[HN Gopher] Whatever Happened to Plasma TVs?
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Whatever Happened to Plasma TVs?
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 14 points
Date : 2022-08-17 17:55 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.howtogeek.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.howtogeek.com)
| jerkstate wrote:
| Plasma TVs had the best image quality, dynamic range, and viewing
| angles until OLED came along. I believe the Panasonic ZT60 was
| the last really good one and it was discontinued at the end of
| 2013. I still have mine and it's an excellent TV, IMO it looks
| better than most of the LED TVs I see at the store (not as good
| as the OLEDs though).
| satysin wrote:
| While I love my OLED TV (LG C8, had it 4 years now) there is one
| thing I still preferred with my plasma TVs and that is motion.
| OLED is great but the near instant pixel response means for lower
| frame rate content such as movies (24p) and most tv shows (25 or
| 30p) there is stutter. This isn't visible in many scenes but
| anything with panning and it looks, to me, quite jarring.
|
| This isn't an issue with plasma screens as you get some natural
| motion blur with the pixel response times giving a smoother
| overall presentation.
|
| You can _somewhat_ alleviate the stutter on OLEDs using motion
| processing on low (or using special "cinema" settings on newer
| models) but it isn't perfect as it introduces slight artifacts
| which also suck plus the smoothing gives ever-so-slight soap
| opera effect that wasn't present on plasma screens.
| culopatin wrote:
| TLDR: they weren't great to begin with and the technology was not
| worth investing into.
| technotarek wrote:
| TLRTF (too long, read too fast): they were the greatest thing
| at the time (especially for cinephiles). Superior contrast,
| better viewing angles. Disclosure: Former Pioneer plasma TV
| owner
| culopatin wrote:
| And 5 minutes later oled came out, viewing angles improved,
| brightness of 100nits wasn't cutting it, and they were not
| worth it. They had a moment. Edit: my point is that there is
| no mystery in the article. What happened with them? Nothing.
| The technology was only good in that context, like many
| others, but it wasn't any holy grail once LCDs improved a
| bit.
| 2bitencryption wrote:
| It was more than a moment. For roughly a decade, your
| options were Plasma, LCD, or rear projection (or briefly
| hi-def CRT which was pretty wild).
|
| There was not much overlap of consumer-priced plasma and
| OLED panels.
| bonzini wrote:
| More like 5 years later.
| vetinari wrote:
| OLEDs at the TV sizes came years after plasma. You could
| make it natural upgrade.
|
| If you had one with 100 nits, you got defective unit.
| happyopossum wrote:
| FTA:
|
| Even the best plasma TVs could only reach just over 100
| nits of peak brightness in a 10% window test.
| vetinari wrote:
| It wasn't that bad (I had one).
|
| But the article also compares them to _todays_ LCDs with
| 1000 nits. LCDs at the time weren 't so bright either,
| they were about so bright as plasmas, but unlike plasmas,
| they also were gray goo.
| bonzini wrote:
| Yeah I bought a Panasonic plasma TV in 2006 when I got
| married and at the time LCD was in its infancy, very jerky
| and barely watchable. The only advantage of LCD at the time
| was that plasma was not available in sizes below 38" and was
| slightly more expensive. Furniture has changed too since
| then; with HD it's unlikely that you'll be anything below 45"
| these days.
|
| I still have it in fact, I don't like how power hungry it is
| but it doesn't really matter for the very little time that I
| watch TV (which is mostly during the day in the weekend, when
| my electricity is self produced solar anyway). That said it's
| probably time to get a new OLED TV and I am just waiting for
| the day that I will need new furniture.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| As someone who had a Pioneer Kuro for a long time (no more), they
| did have the reputation of having blacker blacks.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| And actual yellows. Especially obvious when the scene includes
| fire
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| My in-laws bought a "big" plasma TV in the mid 2000's after much
| research and deliberation. A few weeks ago they won a new LED TV
| and set the plasma aside.
|
| I'm not sure if it's the sum of money they spent originally or a
| real difference, but my mother in law still prefers the plasma
| TV.
|
| Has anyone had similar very positive feelings towards plasma
| versus recent new TV's?
| bombcar wrote:
| If you had a dark room, plasma was highly superior until very
| recently.
|
| The actual pixels made their own light, which meant that if
| they were dim or off, they were _off_ - most LED screens until
| recently just have a backlight (or a backlight with sections)
| and so in a dark room on a black screen you can see the light
| leak through.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Plasma has much better black levels than all LCDs. Only OLEDs
| are superior. (Or, at least, equal.)
|
| The downsides of plasma are weight, heat, and screen burn.
| (Though OLEDs get screen burn too.)
| vetinari wrote:
| I had a Panasonic plasma TV at the time and it was great. Way
| better picture than any competing LCD at the time.
|
| But you had to be careful, it didn't like static pictures, they
| could burn in, similarly to OLEDs later. If you watched movies,
| it was not a problem. If you let some station run 24/7, with
| static logo somewhere, that could be a problem.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Too expensive, chunky, and power hungry while LCDs kept getting
| cheaper and better.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Everyone I know they had gotten a plasma TV had it die within
| just a couple years. The article says burn-in became less of an
| issue, but I'd never seen one that didn't have a burn-in
| problem. Even if that problem was solved, the public sentiment
| was that they were heavy, expensive, and unreliable.
| pvorb wrote:
| I bought mine in 2010 and it's still working flawlessly to
| this day. It's my family's only TV and it typically sees
| about 2 to 4 hours of use per day.
| OJFord wrote:
| My parents' 2005/6 Panasonic 1080i plasma looks better than
| my much more recent Samsung non-OLED LCD, both are fine,
| but the plasma is better. Similar usage to yours probably,
| more earlier in its life.
| christoph wrote:
| I've still got a Panasonic plasma from circa 2008, which
| still seems absolutely bomb proof. It's only used
| occasionally now for some retro (Dreamcast or MisterFPGA
| gaming), but the picture, UI, remote and everything about
| it still screams of rock solid engineering. It does weigh
| an absolute ton - I would guess around 40KG. It's
| impossible for one person to lift/move. By comparison, we
| have a 65" 4K HDR panel in the living room, which I can
| easily lift & move around on my own without breaking a
| sweat. The 65" feels nowhere near as well engineered
| though. The OS seems to lockup and become unresponsive at
| least once a month, which the Panasonic plasma has never
| done once in its whole lifetime.
| neighbour wrote:
| >and power hungry
|
| This is an important point. My household uses very little power
| and when we eventually switched out our old plasma TV after a
| decade or so of use, our power bill halved. It's hard to pin it
| all on the TV because this is hardly a scientific experiment
| but that was the only notable change during that period.
| skrrtww wrote:
| If you want a TV with amazing picture quality and don't want to
| pay a lot, there's nothing better than an old plasma TV. I ended
| up with a Panasonic 42" (Viera?) model, one of the later ones
| made. It's definitely quite heavy, and after awhile it gets a bit
| hot and it probably consumes a lot of power, but it easily
| surpasses the picture quality of today's LCD TVs. The only way to
| get close to its picture quality is the new fancy OLEDs, etc.
|
| I also paid $60 for it. Hard to beat.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| I had a Panasonic Viera during the plasma glory days and I
| didn't really like it.
|
| The worst problem I had with it was that, like all plasmas, I
| can see a high frequency flickering on them, especially in my
| peripheral vision.
|
| The second worst problem is they're not very bright.
|
| I have a LG C1 now and love it (though there are a few minor
| issues with that too!).
| skrrtww wrote:
| I was just trying to figure out what my model is since I've
| never experienced the flicker, but I'm not home and it's too
| difficult. Looks like Panasonic has used the Viera
| designation for a long time and they continue to use it, so
| there's probably tons of different variations.
|
| And yeah, it's not exceedingly bright, but I've only ever
| noticed the issue if there's direct sunlight shining on it,
| which is pretty rare.
| rodgerd wrote:
| > don't want to pay a lot
|
| Don't want to pay a lot _up front_. You 'll pay a lot to run
| it.
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