Video Asylum

Posted by David Aiken (A) on August 26, 2006 at 14:40:00

In Reply to: Plasma? LCD? posted by thisisdave on August 25, 2006 at 18:51:43:

One of the blogs on the Ultimate AV site indicates that plasmas really don't burn in. What happens is that some of the pixels effectively 'stick' at a particular colour but that this is usually curable by turning the screen off for several hours or, in extreme cases, feeding it a white test pattern for several hours. Apparently the condition is not permanent like burn in on a CRT screen.

LCDs with slow response times do exhibit blurring of motion. Apparently this is not an issue for displays with a 12 ms response time or better. LCDs are usually more expensive than comparable plasmas once screen size goes above the 37/40" mark so if the 45" LCD you saw was comparable in cost to the 50" plasma, it's probable that it was not comparable in quality and it may well have had too slow a response time to deal with fast motion satisfactorily.

In general plasmas have better black levels than LCDs and that definitely contributes to a better picture. They also tend to be brighter which can produce a better contrast range. On the other hand LCDs may have a slight advantage in the area of colour accuracy and plasmas have a more reflective glass screen in front of the display and are apparently more prone to reflection problems than LCDs so an LCD may be preferable if you are troubled by reflections on the screen. It was that screen reflection issue which led me to choose an LCD over a plasma when I replaced my CRT a couple of months ago and I have been very happy with the LCD which is virtually reflection free, even when placed at the angle which was most troublesome for reflections with my CRT.

There are plusses and minuses with all technologies and a large part of getting the best results is simply ensuring that the minuses of the technology aren't exacerbated by the problems in your situation.

David Aiken