Plasmas are going down in price!!!

[Greg Harris]

I heard a rumor that plasmas are going to drop A LOT because they found a new/cheaper way to make the glass. The guy at Tweeter said "we will be pretty much free very soon". I know they won't be free but will be $800-$1000. Has anyone heard anything about this.??

[Boyd Ostroff]

That's news to me, but you may very well be right. What I've been reading for quite awhile however is that LCD's will get significantly cheaper this year. We are already seeing price drops there. Evidently some new factories and manufacturing processes are coming online. The articles I've read predicted that LCD's will surpass plasma displays as the low cost medium size HD technology and that plasma makers will have to drop their prices to compete. I really wouldn't hold my breath for an $800 42" plasma screen though!

Should be a good year ahead for all this :-)

[Greg Harris]

are plasmas better than LCD??

[Stephen Jackson]

That depends on where you're using the display. Plasmas have a half life of about 35,000 hours. After that the screen will slowly start lose resolution.

LCDs don't have that problem but the image on larger LCDs over 20" is not as sharp as a Plasma.

I personally have decided to wait for LCD technology to catch up where they can produce 42" LCDs with the same if not superior image qulaity as a plasma

[Boyd Ostroff]

<<<-- Originally posted by Stephen Jackson : After that the screen will slowly start lose resolution. -->>>

I think you will mean they lose brightness, not resolution which is determined by the number of physical pixels. I believe this half life varies with different models. The earlier ones had burn-in problems with static images like network logos. This was caused by the fact that the plasma pixels lose brightness over time, so bright parts of the image will fade faster.

Another problem with plasma is the black level. Some newer models are supposed to be better, but older ones didn't have really black blacks. Contrast ratio and brightness are really good however.

But LCD's are getting better and cheaper. I recently got a 22" Samsung widescreen LCD which I really like. It has a surprisingly wide angle of view compared to older LCD's that I own.

[Dylan Couper]

I've been looking at getting a 20" (or 23") LCD TV for the editing room so I can watch Futurama reruns while editing.

Prices have been dropping nicely, and there is a nice 20" for $750cdn at a local shop that I've been drooling at. Knowing that we are looking at a good price drop, I think I'll hold off and shoot for a 23", or maybe 27" if prices come enough.

I can wait till Spring...

Maybe...

[Rob Moreno]

I personally prefer LCD over plasma technology. Plasma displays require a lot more power and generate a lot more heat than similar sized LCD TVs. The new large format AQUOS displays from Sharp (30" and larger) are, in my opinon, much clearer than plasmas.

[John Locke]

Rob,

How I miss wandering through Bic Camera in Tokyo and looking at those huge flat-screen TVs! I agree with you...the Sharp models always looked best compared to the others--and that was a place you truly could compare with others since they had practically every model made side-by-side on display.

One thing that surprised me on my return back to the States is that the higher resolution TVs aren't even available over here (at least I have seen them for sale anywhere). I wonder how long it will take before the U.S. market carries one of those huge 1360 res TVs (1320 or 1360...can't remember exactly)?

[Boyd Ostroff]

Back in November Home Theatre magazine published an issue that listed specs for about 400 LCD and Plasma screens. There are a bunch of the more expensive, larger models with 1366x768 resolution which is probably what you're thinking of.

The most impressive seems to be the LG MU71PY10 which is a 71" Plasma screen at 1920x1080 - no price given for that model. There's also the Samsung LT-P468W 46" LCD at 1920x1080 for $10,000 and Sharp LC-45GX6U 45" LCD at 1920x1080 for "only" $9,000.

But I guess all this doesn't really fit in a thread about low prices on plasma screens... ;-)

[Nick Kerpchar]

I was seriously considering purchasing one of the new HD television sets until this past weekend. The number of commercials has gotten totally out of hand and ruin any chance of trying to follow continuity in the program content .... even for football !

I was looking forward to watching some games this weekend but after watching the first quarter of a game on CBS I gave up. CBS had commercials from the time the play stopped to the time the ball was hiked. But the worse part was that due to the length of the commercials they missed showing the first few seconds of the new play. By the time they returned the play was already in progress or already over !!!!!! I was so turned off by this garbage that I turned off the television and put on some CDs.

Purchase a Plasma, LCD, or HDTV ..... forget it until the networks reduce the commercial interruptions to programming. Come to think of it, the programs are generally not any good as well.

Nick

[Dylan Couper]

Nick, I think the only medium you are going to get out of commercials with, are books. The good thing is, you can get a whole lot of them for the price of a plasma TV.

[John Locke]

Now there's an idea...why hasn't anyone come up with the idea of inserting ads every few pages in books?

Oops...better keep my mouth shut.

[Rob Moreno]

Yeah John, Yodobashi Camera is a great place to shop for a large screen LCD or plasma TV. I could hang out there all day.

As for low priced plasmas, Panasonic has their new Viera line, which they claim can display billions of colors. I've seen the 32 inch model selling for around $3000. Still, I'm holding out for an LCD HDTV, preferably 42-inch or larger.