Plasma Televisions are going Extinct

[Jorsher]

The comments in this thread illustrate why the technology died.  Even the OP has some errors.

 

Background: I worked at LG for years while plasmas were the primary technology for flat-panels, and LCDs were "new."  I've owned numerous plasmas and LCDs since then.  Currently, a Panasonic plasma is my primary display.

 

Burn-in: A bigger issue in the past, not so much anymore.  It's still possible, but the issue is blown out of proportion based on the old plasmas.  I game on my regularly.  Worst case, there may be some image retention of a HUD or whatever, but it quickly disappears after watching some Netflix or movies, and is only noticeable on solid colors.  A valid issue, but not as big of one as people make it out to be.  I can't count the number of people who told me I was crazy for buying a plasma, because "burn-in."

 

Power consumption: Higher on plasmas.  It's inherent to the technology.  Room heating?  They used to, but again (surprise!) technology improved.  Who doesn't have an air conditioner?  Old LCDs were worse with power consumption and heat production, too.

 

Thickness and weight: LCDs are thinner and lighter!  Yes, however, I don't watch my TV from the side, and if I did I'd prefer the viewing angles and thickness of a plasma to the thinness and viewing angles of an LCD.  My thickest plasma, a 2013 Panasonic, is 1.5" thick.  Weight?  I don't move the large flat panel too often, and if I did it's around 70lbs.  Do you even lift, bro?

 

Brightness: The article seemed to imply that plasmas are higher brightness.  Maybe I read it wrong.  Whatever the case, the superior brightness on LCDs helped lead to plasma's demise.  In the typical storefront with bright overhead lighting, the dimmer and more reflective plasmas didn't look as good next to LCDs.

 

So there are the downsides.  Pros?

 

Color accuracy: There are LCDs with fantastic color accuracy, but comparing similar price ranges -- plasmas are king.

 

Motion resolution:  Inherent with the technology, plasmas have a far lower persistence of vision and thus a much better motion resolution.

 

Viewing angles:  Plasma can be viewed from any angle without color shift, although from the top you may encounter a darker image due to the polarizer to lower reflections   LCD?  Improved over the years, but my buddy's new 70" you can still see some sitting in front of it.  Not a major issue while video is playing, but solid colors it's very noticeable.

 

Contrast:  No contest, plasma wins.  LCD manufacturers may give ridiculous "dynamic contrast ratios" that sound good, but in reality don't mean much.  When it comes to the rarely-reported native contrast ratio, plasmas dominate by far.  When you leave your TV on overnight because the screen is so black you think it's powered off, you know you've got good contrast.

 

Price:  Plasmas have the best price/image quality.  This article mentions $4000 -- which is true for the ZT models.  For ST models (or even S), you could get a 60+ inch new plasma for $1500 or less, and have a better image than on an LCD costing twice that.  $4000 is for top-of-the-line videophiles.

 

 

 

In short, people that buy displays for reference-grade picture quality shoot for plasmas and are sad to see them gone.  The average consumer doesn't care and just wants over-saturated colors at maximum brightness (AKA torch-mode) and falls for marketing BS like "10,000,000,000,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio," or are drawn to the cheaper prices or things that shouldn't matter when buying something meant to display an image -- how thin it is, or energy efficient (because people are so green now, amirite?), or weight, or whatever else.

 

OLEDs suffer from the same persistence issue as LCDs, but I'm looking forward to the color accuracy and contrast...  For now, I'll be holding onto my plasmas.

[Jorsher]

I'm going to be the crazy-plasma dude and respond to a lot of criticisms here.  Mostly because I'm bitter about its demise.

 

Well, that might just be good.

Plasma is not very power efficient, so it's about time for it to move over and make some room for OLED/LED.

I knew this was happening a long time ago.

However...I'm still sad that I can't use my tv as a heater as well...   

And it seems like a lot of the Plasma TV's get fairly toasty. So I'm okay with this.

Its about time. I never owned a plasma but my cousin did and that thing got very hot.

 

I hear this a lot.  They get hot or are inefficient.  It's true older plasmas get hot and are relatively inefficient, just like the old CCFL LCDs were.  Compare a new plasma to a new LCD, and while the plasma still uses a bit more power it's not as bad as it's made out to be.  Yes, occasionally I have to shoo our cats away from the front of the plasma if they feel like some free warmth, but at my viewing distance I don't feel any warmth whatsoever, and we happen to have an air conditioner.  My oldest 60" plasma uses 140w.  What's the TDP of your GPUs?  A buddy used power as one of the reasons he picked LCD over Plasma, and so I pointed out the incandescent bulbs he was still using...

 

Once it feel out of mainstream and especially after development was stopped all that was available was cheap as dirt model of anything actually good you had to pay through the nose.

 

Read any review from any plasma in the past few years, and you will find that for the price -- nothing trumps plasma's picture quality.  $1400 for a 64" plasma that destroyed each and every LCD in the price range (and above it) isn't paying through the nose.

 

This saddens me. I figured on this forum there would at least be appreciation for Quality tv's, not just gimmicky. Plasma's are by far the best picture you can get currently. OLED are so close and look better, but try getting one for under 4000. 

 

Plasma's had the best blacks, best colors, and were the most precise color representation. LEDS SUCK. i've had both.. both 60in. I cringe looking at the led. Neither were low end tv's {walmart} they were the upper end samsungs. Plasma destroyed the LED. 

 

I look forward to OLEDS, when this curved crap dissipates. 

 

Heh, that's what made me come out of lurk mode and register.  I've assumed this forum was full of the more tech-savvy bunch that would have a better grasp of plasma, and was sad to see that wasn't completely the case.  There are certainly cases when I'd suggest an LCD over plasma -- bright rooms, static imagery, etc -- but when it comes to straight display performance, nope.

 

Poor Plasma... it's still preferable to LCD, in my opinion.

 

In videophiles' opinions as well

 

I may have to look into getting another high end plasma in the coming months before stock is completely gone. At least try and pick through whatever models and old stock are left. I'll let it sit brand new in the box, because the thought of replacing my current plasma with the current/upcoming consumer led's makes me cringe.

 

You may want to buy sooner than later.  Last time I bought a plasma, I went with an ST50 (2013 model) because of the input latency that was 1/2-1/3 of that for the ST60.  VT60 and ZT60 have low input latency.  I pulled the trigger when they were $1500 on Amazon, which seemed silly because the newer "improved" ST60 was $1500 and included two pairs of Panasonic 3D glasses (~$70 each separately).  I watched as the price on ST50s climbed up to $1700 and up, way past the newer, superior model.  I can only assume others were also after the better input latency, and Amazon adjusted the pricing to reflect the supply/demand.

 

That's just marketing it ends up just being 60hz. Actually does anyone know if they support the proper 59.98?

 

The purpose of 600hz, 2500hz, etc is to improve motion handling among other things.  There is a purpose, more than that of LCDs with their ridiculous refresh rates.  In some regards it was used for marketing to those that think "bigger number, better!" with little regard to how useful it actually is -- but in the case of plasmas, it is more beneficial than the same numbers on an LCD panel.

 

The only reason I have multiple "Samsung LED LCD Smart TVs" of various sizes over a plasma is I have a family and 3 small children aged between 1 and 8 so the burn in factor was a deal breaker. I can't say the power consumption was something I cared about when I bought them and I'd prefer the better color and darker blacks of a plasma, though I guess these stupid things being 1cm thick at the thickest point is kinda nice if i ever decided to wall mount them.

 

Yes, I had to educate my wife on proper use of plasma displays.  Now I have a kid and will likely get an LCD for him to use when he gets to that age...

 

well what I know is that plasma better than LCD in motion and speed stuff like hz and response time. I might be wrong.

but if that is the pros of plasma then the cons are less colors accuracy ( according to my eyes) so far I always found LCD Tv's have better colors and specially brightness levels with LED etc..

but this is all old . so these days LCDs are not slow anymore . specially look at monitors they got Gsync so maybe we will have something like that into Tv's

 

You are right on the motion, but wrong on the color accuracy.  Look up any review of a plasma  However, you also illustrate a reason plasma sales have declined.  A lot of people like the look over overly-bright, overly-saturated displays without noticing the crushed details.

 

Of course a television that has the ability to get images burned unto the screen is going extinct.

 

I've used mine for gaming sessions in the hours.  It's not really been an issue for years.  At most you will get "IR," aka image retention, which is essentially burn-in except that it will go away after watching some video for a bit.

 

 

Doesn't really do it justice since I took the picture with a phone and it's a image that doesn't show it's full inky-black goodness, but I can't take a new one since it's sitting unused in storage

 

But trust me, the calibrated plasma looks great enough that "mainstream" friends have commented how amazing movies look on it.

[flibberdipper]

snip

Well... I have an X1650 Pro (256MB GDDR2/AGP) and a VooDoo 3, so.... Yeah.

[dalekphalm]

In the quote it tagged the whole name O_o

It's a "feature", where it automatically reads certain characters like comas and underscores, that tell the forum software "this is the end of the username". However, because many users have underscores in their usernames, it kinda breaks the system a little

 

You see, what happens when you type Tech Dreamer's name, it looks like this when quoted (excluding the "@" sign for this example):

 

['Tech']_Dreamer

When it should be doing this:

['Tech_Dreamer']

See the problem?

 

Yup I always manually correct them like what you are saying.

 

Pioneer Kuro master race

Word. I'd love to see one in person at least once before I die.

 

Best static contrast, best panel, best colour reproduction, best response time and refresh rates.

Damn, I am in the Master of Master Races over here.

Oh. It's all black. Watching at night is literally having a floating image almost. The bleeding is largely nonexistent. Cause it's so black.

They named it well.

I have a mid-range LG non-smart Plasma TV, and it shits all over any LCD TV I've seen in person. When I was shopping for a new TV (2 years ago almost), only the $3000+ LCD TV's were comparable or better (Some had better colours - especially the Sharp AQUOUS TV's with the added yellow). My TV only cost $650 including taxes for a 50" model.

 

Plasma TV always felt like the HD DVD of the display world.

 

Edit: It also reminds me of when people praise *IPS monitors while dumping over VA when VA based panels had better blacks.

If by "HD DVD" you mean "Better for Movie watching in just about every way", then sure Plasma TV's aren't practical for everything, but as a Home Theater TV, they are kickass. As long as you can control the lighting even halfway decently (blinds or curtains), then Plasma's, in my opinion, look way better.

 

That's just marketing it ends up just being 60hz. Actually does anyone know if they support the proper 59.98?

Kinda sorta. The 600Hz refers to the sub-field drive. Each "pixel" pulses 600 times per second, because of the nature of Plasma TV technology.

 

The actual refresh rate is not necessarily 60Hz though. Many Plasma TV's use a refresh rate of 48, 60, or 72Hz. This information is difficult to find though, because many manufacturers do not post the information publicly.

[dalekphalm]

-snip-

Awww yeah brother, another Plasma-phile I wish I could have afforded a ST50/60 or VT50/60. I made due with my LG 50PA6500. It's their top non-smart Plasma, and it's pretty kickass. It literally blew my old LCD out of the water (32" Sharp, nothing special). But it even looks better then many $1500-2000 LCD TV's I see at my friends or at the store. I researched heavily before buying, and apparently this model is extremely well received by budget videophiles.

Oh god, if I could get my hands on a Kuro Though according to a couple Videophile websites I happened upon, the current generation VT series is equal/better then the Kuro. Which makes sense, since Panasonic DID end up with all of Pioneer's R&D and IP on Plasma tech, including all the details for their Kuro line. Since I've never seen either in person though, I can't confirm this.

[ofr057]

never liked plasma tv's my parents one would chew 25w when its off.

 

also when it was on it would emit so much heat

[dalekphalm]

never liked plasma tv's my parents one would chew 25w when its off.

 

also when it was on it would emit so much heat

How old is that TV? I'm guessing it's ancient, since my 2012 LG plasma barely heats up at all.

 

As for chewing 25 watts when it's turned off:

 

See that red button? Problem solved. You should be using one of these on any expensive electronic equipment anyway. Wouldn't want that $1000+ TV blasted due to a random power surge or brown-out.

[Victorious Secret]

Awww yeah brother, another Plasma-phile I wish I could have afforded a ST50/60 or VT50/60. I made due with my LG 50PA6500. It's their top non-smart Plasma, and it's pretty kickass. It literally blew my old LCD out of the water (32" Sharp, nothing special). But it even looks better then many $1500-2000 LCD TV's I see at my friends or at the store. I researched heavily before buying, and apparently this model is extremely well received by budget videophiles.

Oh god, if I could get my hands on a Kuro Though according to a couple Videophile websites I happened upon, the current generation VT series is equal/better then the Kuro. Which makes sense, since Panasonic DID end up with all of Pioneer's R&D and IP on Plasma tech, including all the details for their Kuro line. Since I've never seen either in person though, I can't confirm this.

I know that the VTs exceeded the 9G Kuros, not the Elites, and the Signature panels remain as the holy grail of "how the fuck did they do that". They also maintain their holy grail pricing.

But for around 2-2500, id still grab a 151 over any new TV. Keep that smart TV nonsense to yourself, the TV needs to be the best tv it can possible.

And to the power draw, yea. Original plasmas were pretty bad at it. But I posit this - you're spending 1k-6k on a TV and the dollars a year on increased power bother you? Hmm....

Heat output was a concern for longevity. They solved that problem after a few years. My Kuro does get warm, and I do use it for upwards of 10 hours a day. And this TV is now 6 years old. I'm on borrowed time for the panel, and that's fine.

The only way I could swap is to another Elite or a Signature, or maybe one of their projectors which was also flipping awesome (Sony too makes a fanatic series of projectors).

[Jorsher]

Awww yeah brother, another Plasma-phile I wish I could have afforded a ST50/60 or VT50/60. I made due with my LG 50PA6500. It's their top non-smart Plasma, and it's pretty kickass. It literally blew my old LCD out of the water (32" Sharp, nothing special). But it even looks better then many $1500-2000 LCD TV's I see at my friends or at the store. I researched heavily before buying, and apparently this model is extremely well received by budget videophiles.

Oh god, if I could get my hands on a Kuro Though according to a couple Videophile websites I happened upon, the current generation VT series is equal/better then the Kuro. Which makes sense, since Panasonic DID end up with all of Pioneer's R&D and IP on Plasma tech, including all the details for their Kuro line. Since I've never seen either in person though, I can't confirm this.

Awww yeah brother, another Plasma-phile I wish I could have afforded a ST50/60 or VT50/60. I made due with my LG 50PA6500. It's their top non-smart Plasma, and it's pretty kickass. It literally blew my old LCD out of the water (32" Sharp, nothing special). But it even looks better then many $1500-2000 LCD TV's I see at my friends or at the store. I researched heavily before buying, and apparently this model is extremely well received by budget videophiles.

Oh god, if I could get my hands on a Kuro Though according to a couple Videophile websites I happened upon, the current generation VT series is equal/better then the Kuro. Which makes sense, since Panasonic DID end up with all of Pioneer's R&D and IP on Plasma tech, including all the details for their Kuro line. Since I've never seen either in person though, I can't confirm this.

A buddy of mine bought a 70" LCD to replace his aging plasma. By aging - it was a Zenith 50" 720p plasma he bought from me years prior, that was purchased from LG who I guess bought Zenith's plasma (or maybe entire company) division.

It had burn-in from watching 4:3 aspect video, which if you recall was still what most content was displayed in when plasmas came into existence, and was part of what ruined their reputation. Anyway, aside from having to leave the back panel off because it would overheat, it worked fine. I assume it overheated because, iirc, it was manufactured in 2001, and I know voltage is slowly ramped up to compensate for wearing cells. Also, it was simply early plasma tech and a brand never considered premium...

Anyway, I advised him against the LCD. But he wanted the bigger screen. A few days later, he took it back because "it looks washed out and not as crisp, if I'm not right in front of it the colors get weird on the sides.". Took home an LG, which isn't bad but isn't a Panasonic, and was happy.

I hope to hell they stop with the curved OLED nonsense...

[dalekphalm]

I know that the VTs exceeded the 9G Kuros, not the Elites, and the Signature panels remain as the holy grail of "how the fuck did they do that". They also maintain their holy grail pricing.

But for around 2-2500, id still grab a 151 over any new TV. Keep that smart TV nonsense to yourself, the TV needs to be the best tv it can possible.

And to the power draw, yea. Original plasmas were pretty bad at it. But I posit this - you're spending 1k-6k on a TV and the dollars a year on increased power bother you? Hmm....

Heat output was a concern for longevity. They solved that problem after a few years. My Kuro does get warm, and I do use it for upwards of 10 hours a day. And this TV is now 6 years old. I'm on borrowed time for the panel, and that's fine.

The only way I could swap is to another Elite or a Signature, or maybe one of their projectors which was also flipping awesome (Sony too makes a fanatic series of projectors).

Somewhat off topic, but do you have any pictures of your Kuro? If not, can you take some and post them in the Home Theatre show-off thread? I'd love to see real pictures of one in actual use (All the pictures I've seen were demo pictures or PR pictures).

 

I think Panasonic should have continued producing Kuro Elite's and Signatures (Once they acquired Pioneer's Plasma division) in small numbers at inflated prices, just for those few videophiles who would pay the premium for a brand new one. I doubt it would have made financial sense for Panasonic to do so though.

[Jorsher]

I know that the VTs exceeded the 9G Kuros, not the Elites, and the Signature panels remain as the holy grail of "how the fuck did they do that". They also maintain their holy grail pricing.

But for around 2-2500, id still grab a 151 over any new TV. Keep that smart TV nonsense to yourself, the TV needs to be the best tv it can possible.

And to the power draw, yea. Original plasmas were pretty bad at it. But I posit this - you're spending 1k-6k on a TV and the dollars a year on increased power bother you? Hmm....

Heat output was a concern for longevity. They solved that problem after a few years. My Kuro does get warm, and I do use it for upwards of 10 hours a day. And this TV is now 6 years old. I'm on borrowed time for the panel, and that's fine.

The only way I could swap is to another Elite or a Signature, or maybe one of their projectors which was also flipping awesome (Sony too makes a fanatic series of projectors).

The suspected reason for the huge input lag on the ST60 is the weak processor paired with "always on" smart features. If I remember correctly, the input lag was around 100-120ms. The S60/S64 was a bare bones plasma without 3D, and the VT60 and ZT60 had a better processor, so low input lag. ST50 I believe was measured at ~40ms, which is why I went with it.

I had a gaming PC connected to my P60ST50. Due to the Onkyo receiver introducing a noticeable amount of input lag, even set to pass through or gaming, I bought a second GPU for SLI so that I could dedicate one HDMI straight to the receiver for 7.2 audio, and another HDMI straight to the TV for lag-free response. BioShock Infinite in 3D on a plasma, or Titanfall with the 7.2 audio and 900w of bass...yes.

[Jorsher]

never liked plasma tv's my parents one would chew 25w when its off.

 

also when it was on it would emit so much heat

According to the data sheet on my second-to-last generation, 60" Panasonic, it consumes .2w in standby. Compared to any of my gaming consoles that's nothing.

People basing their opinion of plasmas on old models while using a newer LCD to explain how they're better...this is why we can't have nice things.

[Victorious Secret]

Somewhat off topic, but do you have any pictures of your Kuro? If not, can you take some and post them in the Home Theatre show-off thread? I'd love to see real pictures of one in actual use (All the pictures I've seen were demo pictures or PR pictures).

 

I think Panasonic should have continued producing Kuro Elite's and Signatures (Once they acquired Pioneer's Plasma division) in small numbers at inflated prices, just for those few videophiles who would pay the premium for a brand new one. I doubt it would have made financial sense for Panasonic to do so though.

 

Here is one 

 

 

And yea, financially unreasonable would be putting it lightly. The overeningeering is what did the Kuro division in, it was just so expensive to keep producing TVs of that calibre for a smaller market, and Pioneer straight up refused to become "cheap" and offer more mass market models. Even their LCD attempt was very bloody good but it wasn't what you'd call cheap, even for their first 37" offering. 

 

Didn't help that near the end they were fielding 50" and 60" sets in a market where 42-47 is sometimes the "sweeter" spot for more consumers. 

[dalekphalm]

Here is one 

 

 

And yea, financially unreasonable would be putting it lightly. The overeningeering is what did the Kuro division in, it was just so expensive to keep producing TVs of that calibre for a smaller market, and Pioneer straight up refused to become "cheap" and offer more mass market models. Even their LCD attempt was very bloody good but it wasn't what you'd call cheap, even for their first 37" offering. 

 

Didn't help that near the end they were fielding 50" and 60" sets in a market where 42-47 is sometimes the "sweeter" spot for more consumers. 

Holy crap... Those black levels... *drools*

[dizmo]

I hear this a lot.  They get hot or are inefficient.  It's true older plasmas get hot and are relatively inefficient, just like the old CCFL LCDs were.  Compare a new plasma to a new LCD, and while the plasma still uses a bit more power it's not as bad as it's made out to be.  Yes, occasionally I have to shoo our cats away from the front of the plasma if they feel like some free warmth, but at my viewing distance I don't feel any warmth whatsoever, and we happen to have an air conditioner.  My oldest 60" plasma uses 140w.  What's the TDP of your GPUs?  A buddy used power as one of the reasons he picked LCD over Plasma, and so I pointed out the incandescent bulbs he was still using...

 

Read any review from any plasma in the past few years, and you will find that for the price -- nothing trumps plasma's picture quality.  $1400 for a 64" plasma that destroyed each and every LCD in the price range (and above it) isn't paying through the nose.

 

Heh, that's what made me come out of lurk mode and register.  I've assumed this forum was full of the more tech-savvy bunch that would have a better grasp of plasma, and was sad to see that wasn't completely the case.  There are certainly cases when I'd suggest an LCD over plasma -- bright rooms, static imagery, etc -- but when it comes to straight display performance, nope.

 

You may want to buy sooner than later.  Last time I bought a plasma, I went with an ST50 (2013 model) because of the input latency that was 1/2-1/3 of that for the ST60.  VT60 and ZT60 have low input latency.  I pulled the trigger when they were $1500 on Amazon, which seemed silly because the newer "improved" ST60 was $1500 and included two pairs of Panasonic 3D glasses (~$70 each separately).  I watched as the price on ST50s climbed up to $1700 and up, way past the newer, superior model.  I can only assume others were also after the better input latency, and Amazon adjusted the pricing to reflect the supply/demand.

 

You are right on the motion, but wrong on the color accuracy.  Look up any review of a plasma  However, you also illustrate a reason plasma sales have declined.  A lot of people like the look over overly-bright, overly-saturated displays without noticing the crushed details.

 

I've used mine for gaming sessions in the hours.  It's not really been an issue for years.  At most you will get "IR," aka image retention, which is essentially burn-in except that it will go away after watching some video for a bit.

 

While I agree that they use less power, they still put out quite a bit of heat. I wasn't saying it as a bad thing really, simply a fact. My friend has a new 65" Samsung (got it as a warranty replacement for his 63"), and after a while the room still gets warmer. While your argument for power efficiency is technically correct, that's not really the point. Power savings is good wherever it takes place. The TDP of graphics cards is dropping. I have all LED lighting in my apartment. Power savings is power savings, regardless.

 

Burn in isn't really an issue; my friends 8 or 9 year old tv was used extensively for gaming and such, often left on, and has 0 burn in. Results of course vary.

 

As LCD's grow, so do their techs and they're not too far off from what a plasma is. Localized dimming, etc are all great pieces of tech that really make the picture better.

Vizio's new lines of TV's are amazing. If you haven't taken a gander, I suggest you do.

 

I'm with you though. Plasma was awesome. LED is more of a stopgap for OLED, which is coming up very fast. It'll trump both display types, and will also be incredibly thin; an OLED tv is a mere 4mm at its thinnest point.

[Victorious Secret]

Holy crap... Those black levels... *drools*

That was actually on the "Sport" profile which yanks everything up, here it is on the Optimium setting, which also leverages the TVs ability to auto cal based on source input and ambient conditions. It even tweaks sound output from the attachable sound bar based on the ambient conditions.

Hopefully the attachment isn't entirely butchered in quality. You can see (or should be able to see) that the part of the screen with the AW icon is slightly more Grey compared to the storage circle area which is supposed to be black.

This TV is damned good at differentiating all those shades, the static contrast ratio is (I think at any rate) 100,000:1. Dynamic? The number that means nothing? It probably is into the tens of millions.

Gaming on this TV is a treat. It's that good. Movies? Oh god. Just the best. Anything HD and above on this looks fantastic. Sub HD content, so really all cable and sat (because of their low bit rates) doesn't flatter itself on this TV. This TV makes no excuses on how it handles SD content. If you're doing anything that isn't up scaled 1080p from a 720p or higher source OR not using a blu Ray, you're gonna have a bad time.

[zanduh]

That was actually on the "Sport" profile which yanks everything up, here it is on the Optimium setting, which also leverages the TVs ability to auto cal based on source input and ambient conditions. It even tweaks sound output from the attachable sound bar based on the ambient conditions.

Hopefully the attachment isn't entirely butchered in quality. You can see (or should be able to see) that the part of the screen with the AW icon is slightly more Grey compared to the storage circle area which is supposed to be black.

This TV is damned good at differentiating all those shades, the static contrast ratio is (I think at any rate) 100,000:1. Dynamic? The number that means nothing? It probably is into the tens of millions.

Gaming on this TV is a treat. It's that good. Movies? Oh god. Just the best. Anything HD and above on this looks fantastic. Sub HD content, so really all cable and sat (because of their low bit rates) doesn't flatter itself on this TV. This TV makes no excuses on how it handles SD content. If you're doing anything that isn't up scaled 1080p from a 720p or higher source OR not using a blu Ray, you're gonna have a bad time.

 

I've read several articles on the Pioneer tv's and they all say how amazing they are

but wow. 

[Victorious Secret]

I've read several articles on the Pioneer tv's and they all say how amazing they are

but wow.

Pictures will never do it justice. Even the older 7G and 8G sets are capable of trouncing over LED based units, the final round of production was probably some of the best panel engineering we've ever seen in the segment.

These tvs were stupid expensive, but stupid worth it. No one needs something like this. But those that have them know exactly what they got into and it's very hard to move on from a combination like this.

I'll use this till it dies and once it does I'll hang onto the glorious, over engineered chassis as a reminder of what can be done when accountants get tossed out of the room and the engineers are allowed to do whatever the hell they want

[Captain_Slow]

Plasma is way better in picture quality than LCD/LED, I think it's too early to shut down plasmas as OLED isn't yet very affordable.

 

good thing I got my VT.

[Hikaru12]

I got a Samsung Plasma TV and I find this pretty sad. Plasma TV's really do have the best picture quality and refresh rate of any TV, The dejutter microprocessor that they put in LCD TV's makes everything look all soap operaish and most people have to turn it off. 

[dalekphalm]

That was actually on the "Sport" profile which yanks everything up, here it is on the Optimium setting, which also leverages the TVs ability to auto cal based on source input and ambient conditions. It even tweaks sound output from the attachable sound bar based on the ambient conditions.

Hopefully the attachment isn't entirely butchered in quality. You can see (or should be able to see) that the part of the screen with the AW icon is slightly more Grey compared to the storage circle area which is supposed to be black.

This TV is damned good at differentiating all those shades, the static contrast ratio is (I think at any rate) 100,000:1. Dynamic? The number that means nothing? It probably is into the tens of millions.

Gaming on this TV is a treat. It's that good. Movies? Oh god. Just the best. Anything HD and above on this looks fantastic. Sub HD content, so really all cable and sat (because of their low bit rates) doesn't flatter itself on this TV. This TV makes no excuses on how it handles SD content. If you're doing anything that isn't up scaled 1080p from a 720p or higher source OR not using a blu Ray, you're gonna have a bad time.

 

Holy crap, that level of differentiation is amazing. I'd bet that dark grey looks black on an LCD TV

 

Honestly, I think most people who dislike Plasma have just never seen a modern one. Everyone always comments on how awesome my LG Plasma TV looks, and that's not even close to the same level as yours.

[Victorious Secret]

Holy crap, that level of differentiation is amazing. I'd bet that dark grey looks black on an LCD TV

Honestly, I think most people who dislike Plasma have just never seen a modern one. Everyone always comments on how awesome my LG Plasma TV looks, and that's not even close to the same level as yours.

There are some LED based units that are damned good. The XBR8 is my favourite in that respect, the Mitsubishi LaserVue is another one.

Back then things were just more nutty in how far manufacturers were willing to push the capabilities. These days it seems to be all about smart this and connected that and all other manner of nonsense.

[Jorsher]

As LCD's grow, so do their techs and they're not too far off from what a plasma is. Localized dimming, etc are all great pieces of tech that really make the picture better.

Vizio's new lines of TV's are amazing. If you haven't taken a gander, I suggest you do.

 

Unfortunately, full-array local-dimming isn't as common as it was when local-dimming first came into the picture.  I believe only a handful of companies offer it (Sony?) and it's only on their high end displays which still cost much more than a comparable plasma.  Most have switched to edge-lit LEDs, which are of course cheaper and great for energy efficiency.  LCD tech has improved significantly, for sure.

 

I was hoping that as companies ended their plasma production, one would stick around to supply videophiles (preferably Panasonic), but oh well.  Glad I got a new one when I did, and I look forward to seeing what happens with OLED.  OLED can easily compete in contrast and color, and whoop plasma's rear in energy efficiency, thinness, weight.  Where it can't compete is motion resolution.  Plasmas inherently strobe which significantly helps with reducing persistence of vision.  I'm hoping with the solid-state nature of OLEDs, and the fact that there are strobing LCDs now -- maybe they'll accomplish this with OLED as well.

 

Remember SED and FED?  Would have been nice.

[dizmo]

Unfortunately, full-array local-dimming isn't as common as it was when local-dimming first came into the picture.  I believe only a handful of companies offer it (Sony?) and it's only on their high end displays which still cost much more than a comparable plasma.  Most have switched to edge-lit LEDs, which are of course cheaper and great for energy efficiency.  LCD tech has improved significantly, for sure.

 

I was hoping that as companies ended their plasma production, one would stick around to supply videophiles (preferably Panasonic), but oh well.  Glad I got a new one when I did, and I look forward to seeing what happens with OLED.  OLED can easily compete in contrast and color, and whoop plasma's rear in energy efficiency, thinness, weight.  Where it can't compete is motion resolution.  Plasmas inherently strobe which significantly helps with reducing persistence of vision.  I'm hoping with the solid-state nature of OLEDs, and the fact that there are strobing LCDs now -- maybe they'll accomplish this with OLED as well.

 

Remember SED and FED?  Would have been nice.

I really suggest you check out Vizio if/when it comes time to upgrade. They have full array LED's on TV's as low as $260, and 36 zone full array TV's in their higher end M series line up.

Their TV's are very well priced, and very well reviewed.

Their 70" model is only $2,199, which makes me wonder how much their Reference line is. Probably pretty reasonable, in the grand scheme of things. With it's 1200mhz drive, 384 LED zones pixels that tune individually...one can dream. Luckily there's always trickle down.

[1988fido]

 

 

You are right on the motion, but wrong on the color accuracy.  Look up any review of a plasma    However, you also illustrate a reason plasma sales have declined.  A lot of people like the look over overly-bright, overly-saturated displays without noticing the crushed details.

so the Plazma color accuracy better than LCD?

I thought IPS and PLS are best we have as consumers for colors stuff.

I use my Pa246Q from asus , in 10bit colors with old quadro . there are colors I could never see in any place lol. and I thought Lcd's with Tn panels are still better due to same method of testing I used.

I taken a usb thumb drive and put monitor test image (that shows colors shifting from right to left ) and I could see more on Lcd's specially the sony one's . at the time I had only chance to use plazma from panasonic and hitachi LCD + samsun lcd, sony lcd, toshiba

the best to my eyes on that image was my pa246Q ofc. then sony then panasonic plazma