rickcurtis

OK, Baja and Liberator, I've got all these cables sticking out of my new Home Theatre wall and need to make a decision soon. I need your help. Why is LCD better than Plasma? What is the difference in quality of the display? Why is 50" LCD only $2,000 and Plasma at $6,000? What brands to you recommend? Your help is appreciated!!

open87

iTrader: (2)

i have 3 sharp lcd tv's in my home and couldn't be happier. about to buy a forth . i bought mine through www.buydig.com and smoke "bigbox stores" out the game. delivered via fedx ground. lcd is much better than plasma.

baja2700

Like I mentioned earlier...LCD is up and coming plasma is on the way out. I posted what is wrong with plasma in an earlier part of this thread. The 50" LCD that are 2 grand are rear projection units but the flat panel are now being built and are coming in from a variety of manufacturers all that are good.Check out Panasonic,Sharp, LG and Westing house. Westinghouse has some new 27-30' coming into Bestbuy with some pretty hot pricing.sharp is supposed to start shipping its new 45" this month. Sharp panels are first rate and all the monitors I design I use their panels. They would be my choice.

Liberator21

The technology of plasma is just not there yet. a plasma display is a light emitting display. What that means is each pixel is essentially a small flourescent light bulb. Inside each pixel is three sub pixels (Red Blue Green). These bulbs although bright initally, quickly lose their brightness. LCD displays on the other hand, are light filtering devices. each pixel (or sub pixel), lets through light in varying amounts to create color images. The light is supplied by a color corrected back light. The advantage here is in the technology used for that back light. It doesn't tend to lose it's intensity like the plasma displays, and the backlight could be replaceable (that I'm not sure of though). I have worked on some small LCD displays where the backlight was replaceable. Neither display is perfect, but if you want to go with a thin screen, you'll be happier with LCD in the long run. Check out this link, it gives a much more thorough explanaition of plasma displays. http://www.howstuffworks.com/plasma-display.htm

Audiofn

I have hundreds of Plasma Displays running for years now and only one failure. That was fixed under warrantee a year and a half after purchase. Runco and Fujitsu plasmas all come with 3 year warrantee's. None of the screens that I have sold have noticable light output or burn in. If you want a 50 or larger screen then you have to go Plasma. Black levels on LCD's are horible, but getting better. The 30" and belows are starting to get acceptable.

Jon

baja2700

All I can do is advise, if you like plasma...go for it. Down the road you'll have LCD because there won't be any plasma. I'm in the industry and know whats happening internally and right now plasma does have a better picture than LCD but the new organic LCD are a great improvement and the dollars are being spent to improve LCD. As the research continues and the technology improves LCD is going to be the only way to go.

Liberator21

Audio is right as far as the black level of LCD. I'm still not keen on the plasma though.
Runco is high end. I've got front projector (not Runco).

Audiofn

I am also in the business. I will be in aprox, 50 million dollars in houses today. I do ONLY very high end installs. First house is a 120,000 buck system, next house is a 250,000 system, and the last place is a 2 million dollar system with 7 theaters, and 14 Plasma TV's, and this is only the 8000 sq ft side of the house, the guy is building a 13,000 sqft addition!!! I have heard people say that Plasma is going out and all that. They have been saying it for years. I do not think that it is the case. You have to remember that LCD is NOT any cheaper then plasma right now, and plasma's have dropped in price drastically. Even you yourself have said that Plasma's have a better picture, so why the hard on for LCD? It may very well be that they will be better in the future, but right now they are not. You also have the same issues with LCD as Plasma as far as pixel drop out and all that. That is the largest contributer to plasma and LCD failure. That and Power supply/mother boards. Very rarely does the screen ever go bad. Like I said, hundreds sold and only one failure, and these things get used. I even have one outside at a guys tennis court.

Jon

baja2700

I work with companies like Sharp and LG and I leave for Asia in 3 weeks to attend the Hong Kong electronics show. At last years show there was very little plasma shown. In this industry there is the retail side and the manufacturing side. I understand your point of view because you are selling the best product that is available today. I don't have anything against plasma,cd, 8track,16 track, cassette, or any other format. I only look at what is today and what will be down the road. All I know is that very little engineering is being done on plasma and a massive amount of money is being invested in LCD. If you are at the H.K. show make your own assessment of the situation.

Audiofn

I agree with you about the LCD having more money put into it. That is because it is cheaper to make a LCD Panel then a plasma one. IF they can get the LCD's to work as well they stand to profit a lot more from them. The new Zenith 30" LCD is very impressive but still not as good as the Sony Plama of the same size. So for me and my customers we sell them what is best today, not what will maybe be best tomarrow, If you buy LCD now you LCD will not be any better with next years models.... Ya know what I mean? There have been HUGE improvements with Plamsa over the last year or so weather they are advertising it or not. I will try and get some snaps for ya of the project that I am at today.... I am married to this place!!!!

Jon