What is better, LCD or Plasma?

[goosedown]

For Plasma televisions, the advantages over LCD, are Better contrast ratio, better ability to render deep blacks, more color depth, better motion tracking (response time), and more availability in very large screen sizes.

[rbinck]

Originally Posted by goosedown

For Plasma televisions, the advantages over LCD, are Better contrast ratio, better ability to render deep blacks, more color depth, better motion tracking (response time), and more availability in very large screen sizes.

Contrast ratios reported by the manufacturers are just numbers these days, generally derived by whatever method makes their display sound better, so I would not rely too much on what a manufacturer says their contrast ratio says. Since contrast ratios are measured as the difference in light emitted at 0 IRE (black) and 100 IRE (full on white) what is more important is what is the light output at 0 IRE.

In general I do think it can be said that plasmas will produce less light output at 0 IRE than a LED thus producing a blacker black. However, lately there have been some disturbing reports that the new Panasonic plasmas have employed an automatic circuit to offset the panels natural tendancy to dim over the years of use. While in theory this would make the time when the panel drops to half life dimming longer, thus improving the panel life span hours, they apparently have been way too aggressive and there are reports of some plasmas actually emitting more light at 0 IRE than LCDs! For more info on this with Panasonic's reply so far see: Panasonic admits plasma TV black level change but says picture quality still 'excellent'

[rbinck]

Panasonic has released a new statement on the black level deterioration:
Panasonic does not plan fix for reported black level increases

Also here is a photo of a comparison:

The large display is the plasma and the smaller display is a LCD!

For more see: AVS Thread

[Luchi]

This debate is going all around the world. One thing those who got LCD will take in favor of LCD and those who got PLAZMA TV will talk about PLAZMA tv. I use LCD monitor and a LCD TV , and i am happy.

[dakmartin]

Originally Posted by Loves2Watch

LCD TV's cannot give any better resolution than a comparable plasma, that's physically impossible.

When I first set up my 42" plasma, I thought LCD had more resolution -- until I realized that I was going from a 32" LCD to a 42" plasma (both 1080p, of course), and that LCD made everything look like video, whereas plasma had a more film-like picture. Needless to say, these days I much prefer the plasma picture -- it simply looks more natural and less souped-up.

BTW, plasmas do not necessarily consume more power than LCDs -- since power consumption is related to screen brightness in plasma sets, turning down the contrast and brightness settings (or using a THX setting if your set is so equipped) will go far to tame that beast.

Finally, it must be said that for any television set to look its best, it must be viewed in a dark to darkish room with the picture controls (contrast, brightness, sharpness) turned down from their factory settings. If you can't or won't watch TV in this kind of setting, LCD is the better choice -- but accept you're still not getting the best possible picture from your set.

[gnielsen]

IMO Plasma is much better in terms of displaying "blackness" which is the foundation for the color-scale. However, one might want to take a look at RGB Backlit LED-screens (for example SONY's new serie)...