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Plasma TVs are very popular amongst elite, sophisticated home theater aficionados and hardcore, beer drinking, nacho eating football fans alike. For a long time, Plasma TVs have dominated the larger end of the HDTV spectrum. Typically, they have been recognized as having a brighter picture, deeper blacks, faster response times (important to prevent “ghosting” in games and HD content), and “truer” color spectrum than LCD panels. They often also have a wider viewing angle. The viewing angle is the angle from the side of the TV that you can still see the picture clearly. For instance, on many computer LCDs, if you stand to the right or left of the display, the colors often appear washed out or inverted. This does not happen with Plasma displays.

Recently, LCDs have made inroads to Plasma dominated areas, such as brightness, color reproduction (how close is the color displayed on screen, to actual colors in real life), and refresh rates, or response times. However, it is widely acknowledged that Plasma TVs have deeper black levels, especially in “busy” scenes. A “busy” scene is a scene in a movie or TV program where there are many objects with vast differences in color on screen. A great example of this would be a scene taking place in the middle of the day, with people and buildings. Part of the scene would be lighter than another, and the people and buildings would of course, have deeper shades of black according to whether they were in the light or out of it. Details, such as alleyways, trashcans, people, cars, etc. in the shadow of the building would need to display a deep black level vs people, cars, etc. in the sunlight between buildings. On LCD displays, because of the way they are lit, and the type of refreshing technology that they use, the black color sections would appear lighter than they should be, and on cheaper models, will even appear as a dark grey shade. On Plasma displays, this is typically not a problem at all.

High contrast ratios

This is a very “busy” scene, used to highlight the different hues of color, and the broad range of dark colors and blacks in the picture. Notice that the bottom of the picture is flat black, and many buildings are different shades of black, grey, blue, etc. If this were a moving picture, on many Plasmas, these levels of black would remain consistent. On lower and midrange LCD displays however, these black levels could not even be attained. The reason behind this is that LCDs are lit from the sides, and as the light travels to the center of the picture, it is harder for the display to maintain the proper brightness level across a complex scene, particularly in the unilluminated area.

Plasma displays have another advantage of being generally brighter than LCDs, again because of illumination technologies used. Plasma displays often have a higher rated brightness and Contrast Ratio. Contrast ratios of up to 1,000,000:1 are common on many larger Plasma displays, and very few LCDs can touch this number. I can personally testify from switching to Plasma from my Flat Panel LCD, and from seeing my parents’ DLP rear-projection LCD, that the brightness level on a Plasma display is far superior to anything else. Further, the contrast differences were simply amazing, particularly on my Flat Panel LCD, but not quite as much vs. my parents’ DLP LCD. DLP LCDs typically have a better contrast and color reproduction than Flat panel LCDs, but that has recently changed for the most part, as LCD sales have increased, and consumer demand has dictated a strong move towards thinner, wall mountable displays.

We used this mount to wall-mount my buddy's 50" Samsung Plamsa HDTV. It's very sturdy, and swivels to give the best viewing angle. I would recommend it to anyone.

For all of its advantages, Plasma Displays do have several weaknesses. Firstly, they tend to draw more power than LCD panels, particularly during bright scenes. Note that CRTs display this same sort of power draw. Plasma displays, due to their power consumption, brightness, and the method of using charged gas particles to display the picture, tend to project a lot more heat than LCDs. This is not something I’ve studied scientifically, but it does make sense, and I have observed it across several models. This makes Plasmas more suitable to living rooms and large master bedrooms than smaller rooms, such as bedrooms or studies. I can tell you from experience [the best teacher ] that combining a decently sized Plasma TV, game system (in this case my Xbox 360), sound system, and some basic furniture in a room tends to kick up the temperature pretty fast. In fact, right outside of my bedroom, the hallway was measured at 71 degrees, while the room containing my Plasma, furniture, and two people was almost 90 degrees! The heat remains trapped in the smaller space, and the electronics keep producing it, so it is best to use a Plasma TV in a ventilated place, or be prepared to pipe in some AC all the time! The last big challenge facing Plasma HDTVs is the screen “burn in” phenomenon. This is an annoyance many people are familiar with from CRT monitors and TVs. However, most people will actually never see screen burn-in! Why? Because screen burn in is caused by prolonged display of an unmoving image (such as the scrolling news tickers, or when you pause TiVo), a semi-permanent image is seen remaining even after the TV has been turned off. This is caused by the phosphor compounds in the Plasma display losing their luminosity, or brightness level being used excessively compared to other regions on the display. These dimmer regions then become visible to the naked eye. However, most Plasma HDTV manufacturers guarantee a lifetime of 100,000 hours before brightness levels halve, which is more than ten years worth of viewing. Thus, typical “burn-in” images actually disappear after a little while, when you change the program displayed or turn off the TV. A great example of this is when I use my Plasma HDTV to play Halo Wars (an awesome game!). It has a circle display in the top right corner of the TV that displays key information relating to the game. Since this circle is present throughout the entire gameplay experience, it often leaves a “ghosted” image on the screen after I turn off the game or switch games. However, once games are switched, or I flip it to TV, it is no longer visible above the colors being shown on the Plasma HDTV. If I turn my Plasma HDTV off, it will usually be gone within 30 minutes.