can tell I am an LCD fan and never have problems (or noticed at all) with motion blur on anything (football games, movies, video games, etc.) and the blacks are quite good and I don't have to worry about burn in at all.