Plasma vs. LCD

[Mike_Rupp]

Yeah, the whole bright light thing competing with a plasma isn't going to be a big deal here. It's the Seattle area, after all. It's the end of June and it is going to be 63 and rainy today.

I'm leaning towards getting a plasma for the tv room and keeping our 46" Samsung LCD for the family room.

 

[kennith]

It's fine to mount a display above a fireplace, so long as you measure the heat it's going to see, and compare it to the operating temperature range of the product. It's best to do this in two ways.

First, just put a thermometer above the area when the fire is burning, and see what temperature you read after a few hours.

Second, place a few objects up there, such as a Pyrex casserole dish and a good frying pan. After a similar amount of time, measure their surface temperature.

In most cases, you can get away with it just fine. Generally, you want to hang the display up there. If you can do it, that's the best way. These things can be heavy enough to kill someone. A proper wall mount also allows you to twist and tilt the display for a better viewing angle. Lower platforms are fine, but when things get too high, it's dangerous, especially with pets or kids.

The height doesn't really matter. No, it's not a great idea to mount it high above the viewing position, but sometimes that's just what you get. A certain amount of personal preference comes into play, but fireplace mantles are generally considered too high for a really nice theater setup, or smaller displays.

If you don't give a shit, though, don't worry about it. It's your display, and you can hang it wherever you want.

My own display is mounted higher than normal, and I like it that way. Is it a bit of a silly practice when compared with the careful orchestration of everything else? Yup. I don't care. I like it there.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[p m]

I've explained them all so many times that even I don't feel like going into great detail.

Put very, very simply:

An LCD is a filter in front of a light source. A plasma display is the light source.

it wouldn't hurt your cause if you were a little less verbose, Kennith - but it is hardly a discovery.

Aside from the distinction between a light source and a filter in front of one, that by itself doesn't mean much. All movie theater projectors, film or digital, operate as a filter in front of a light source - and, arguably, people still prefer to see movies in the theater rather than on a TV screen.
The contrast ratio of a typical LCD TV is more than 1000:1, which is way beyond any practical need - with the exception of a dedicated home theater environment, there is plenty of stray light sources that negate the advancements in contrast.

 

[gmookher]

pioneer plasma
(btw thanks kennith)

 

[chris snell]

My next TV will hopefully have some form of network streaming support, such as AirPlay. I've gotten rid of my DVDs entirely and I've ripped everything to h.264 mp4 which I keep on my home NAS (file server). I want to be able to quickly pull up movies from the local network on the TV without having to have a stack of boxes underneath. That's what sucks about so much of the home media stuff these days: you need another box and a mess of cables for it. Dan's tv seems like the right approach, having support for hulu and Netflix. Add local streaming or built-in Boxee support or whatever and you have a great appliance.

 

[kennith]

it wouldn't hurt your cause if you were a little less verbose, Kennith - but it is hardly a discovery.

Aside from the distinction between a light source and a filter in front of one, that by itself doesn't mean much. All movie theater projectors, film or digital, operate as a filter in front of a light source - and, arguably, people still prefer to see movies in the theater rather than on a TV screen.
The contrast ratio of a typical LCD TV is more than 1000:1, which is way beyond any practical need - with the exception of a dedicated home theater environment, there is plenty of stray light sources that negate the advancements in contrast.

Here is a response as many others would put it:

"Movie theaters are different. You can't directly compare the two."

Wow. See how useless that is? Now it's a game of twenty fucking questions and twenty fucking arguments to bring everything around to the core concepts. You know what, though? Goggle it all and educate yourself so I don't have to teach you.*

That was easy.

I type more than others because those detailed posts avoid confusion that will lengthen an argument more than even my longest post might. I also lose track of time and generally enjoy it.

Cheers,

Kennith

*I'm not suggesting that you need education, I'm just making a point.

 

[LRflip]

Kennith, I think you could simply take the ring into Mordor.

 

[jrose609]

Kennith, I think you could simply take the ring into Mordor.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


Matt, I was just finishing reading Kennith's post and saw yours. I spit coffee all over my iPad.

 

[Big_mark]

My next TV will hopefully have some form of network streaming support, such as AirPlay. I've gotten rid of my DVDs entirely and I've ripped everything to h.264 mp4 which I keep on my home NAS (file server). I want to be able to quickly pull up movies from the local network on the TV without having to have a stack of boxes underneath. That's what sucks about so much of the home media stuff these days: you need another box and a mess of cables for it. Dan's tv seems like the right approach, having support for hulu and Netflix. Add local streaming or built-in Boxee support or whatever and you have a great appliance.

That's a bit different from what Dan has. Unless your TV has a way to decode h.264 files you will only be able to watch Netflix or whatever other built in entertainment software is supported by your particular tv.
It's for this reason I have a PC hooked up via HDMI to my surround stereo and TV.
I stream Netflix, watch my ripped (to .iso image) movies, youtube, whatever.
Since I've been set up this way I haven't watched regular television stations for quite some time. It's mostly crap anyways, and the ad's kill me.
I also play PC video games on my big TV, that's a hoot for sure.

I am still in last decades technology, I have a 60" Sony rear projection LCD HD tv.
It has really good contrast and no pixels. However I have noticed ghosting at times during high speed action scenes. I will likely replace the TV in a few years or when it dies.
At that time I will review the current technologies.

One thing is certain. No matter what technology you buy in to, you can count on it being obsolete by the time you load your purchase into the back of your Rover!
So choose what best fits you current needs and don't look back.

 

[chris snell]

It wouldn't surprise me if, three years from now, TVs are running Android.

 

[kennith]

Kennith, I think you could simply take the ring into Mordor.

Damn, I'm not that short.

I'm not taking it in there, either way. We wants it.

Cheers,

Kennith

 

[p m]

Damn, I'm not that short.

You could write your way to Mordor, Kennith!

 

[SGaynor]

it wouldn't hurt your cause if you were a little less verbose, Kennith - but it is hardly a discovery.

Aside from the distinction between a light source and a filter in front of one, that by itself doesn't mean much. All movie theater projectors, film or digital, operate as a filter in front of a light source - and, arguably, people still prefer to see movies in the theater rather than on a TV screen.
The contrast ratio of a typical LCD TV is more than 1000:1, which is way beyond any practical need - with the exception of a dedicated home theater environment, there is plenty of stray light sources that negate the advancements in contrast.

I'm siding with Kennith on this one: an EMISSIVE display (CRT, Plasmsa, DLP, OLED) is always better. True, LCD has done a lot to minimize the differences (viewing angle, contrast ratio, refresh rate), but it will always lag in those categories behind and emissive display.

 

[p m]

I'm siding with Kennith on this one: an EMISSIVE display (CRT, Plasmsa, DLP, OLED) is always better.

okay, can you name a single physical reason for this statement?

 

[SGaynor]

okay, can you name a single physical reason for this statement?

Here's a couple:

1) The liquid crystals (LC) will never completely block light transmission; the contrast ratio will always be worse.
2) The relaxation/response time of the LC to respond to an electrical field is slower. This is due to a material having to move through a fluid; this process will always be slower than the flow of electrons through a diode (ie, OLED, plasma)
3) LCs are inherently isotropic (the LCs are essentially in small tunnels, which will guide light), these are resolved by various coatings and light management, but it is still an issue. Not so in emissive displays.

One may or may not notice these, or care (my 32" LCD is OK, my 58" plasma is fine (I think better)). But emissive will be "better" for the reasons above.


Edit: From an article on viewing angle (Oct 2010): http://www.hometoys.com/ezine/10.10/sanus/

Recently, in its annual consumer ratings, Consumer Reports added viewing angle to its TV evaluation criteria, highlighting the importance of this element. The publication explained: “Viewing angle remains a challenge for most LCD displays. Some models have gotten better in this respect, but most still lag far behind plasma and picture-tube TVs in providing a virtually unlimited viewing angle.” In the most recent Consumer Reports TV ratings, no LCD TV earned an “excellent” rating for viewing angle, and more than half of the tested LCD TVs received only a fair or good viewing angle rating.

 

[p m]

Scott, your bullet points are about emissive displays being better than LCD transmissive displays. It may be an esoteric distinction, because LCD is pretty much the mainstay for a transmissive display, but it is not the only technology (part of my work was to develop a wide-field-of-view optical switch with response time less than a nanosecond).
Also, don't assume emissive displays have wide viewing angle because the emitters are isotropic - they are not. And contrast ratio is both overrated as a preference factor (because of stray light) and limited (because of anti-glare coatings).

For the practical purposes, I don't understand the nature of burn-in pattern in plasma screens. I thought this was something done away with - apparently not.

EDIT: looks like OLED TVs have come down in price to just somewhat higher than LCD models, that does it for me.

 

[SGaynor]

RE: LCD vs other Transmissive - point taken

For viewing angle, the light source is generally closer to the surface of the screen, so the angles are better. That's the simple explanation.

My plasma does some burn in when my kids leave it on overnight, but it goes away fairly quickly. That's the improvement.

I thought OLED TVs were still expensive? I know Samsung has said they will make TV sized OLED displays (50-60ish inch) in the next few years but they'll be few and expensive.

Edit: Here's a link discussing: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/05/future-of-oled-tv.html
Cost competitive OLEDs in 2015.
http://amoledtv.com/smd-plans-a-new-production-line-to-produce-65-inch-amoled-tvs-in-2012/

 

[p m]

Stand corrected - OLED TVs are still ridiculously expensive. Industry calls LED-backlighted LCD TVs "LED TVs," which is confusing...

 

[Gearhed79]

I've been really happy with my Panasonic Plasma. The rest of my family all have LCD's and I swear mine has way better contrast.

Also- the LCD's all look "off" to me. When watching TV shows, the motion doesn't seem right on their TV's. Also, some of the cinematic "effect" is lost. It looks like I'm on set with the actors like I'm watching a play, not a movie/show. It's not that they have better definition- it's hard to explain, maybe between the motion and the lighting combined... I dunno. My experience has led me to be a repeat plasma buyer.

 

[knewsom]

I've got the curse of having hyper-sharp eyesight (20/10), and for years I couldn't handle plasmas because I could ALWAYS see the pixels and the space between them. Looked like a fucking litebrite to me. I bought a DLP projector, which I still like more than most other display types, even over modern plasmas (which are far better than before), simply because the image looks very NATURAL to me - much better than the LCD projectors I've seen, and affordable too. I've worked as a colorist in film/tv, and most of us still prefer CRT for color correction, but I recently had the pleasure of checking out some of the color bays at WB and they use some incredibly fancy plasmas that really blew me away.

I think my point is that good plasmas are incredibly expensive. The cheap ones, I don't think are any better than LED TVs (most of which are not backlit as Kennith insinuated, but side-lit much like my iMac, which also has a gorgeous display), mostly for the reasons Mr. Matusov has covered.

Emissive vs filtered displays, while in theory this is a correct point regarding contrast and viewing angle, in practice, there's a point where it really doesn't matter. For example, if you're sitting more than 60 degrees to the side from dead on to the screen, your viewing experience is going to be miserable no matter what. It's going to look like garbage because you'll only be seeing a tiny sliver of a screen. Who gives a crap if the colors still look great!? In terms of contrast, our eyes automatically adjust to the brightness of what we're seeing. If a display is very bright, the iris in our eyes will shrink our pupils to let in less light and not overwhelm or rods and cones and optic nerves. When it does this, the detail in the darker parts of what we see will begin to diminish, because our eyes are letting in less light. This can get to the point where there are things on screen that you SHOULD be seeing that you're NOT seeing. Yes, there can be too much contrast and too bright of a display. In most practical settings, good quality modern LED LCD TVs perform spectacularly well, and very few people will notice any backlight bleed except perhaps in a nearly completely dark shot, in a completely dark room. The good news is, you'll see what that shot is actually OF, as opposed to wondering what you're supposed to be seeing with a Plasma as your eyes struggle to adjust from the very bright shot you saw a second before.