Home Video Asylum

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, Home Theater systems and more.

Re: Plasma vs Tube vs Rear projection

Lots of issues and basic differences here...to the point of almost being apples and oranges.

I think that most folks will agree that CRT is still tops for both direct view and front projection.

That's not to say that CRT has no downside. Low light output, outer edge distortion, size, and weight are the major problems.

DLP and plasma are interesting new technologies, however they suffer from two major downfalls. Lack of ability to due true black [especially in DLP] is a real problem. DLP will probably never get past this one. A CRT does black by drawing "nothing" in that space, therefore making that area of the image as "black" as the light in the room will allow. A DLP does "black" via brute power...it throws all its got at a pixel and makes a sorta real dark grey. A DLP would have to "turn off" a mirror to do black in the same sort of way the CRT does...and it cant do that. The second problem is both plasma and DLP are fixed pixel displays. A fixed pixel will almost certainly look [much] worse than a CRT, UNLESS the image shown is at the native resoloution of the panel, and the panel is of a high resoloution. An example would be that 1080i HDTV looks great on a 1024x1024 plasma...almost [sorta] as good as a good CRT...however put a NTSC signal on the two and the plasma falls WAY behind.

If I were gonna spend the $$$ on a HDTV today, it'd be a 30-38" direct view CRT. Plasma is overpriced and of maringal picture quality, and projection is either real expensive or bad looking [often both at once].

:-)
Steve


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