Plasma Vs LCD

Plasma screens are suffering at the moment, being outsold at the till by LCD TVs at a rate of almost 10 to 1. But does the beleaguered king of High Definition TV deserve this sort of treatment? Well we think not. Among the purists out there the plasma screen is this the platform of choice when it comes to high end home cinema setups, offering better picture quality all around especially on the larger screens where it can outperforms even the best ‘Full HD’ LCD screens for comparatively smaller cost.

There is little doubt that at the time of writing LCD technology has improved markedly of recent years, and for an introduction to the HDTV market at an affordable price then LCD is probably the way to go, but bear in mind that LCD is still a poor second choice when thinking in terms of a larger screens and proper home cinema experience. So why is LCD so dominant, you may ask. Well marketing is playing a major role. The Concept of Full HD 1080p TVs is currently a major selling point, but plasma screens that offer this holy grail are sorely lacking. But should this be your only reason for buying a TV? Perhaps not. Just because a screen is capable of showing an image in 1080p resolution with perfect clarity doesn’t always mean it can render this same resolution with moving pictures. In fact rarely, in the case of LCD, is this the case and the moving image on a 1080p LCD screen can still smear enough to lose the benefit of full HD resolution. On the other hand, Plasma screens can show video images much more cleanly without any resolution compromises or motion blurring, so the picture quality will generally look better on a lower resolution plasma than a corresponding full HD LCD screen.

With this in mind, when you consider that the likes of Pioneer, Panasonic and LG are promising a range of 1080p plasmas in the near future then the market could turn against LCDs very quickly. But even now you can not, should not, dismiss the plasma outright, especially if you are looking for a screen larger than 37 inches. Look beyond 1080p and consider the inherent capabilities of Plasmas: the motion handling as mentioned and also the deeper level of black which plasma screens can render. When viewed on LCD screens, very dark films can look washed out and not quite as black as they should be, which diminishes background details significantly. And if you’re worried about so called ‘plasma burn’, then don’t. For the average user this is not a problem. Plasma screen technology has advanced significantly since the horror stories of images being burned into screens 2 or 3 years ago and with a few precautions such as turning the tv off occasionally you should be fine.