Plasma TV's? Good, bad or ugly?

[powaw]

I forgot to mention that we have played many hours of games on our plasma with no burnin issues. The only time we have ever seen it was one evening when a station had issues and put their logo right in the middle of the screen and we had fallen asleep. When we got up and shut it off, the image stayed. It wasn't there the next morning. Probably more burnt into our eyes than the screen. LCD's can burnin also, just look at the poor screens at an airport.

[FastPauly]

Nothing but LCD or LED for me.......much easier to spell...

[JOE G]

Any TV will benefit from a pro ( Not any tv guy ) but a real audio/TVpro adjust the set, All the new TV's will look good but when there fine tuned it is amazing, The service will cost about $200.00 if you can even fined a tuner in your area. Not saying this is for everybody just throwing it out there.

[TripleR]

Any TV will benefit from a pro ( Not any tv guy ) but a real audio/TVpro adjust the set, All the new TV's will look good but when there fine tuned it is amazing, The service will cost about $200.00 if you can even fined a tuner in your area. Not saying this is for everybody just throwing it out there.

An installer did this on our main TV when he was here on another matter and it really was amazing how it improved; as you said, we were satisfied with it as it was, but he made it even better and didn't charge us anything.

[Carl Bert]

If you like a super sharp picture, with very white whites and a somewhat 3D effect, where it looks like the people are popping out of the screen, get an LED.

I bought a plasma a few months ago, kept it for a few days and returned it. I have a lot of light in my TV room and the glare was ridiculous. But that wasn't the only reason I returned it. I could have just put it in another room, without so much light (We have a lot of TVs). I just did not like the picture. The whites on a plasma, ANY plasma, are almost grey. Some people would say that you don't notice that unless you have a plasma and an LED side by side, not true, I noticed it right away. Also the rest of the colors seem to blend, for lack of a better word. They do not have definitive edges as on an LED.

I went back to the store and purchased a high end, not top of the line, Sony LED. There is a big jump in price, which I could not justify, to get a top of the line model. The only time you can appreciate the difference in the two, are in very fast action scenes, on blue ray DVDs. Even then, the difference just wasn't worth the price jump. There is absolutely no difference on your regular or high definition cable channels.

TVs are 120, 240, 480 or 960 refresher rate, I think that's what it was called, just remember the numbers. Right now 240 is all you really NEED. 480 is a good choice for blu ray DVD and future faster cable service. 960 is as I explained above, and just not worth the price jump.

[cdaigle430]

I have a 3 year old 50 inch plasma. Part of the reason, as mentioned by another poster, is when watching sports or high speed action there tends to be less of a blur than with LCD. Happy with my plasma and would get another. Also burn in has not been an issue with mine.

I have a 55" LCD TV and yes occasionally you get motion blur if the input is inferior. For larger LCD TVs you should get at least a 120hz. This illiminates motion blur when in the input quality is good such as HD (1024). I think 240hz is pretty common now.

Plasma is a dying technology and LCDs are also a dying technology because OLEDs are much lighter, thinner, reliabe, less prone to burn in, runs cooler, easier to disose of (greener technology), and come in larger sizes-I see 70" OLEDs now. the new OLED and smarter technology eliminate LCD drawbacks like the backlight which which is really what gave the Plasma its advantage back in the old days. The older LCDs were inferior when it came to darker pictures, and shades of grey and black. That has changed and now a 120hz or higher super thin OLED is far superior of Plasma, LCD, CRT and DLP.

The only reason Plasma is still around is because the few manufactures like Panosonic refuses to give it a proper burial. Uunfortunetly the OLED only has a lifespan of 8,000 hours where the plasma 60,000 but that too will change soon.

[bigbull338]

ive got the 50in plasma 720p flatscreen.an the pic is so bright an clear that it amazes me.my brother wanted me to get the LED over the plasma an i had already bought the plasma.an once he seen the plasma he said man thats a clear tv.

[Dutch445]

I bought the Panasonic viera 46" 3 years ago as the main living room tv and love it.
I am happy to see so many other plasma owners are happy also, maybe this is why
manufacturers have not buried this old dinosaur technology yet!

I added a Sony surround system with blue ray, and that complimented the tv. It allowed us
to watch media over the internet, which came on the tv's after i bought mine.
but no problems, great picture, wish i had one that big in the bedroom! (32" lcd, not
so easy to see with my old eyes)

[Grateful11]

I chose a Plasma TV as I can't stand the motion blurring with the LCD TV's. I also like the other things that you mentioned. Burn In is not the issue it once was, most all of the plasma sets now use various image shifting techniques to all but eliminate it. Although if you watch a lot of news shows with the banners at the bottom, over a long period of time, then you might see something. As James said.. they do radiate a noticeable amount of heat. They were about the equivalent of a 200w light bulb. The manufacturers have done some things to reduce power consumption and they can now meet Energy Efficiency standards, but they do so at the expense of brightness. The other issues are, some screens are highly reflective and that can be annoying in a brightly lit room as you will see the room, windows, people reflected on the screen. Also, on rare occasions, there is a high pitch squeal that comes from the TV, it seems to be background dependent. On mine it seems to happen when the screen is more than 98% pure white. There are about 3 static images that do it on my set. It is not loud, I hear it, my wife does not, some brands/models are worse than others.

HTH

No motion blur on our 55" Vizio 240Hz LCD Full Array LED Back Lit, not Edge lit TV. The PQ is awesome, stops people in their tracks when they see it. Barely any heat at all.

[KennyG]

I think this is a question without an answer because of the overlapping range of quality between different brands and personal preference. It looks like LED is dominating in the newest models.

Whatever you get, make sure you calibrate it at home, in your normal viewing conditions. You don't need to pay anyone for this. They make DVD based calibration systems. I use AVIA but there are others. They are easy to use and make a lot of difference.