Tony Sarno17 August 2007, 11:30 PM
They do sport and movies better and you get more TV for your money. Why would you buy anything but a plasma HDTV? This is the case for plasmas, part of APC's comparison of Plasma and LCD technologies.
A richer, more film-like picture
Over several days of side-by-side comparisons, the APC testers came to the inescapable conclusion that plasma HDTVs generate a richer, more subtle picture, particularly when the lights are dimmed. If you want to have the home theatre experience in which you turn out the lights and draw the curtains, a plasma HDTV comes out on top.
We found the colours generated by plasma TVs to be richer and warmer than on those of LCD HDTVs. Since plasma blocks light by turning off pixels when they are not in use, there is less light to dilute the colours. We ran three movies, Apollo 13 (HD DVD), World Trade Center (HD DVD) and Mission: Impossible III (Blu Ray), and it was on the plasmas that the films looked, well, more film-like.
 The Pioneer PDP-5000EX - regarded as the world's best Plasma |
On Pioneer’s extraordinary (and admittedly expensive $11,000 ) 50in (127cm) plasma, the PDP-5000EX, Mission Impossible was nothing short of spectacular. Vouching for this were a TV crew from A Current Affair, who filmed our HDTV test for a TV segment. These guys watch TV all day and were amazed at just how stunning Mission: Impossible looked on the 1080p plasma. It also looked nearly as good on Samsung’s 40in LA40M8 1080p plasma, but on the bigger Pioneer it created what many critics believe is the best TV picture in the world.
By contrast, the same movie on a 52in Sony Bravia KDL52X2000 looked almost too high-res, as if the Sony LCD’s brighter, crisper picture magnified the film grain and other imperfections. Interestingly, the credits (such as the Paramount Studios mountain) looked more stunning on the Sony – an indication that LCDs are better at computer graphics.
The blacks on plasmas were deeper than those on the LCDs, which enabled the plasma TVs to show more detail in darker scenes. This relates to how plasmas generate the blacks – they switch the pixels off in the dark areas. We were surprised at how much detail that was visible on the plasmas would disappear in the more washed out blacks of the LCD panels. As the astronauts in Apollo 13 headed into space, dials and buttons in some darkened parts of their capsule were clearly visible on the plasmas, while almost impossible to recognise on some of the LCD TVs (with some exceptions, see the Case for LCD HDTVs). This effect was particularly evident when the Lab lights were dimmed, with the background lighting of the LCD technology making the LCD screens a lighter shade of black.
In the pictures below, look at the underside of the top left rocket motor and the side of the detaching stage – the subtle differences between the plasma (top) and LCD (bottom) are visible. More detail can be discerned in the blacks of the plasma and the colours are warmer. The LCD, on the other hand is brighter, almost harsher (but all is not as simple as it seems – see the Case for LCDs when the lights are turned up).
 From the Panasonic plasma |
 From the Grundig LCD |
Plasmas do sport better
The response times of the plasma screens that we examined (the time it takes for a pixel to switch on and off and on again) was around 4ms. While it’s not as fast as the response times of CRT TVs (once measured by Tom’s Hardware as .8 ms) it’s still faster than LCD screens. The fastest LCDs have response times of around 6ms while most are now around the 8ms mark. The difference in reponse time translates to more visible motion blur on the LCD TVs. In moments of fast action, the LCD TVs don’t keep up as well as plasmas and fuzziness is evident around some of the play.
 The AFL is broadcast in 1920x1080i HD |
We watched Ten’s AFL HD broadcasts (1920 x 1080i broadcast format) on both plasmas and LCDs, and when the action on the field became fast paced, there was visible blurring in parts of the LCD pictures. We don’t want to overstate the problem, since the higher resolution of an HDTV regardless of whether it’s a plasma or LCD makes the sporting experience much more immersive than on an old SD set, but it can be annoying to see the kind of blurring in fast paced scenes that you’d never see on a CRT TV. For the worst sporting experience, watch an SD broadcast like the rugby league on an HDTV. The upscaling of the SD picture to fit the HDTV screen, plus some motion blur, makes the experience a horror show.
You get more TV for the money
 The Panasonic 50in Viera - a lot of plasma TV for the money |
If you’re looking for a big TV, plasmas give you more choice. Most plasmas in retail outlets range in size between 42in and 50in and tend to cost less than equivalent sized LCD TVs. You can get a 50inch Panasonic (127cm) 1366x768 plasma with an integrated TV tuner (Viera TH-50PX70A) – or a 50in 1366x768 LG plasma with integrated tuner (50PC1D) for around $3,000-$3,500. In the tests, a Panasonic 50in plasma panel was one of the best TVs we looked at. Any LCD TV at around the same size will cost roughly double. For example, the 52in Sony Bravia (KDL52X2000) retails for around $9,000. The biggest LCDs you can get for the price of a 50in Panasonic or LG range from 40in to 42in.
Plasmas don’t consume more power than LCDs
 Jaga Park-Ross tested the power consumption of the HDTVs |
A funny thing happened in the APC Labs. We were convinced that Plasmas were going to be the runaway electricity hogs, because everyone says they are. So to check their power consumption, we turned to the experts. Jaga Park-Ross, an Environmental Consultant with Neco Environmental Solutions (www.neco.com.au) used a Power-Mate meter to measure the wattage of all the TVs, taking readings in standby mode, with a dark screen and with a bright screen. He also measured the energy consumption over a one-minute period using the same piece of Apollo 13 footage being played from an HD DVD player connected via HDMI. You’d think the big Pioneer 50in PDP-5000EX plasma would be by far the highest consumer of power. But, its estimated hourly usage of 0.252 kilowatts is not as high as the Grundig 40in LCD’s 0.276 kilowatts. In a direct comparison between two similarly sized TVs, the LG 42 inch plasma (42PC1DG-AA), used 0.216 kilowatts per hour, vs the 0.228 kilowatts of the LG 42 inch LCD — (42LC7D-AB). Like many of the plasma TVs’ supposed weaknesses, high power consumption appears to be a hangover from the first generation of plasmas which needed a nuclear power station each. If you think the power consumption of a HDTV will kill your budget, consider this. A flat-panel LCD or plasma uses roughly a kilowatt hour of electricity per day, assuming you have it switched on for four hours. That’s about a quarter to half of your fridge’s power consumption, depending on its size (they typically use 2-4 kilowatt hours per day).
Plasma's lifespan is now long enough not to matter.
It’s well documented that the first generation of plasmas had a lifespan (the time it takes for the screen to drop to half its original brightness) of roughly 20,000 hours. That’s about ten years of watching TV five hours a day. But now, they are rated at between 40,000 and 60,000 hours. At 40,000 hours, that’s 20 years of watching TV five hours a day. It’s unlikely you’ll still have the same TV set 20 years from now regardless of how good the picture is.
Plasma's propensity for burn-in is overblown.
Burn-in happens when a fixed image remains on screen for too long and leaves a ghost of itself when removed. The ghost is actually a line of phosphors that has burned bright for so long they have dimmed compared to surrounding pixels. It’s not an issue on LCDs, whose different system of generating images doesn’t use phosphors which can dim with overuse (although a memory effect on liquid crystals can retain an impression for a period of time). But today’s plasmas may be suffering from the sins of their forebears. We even left a fixed image on a Panasonic plasma for about eight hours (sorry Panasonic!) to see whether we could detect a faint burn or ghost, but no such luck. A Panasonic engineer who was not aware of our experiment then told us it would take about four days or more for a static image to burn its ghost onto a modern plasma screen. Improvements in the phosphor material used and ‘pixel orbiting’ technology — which shifts pixels around if they don’t move — has diminished the burn-in problem. It’s highly unlikely that any plasma would be stuck on the same image four days in a row. The myth that plasmas can suffer burn-in overshadows the fact that LCD HDTVs can suffer from something else just as bad: dead pixels. These are more likely on LCD screens and are a known problem with LCDs in the computer industry. While makers will generally replace screens with dead pixels, it pays to check when you first fire up the HDTV.
Summing up the case for Plasmas
If you want the home theatre experience, get a plasma. With the lights dimmed, the plasma’s warmer, richer picture and darker blacks show more fine detail. And if you don’t want to see occasional jaggies in sports action, a plasma is still the best bet. LCD HDTVs are making big strides but in these key areas, the plasmas still triumph. If size matters, again, plasmas are better value in the 42in (106cm) to 50in (127cm) range.
Do you have a plasma TV? Tell us of your experience with it.
The faceoff