Plasma vs LCD

[Calvin Tan]

Plasma vs LCD??? Which one is better picture quality for home theater?

[Woochifer]

Consensus seems to be that plasma has a slight edge in performance and price, but it's frequently regarded as an interim technology and LCD's quickly catching up. Plasma's advantages are in the contrast level, off-axis viewing, and ability to render motion. LCD's advantages are that they are lighter, not prone to burn-in, and supposedly more reliable. Plasma gives you great performance, but it has more issues and questions about long-term reliability. In addition, LCD prices are due to take a tumble this year with new manufacturing capacity coming online, and some other new approaches are due in the next year. Seems that a lot of announcements are due in conjunction with CES, which happens this week in Vegas.

Plasma has seen huge sales growth and remains a hot sales item, but in the last few months Sony and Toshiba have announced that they are phasing out plasma TVs, and rumor is that Mitsubishi has considered exiting the plasma market as well. It makes financial sense for them because those companies don't actually make any of the higher margin panels themselves like Panasonic, Hitachi, Pioneer, and Fujitsu do. But, it's a sign that they seem to view other technologies as more promising for the long term.

[pharmd]

Thanks for the heads up Woochifer. Right now I am salivating over sharps 45 inch LCD, but a friend of mine who works in the buisness ( and promised me a deal ) said the same thing you did. It would be best to wait for a little while because prices for LCD's would soon drop.

[pharmd]

plasma vs. lcd .........check out this article from NY times:

http://tech2.nytimes.com/mem/technol...52C1A9629C8B63