Bargain Plasma Has No Ommminous Hummmm
Posted December 12th, 2008 by Howard TaylerI’ve wanted a wide-screen television for quite a while, and this year their prices and our income finally curved into a sort of alignment. Sandra agreed to let me have as much as a thousand dollars to spend. At first she was reluctant, pointing out that the things upon which we spend money say something about our values. I pointed out that we’d spent more on my Warmachine hobby in two years than on television-related things in six. But this isn’t a blog post about THAT.
This is a blog post about technology. This is Howard Tayler, technologist and futurist, justifying to you his decision to spend $890 on an off-brand Plasma television that will likely be showing phosphor loss within seven years.
Non-projection wide-screens come in two flavors: LCD and Plasma. LCD is, in my opinion, the superior technology. It is also pricier. The picture elements are smaller, allowing for crisper images, but they react just a little more slowly to changes, so there is sometimes a “ghosting” problem, especially with some games. I’ve never seen it myself, though.
Plasma has larger, three-part picture elements, so the picture can’t be as crisp. Also, the elements themselves heat up, rather than being back-lit like LCD screens, so the set consumes more energy and gives off more heat. The phosphorescing gases (plasma, hence the name) in the picture elements diffuse over time and extended use, so after thousands or tens of thousands of hours of viewing the set will get dimmer. Finally, if you leave the set on a single image for too long (like a DVD menu or video game start screen) you can burn that image into the phosphors — sometimes permanently.
But… plasma is cheaper.
Now I’ve long been an advocate of spending extra money to get the quality I want out of a product. I have leather seats in my beetle because I knew that if I was going to spend $20,000 on a car, dropping an extra $600 to get the part I actually sit in to feel just right was worth it.
But in the Plasma vs. LCD decision I took a different approach. With technologies like these the price is always in flux, and there is a general downwards trend. Over the life of whichever set I chose the price would probably come down as much as 75%. I figured that I could either buy a smaller LCD set that I would be unhappy with immediately (too small for the big movies), but that would last nigh on forever, or I could buy a large, bargain-brand Plasma set that I would not be unhappy with until the phosphors start fading in five years.
The third alternative? Spend three times as much money (not really an option for the Tayler family) for a giant LCD set that will last forever AND have all the size and clarity we could ever want.
Howard Tayler, Futurist… I imagined myself next year, and two years from now in each of these cases. We’ll start with alternative #3: I imagined myself screaming in rage as the price for a 50″ LCD set dropped below $1500 by Christmas of ‘09, and wishing I had the OTHER $1500 I’d spent still in my pockets. How about alternative #1: I imagined myself finally getting sick of the small LCD screen (a mere 40″! Unthinkable!) next year and dropping coin on a newer, cheaper, larger LCD set.
In both of those scenarios I end up with exactly what I want in a year or two, but I’m out $3,000 when all the money has been spent.
But with the bargain Plasma set… it’s big enough, it’s crisp enough, and it fit in the budget. And in two years I’ll still like it. In five or maybe seven years I’ll notice that the picture is getting dimmer. (Note: the manufacturer, Vizio, says I’ll lose 50% brightness after 60,000 hours of use, or 27 years of 6 hours daily use. I’m betting I complain in seven years, max). But seven years from now I anticipate being able to spend less than $1500 in today’s dollars to upgrade the set with something that will keep me happy for the next seven to ten years, or maybe even more. With plasma I forsee being happy with what I’ve got for less, and for longer, though I will have to spend more money… sometime in mid-December of 2015.
The set I got, a Vizio 50″ plasma, set me back $890 + $80 service plan + tax at Sam’s Club in Provo, Utah. I wall-mounted it at a slight angle, and for the last two weeks the kids and I have been watching Mythbusters together, and they’ve been playing games while cooing over the fact that you can actually see which character you are in Smash Brothers Brawl. There have been a couple of minor burn-in episodes already, but it’s not permanent, and the kids have been educated. Yes, Christmas came a little early, but this way I get to enjoy my present while I have time to relax, rather than during January. I don’t yet have any true high-definition sources feeding into the set, but I have a birthday coming up in February. There is probably a Blu-Ray player in my future.
For the last thirty years televisions have been things that we didn’t replace very often. My last set, a 27″ Toshiba, lasted us for eleven years. The technology is changing very rapidly right now, and the impending digital mandate is forcing upgrades on everybody. For the next decade I expect television sets to be things that some people swap out as often as they get new PCs or video-game consoles — maybe as often as every two to three years if they’re wealthy and unwise.
But after that I forsee another entire generation in which that wall-sized screen is only replaced when a child kicks a hoverboard through it, or your teenager tests his new jetPod in the living room.
Explore posts in the same categories: Reviews, Television
December 12th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Our store has been carrying vizio TVs for about 3 years and our demo plasmas that run 24/7 for 12 – 14 months (8-10k hours continuous) are still bright when we pull them down and sell them off as cleanup to make room for the next model. It’s going to be awhile before your new toy disappoints in anyway.
The only people we have that have complained about the plasma TVs are the buyers for a local oil services company the gas cells tend to break when they move the skid houses.
The LCD ghosting is mostly a thing of the past the easy way to see it is play something fast motion on a laptop from about 5-7 years ago.
December 12th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Oh man, that’s pretty. We just got a 42″ Plasma at my place, and man. It’s nice. Just wait until you set up your blu-ray. Man. Oh man.
It’s just… amazing.
December 12th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
There are advantages to Plasma that, well, make it very tempting.
Plasma colours don’t suck. LCD’s tend not to be able to cover the gamut of colours that a good video signal contains (when I picked up my LCD, neither love nor money would give you perfect gamut coverage), while even cheap Plasma displays do it easily.
This has nothing to do with color bit depth — there are just some colours that LCDs don’t display, and instead “clip” it to a “similar” colour.
As for size and pixel size… note that in most cases, the resolution of the display is what matters. A larger display in the same resolution … simply needs to be further away to generate a nearly identical visual effect.
In general, with a full HD display (1080p), you want to be far enough away so that 3 hands-widths at arm’s length are enough to reach from one side of the display to the other. That is (about) the limit of the human ability to see and distinguish things the size of the pixels.
(About 30 to 33 degrees of visual field, if you want to get technical.)
For lower resolution “HD” signals, you have 768p at about 2 hands, and 480p at about 1 hand.
(DVDs can be encoded in 480p — a standard SD signal is 480i, or 480 vertical scanline, delivered at 240 interlaced scanlines per frame.)
Most Plasma displays are 768p. So long as you are far enough away that you can cover the display using the width of two hands held out at arm’s length, you are far enough away that you cannot see the pixels.
And my videophile friends (I’m not a videophile, just a paid geek) swear on Plasma over LCD.
December 12th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Wow, the thought of having a 40″ screen for my xbox … *drool*
We bought a flatscreen 29″ (Standard Definition) television about two years ago, for just under $200. And honestly, I don’t see us upgrading or replacing that unit for … at least six to eight more years (we have digital cable, so, no need for us to worry about the digital conversion issue). As a result, well, we’re not in any especial hurry to buy a blu-ray player.
December 12th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Let’s not forget plasma’s two other advantages:
- Contrast ratio
For comparable price points, plasma still delivers way more photons per pixel than LCD. Really expensive LCDs can beat cheap plasmas in contrast ratio, but comparing apples to apples, the colors on a plasma are always going to be brighter and more vibrant. Especially in a room with sunlight.
- View angle
LCD still has trouble with view angles past about 50 degrees from center. Colors start to blur and go muddy. Plasma has something around 170 degree view angle. You can look at it from 85 degrees off-center and the colors won’t distort.
About three years ago, I worked as a TV salesman at Best Buy for about six months. I got to look at a *lot* of TVs on a daily basis. My choice then for best-looking flat screen was plasma. I have seen nothing in the LCD realm since then to convince me to change the opinion. We’ll see when the OLED and laser projection TVs come around. Until then, don’t underestimate plasma.
December 12th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Speaking of bargain plasma, what happened to Schlock’s ominous hum as he warmed up the plasma cannons? I miss some of the early-Schlock-style / Batman Television Series ’schlockiness’ …
December 12th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Through fortunate happenstance, you have chosen well. Vizio is an offbrand in name only. Their TVs are primarily built using Sony parts; They just don’t pay for the rights to put the Sony name on it, which is why they’re able to sell them so much cheaper. Licensing is notoriously expensive on anything electronic.
December 12th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Somewhere I’ve still got a laptop (borrowed circa 2002 from an employer who hasn’t asked for it back) with a ghosting problem, but I don’t see any ghosting with my current laptop’s LCD screen, and I’ve got fast eyes. I just played a high-contrast video at triple speed to check – I thought I might have seen a slight motion blur, but I’m not sure.
You might never get a large LCD screen – maybe by 2015 LCDs and plasma screens will both have been made obsolete by LEDs. It’s gonna happen sooner or later. Maybe you’ll get a big floppy OLED screen that you can stick up like wallpaper, and the hoverboard will only scuff it slightly.
“I have a birthday coming up in February.”
… of 2012. I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. My birthday’s Christmas Day, so I tend to be amused by odd birthdays that sound worse than they probably are.
December 12th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
My youngest niece’s birthday is Halloween. She apparently enjoys it. She can get dressed up, have her birthday party, and then go out and have all sorts of people give her gifts at the houses on the street :)
December 12th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
That’s some kind of TV, I presume?
Never paid much attention to those. I think we have one in the other room gathering dust under the books.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I chose to go with rear projection when I needed a new TV last year. Other than the wall-mountability, I think DLP (Sony’s version -XSRD actually) is better all around. I got a 55″ 1080P TV for the same price as a 40″ 1080P LCD TV or a 46″ 720P Plasma TV. My DLP TV doesn’t have burn-in, doesn’t have motion blur, is bright like a plasma, and has a replaceable lamp instead of having to replace the TV when it gets dim. Also, after doing a quick manual search on Sony for comparison, it’s significantly cheaper to run. According to the manuals for 55″ Rear proj./LCD/Plasma TVs, the Rear Proj uses 210W, the LCD uses 480W and the Plasma uses 520W when running.
I looked real close at the LCD and Plasma TVs, but decided I’d be happiest with the ‘older’ technology, even if it is too ‘fat’ to mount on a wall.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
The company I work at is incredibly abusive on the 50″ plasma TVs we use- they run 24/7, usually on one channel, and it takes them about 3 years before they need replacing because of screen burn-in or dimming, although we did have one suffer an early death from screen burn-in from it’s use as digital signage. (basically, the monitor is hooked up to a computer that shows essentially power point slides with advertising, upcoming events, or such.)
December 12th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
I got a Vizio many months ago (32″ LCD), and love it to death. It’s a great bit of tech, and it does great things. The remote is pretty easy to navigate, and I dan’t think you’ll need that switcher for your different imputs.
And it’s pretty just sitting (hanging) there, isn’t it?
December 12th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Your scenario is an easy fix in my predicted future. I believe that laser projectors will be the big screens of choice in the future. So the screens will be simple drywall, allowing the hoverboard damage to be fixed with a bit of spackle. I also foresee someone inventing a nanoparticle-enhanced paint that allows a wall so coated to deliver superior performance when used as a screen, by scattering light in an even and predictable way.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Good choice. The other thing with contrast ratio (which a couple people already mentioned) is that an LCD will always look worse than plasma if you’re in the dark. Stuff that should be black will be noticably gray, and a lot of cheaper LCD displays have problems with very dark colors, so that “very very dark gray” actually ends up darker on the screen than pure black! That can be very distracting.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
If it’s any consolation, LCD screen TVs don’t last forever. I bought a ViewSonic n3250w ( http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/viewsonic-n3250w/4505-6482_7-31456723.html ) about five years ago for $1200, and it stopped working about two months ago.
The screen is still in fine condition, but some componant within it blew out, and it no longer turns on. So, service call (not), haul that heavy bastige down to the local shop (probably), or buy a new larger one. Hmm. They do seem to be getting cheaper… (http://www.target.com/AOC-Full-High-Definition-1080p-LCD/dp/B0019SPJ6M)
December 12th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I theorize that prices will actually go UP next Christmas, because the seasonal price cuts will reduce our oversupply (over-supplied because of the recession, meaning a reduction in demand), and over the next year production will be reined in to match the decreased demand.
I almost can’t wait ’til Christmas ‘09 to find out if I’m right!
December 12th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
OLED technology ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcAm3KihFho ) is coming down the pipeline
December 12th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Al Roderick: Front projection? It’s good in some environments, but in some peoples lounge rooms there would be problems with shadows and extraneous light sources.
Also, what sort of nanoparticles? I predict greater regulation of nanotech, as people get more worried about nanoparticle-poisoning.
Arrkhal: Good point*. Also, LCDs tend to look different from different angles. That’s why I hope LED displays† get cheap enough to make LCDs and plasma screens obsolete soon.
Better than plasma – no burn in, lower power consumption.
Better than LCDs – good contrast, looks right from all angles, lower power consumption.‡
Better than projectors – flat.
Plus, if (as predicted) it turns out to be OLEDs that make LEDs that cheap, they’ll be flexible, so you’ll start seeing displays where you’ve never seen displays before. I predict that by 2040, we’ll be able to get ‘em woven into clothing.
And a decade later, people will cringe at the horrible fashions.
————
* Even if you did say Liquid Crystal Display displays.
† In case you’re wondering, that one’s not redundant – LED stands for Light Emitting Diode.
‡ I’d also list “no motion blur or ghosting”, but new LCDs are fast enough.
December 13th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Ugh, I gotta remember not to type a straight apostrophe at the start of a word. WordPress’s smart quotes get ’em wrong.
December 13th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Our old 27″ TV lasted 15 years before it died, two years, ago.
Interestingly, when we were TV shopping, the plasma TVs we looked at were more expensive. Also, they weighed a lot more than the LCD TVs. The rear projection TVs we saw at the time, where even more expensive and heavy.
We also looked at front projection. We could have gotten a project that was better than the LCD TV, but the $200 to replace the lamp every 3000 hours of use was very unappealing.
While the plasma TV appeared to have a better picture, the lower weight – and cost – of the LCD TV won out,
We are, however, very happy with the TV. Just wish our old TV had lasted at least another year or two.
December 13th, 2008 at 12:42 am
PS Miss that Ommmminous Hummmmm.
December 13th, 2008 at 1:20 am
How many folks did it take to hang on the wall? Most of the plasmas I’ve helped people hook up seem to be made of depleted uranium, whereas my 32″ LCD tv I can lift with one hand (And did, during my wall mounting)
December 13th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Wall-sized TV screens are Stupid — where am I supposed to put all
my bookshelves if the firk-ding-blasting TV is occupying all the wall
space? :)
(There’s also the unfortunate reality of Certain Movies being shown
on TV screens that size, which make the idea of having a Socking-
Great TV Screen a *BAD IDEA* [TM]…. :P )
December 13th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Ooh, another advantage of OLEDs! (And front-projection, I suppose.) Have a screen that rolls up like a blind, so you can get at the bookshelves behind it.
And I think you want to be able to adjust the portion of it that gets used. The whole wall at once is mainly only useful for IMAX. Although I’d love to have a wall-sized computer screen if the resolution was good enough to justify the size.
December 13th, 2008 at 4:02 am
my roommate got a toshiba 62in dlp tv a few months ago. yah, it’s big bot no as bulky as you’d think. heck, it only weighed about 75lbs
December 13th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Ooh, those sam’s warranties are worth it! Take it from an ex-Sam’s employee. Vizio’s are not repairable. The company doesn’t have a parts department, they were made as “disposable” tv’s. Anything happens to it, they basically send you another. Also, I believe the Sam’s warranty stacks on top of the existing Manufacurer’s one year warranty, so you got yerself 4 full years of warranty! Nice! But beware! If you mount it over a working fireplace that you use more than 4 times per year or so, it can void all of the warranties. They take one look inside and they’ll find a film coating all of the parts. I think they call it “invisible particulate matter” or some such thing. Basically residue from fires used. Though it may only be a problem with natural gas fireplaces. Either way…
December 13th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Howard !
After trying the latest and greatest piece of LCD tech at the moment the Dell 3008WFP (computer monitor, which are invariably higher resolution than “high def TVs” since they are intended to be viewed at a long distance on a sofa) I think I might prefer CRTs, at least until things improve:
2 pages of discussion on the subject here, might be worth a read:
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-gaming/153707-dell-3008wfp-monitor-warning-gamers.html
December 13th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Congratulations on your new toy. I bought mine about two weeks ago. In my case I went with a 46″ LCD. And yes, I spent rather more and I expect mine to last quite a while.
Yes, all the big tv technologies are improving quickly. I’ve kept putting my purchase off because they keep getting bigger, better and cheaper but you have to stop somewhere. The only thing that gave me pause this time was realizing that LED backlit LCD’s will start appearing in 2009 and those solve some of the only problems that LCD tech has now compared to Plasma. Ah well.
By the way, the best thing I’ve found about a good Blu Ray player (a second hand PS3 in my case) is that it’s an outstanding upconverting DVD player. Upconverted DVD looks VERY good.
Cheers,
Bryan
December 13th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Great! Now I have plasma envy!
December 13th, 2008 at 6:47 am
@WEKM: I don’t.
We got a 2nd hand tv from a friend who was upgrading to HD and flat screen and all that … when we went to visit, he spent 10 minutes trying to figure out which remote went with which device and turned on the tv.
December 13th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Until you get that blu-ray player, get an upscaling DVD player. Much improved picture quality, and a lot of brands under $50. I’m partial to Phillips myself.
December 13th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Wait until just after Christmas, and start trolling pawnshops. Pick up a PS3 for half price, and you’ve got what I think is the best Blu-Ray player out there, and your kids have a new gaming console! Everybody wins!
December 13th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Re: hanging it — the project took two of us, and went smooth as could be. Mounting the wall-mount was much more time-consuming, and ALSO took two of us, but once it was in place the set just lifted on, the rails locked in, and we were good.
Re: other technologies — OLED is promising, but I don’t expect to see those prices coming down into my range any time soon. Projection is neat, but the bulbs are pricey (as was pointed out.) Also, if somebody walks in front of the set they block EVERYBODY, not just the people behind them. I stand by my statement: new tech notwithstanding, I’ll be able to keep this set for five to seven years, and then replace it with something much better for maybe a little more than I originally paid (which will then last me decades.)
Re: Remotes — we have two: the DVD remote and the TV remote. Both are velcroed to the wall below the TV, and to date we haven’t had problems. I’m sure the addition of a Blu-Ray player will confuse things, though…
December 13th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I go too Full Sail University and we use a LOT of plasma TV’s. But I got a crash course in their care while going through the HD Television class for my film program.
I don’t know about dimming, but there IS an easy way to avoid burnout, just record on a DVD about 30 minutes worth of “snow” and play it every so often on the TV. Since the Snow of a static channel occurs so often it should clear up the burned in images.
It was suggested to our class that you do it after a couple hours of gaming or in any situation where there is something on the screen for awhile.
December 13th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I’ve been wanting an HD tv for a year now ;.;
December 13th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
almost 2 years ago I bought my current flat (or apartment would be the equivalent term i believe) and having spent a fortune on that i felt justified in blowing some budget on fripperies.
I purchased a 46″ Sony Bravia (1080p) which was far from cheap (but also only about 1% of what my flat cost) and was my first new TV ever.
2 years on, its still a great TV, response is impeccable, I’ve never noticed any problem with the colours.
My fiancee has it on, I’m at about a 60 Degree angle from prime viewing and there is no deterioration in quality.
Blue-ray films look great, i love my TV.
I wall mounted it with my dad’s help, Fixing the wall mount was the hardest part, I purchased wedge anchor fixings and drilled deep into the wall, getting into the brick rather than the plaster.
I filled the fixing holes with a Exterior use PVC adhesive before fitting the wedge anchors to prevent the bricks crumbling from vibration over the years.
the flat-screen lifted easily onto the wall-mount.
Now i’m selling the flat to upgrade… the Wall-mount is included in the sale. (I’m not going to try to remove it, I know how secure it is.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_anchor fixings
December 13th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
You know, a little powder on that nose would help a lot with that reflection artifact.
December 13th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Howard: “I’m sure the addition of a Blu-Ray player will confuse things, though… ”
When you get blu-ray, would you keep the DVD player? Do they even make any blu-ray players that aren’t DVD players? So you’ll still only have 2 remotes. I’d also vote for the second hand ps3 idea, even though I’ve never used one.
As far as front projection goes, I think it’s great IF you get a great ceiling-mount. Absolutely necessary if you don’t want to hate it. And.. bulbs *shudder*. You went with the smart purchase.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
The addition of Blu-Ray will confuse things because right now neither remote is required for source-switching. The TV remote isn’t even required for grownups who can hit the power button on the TV while grabbing the DVD remote off the wall.
(BTW, I STRONGLY recommend velcro-to-the-wall as a solution for keeping your remotes safe. The kids love it, and the remote is easy to find even in the dark.)
But back to source-switching: we have a Wii, an XBox, a VCR, and a DVD player all of which are switched through a $20 composite video push-button switch-box. Adding the Blu-Ray player (and component cables for the Wii, and eventually a 360) will mean that the TV remote has to be used for source-switching, and those sources will be labeled on-screen as “HDMI 1″ or “Component,” rather than “XBox,” “VCR”, “DVD” and “GameCube.”
Whine, whine, whine. I shouldn’t complain. The kids are happy, I’m happy, and a little bit of change won’t hurt us a bit.
December 13th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
If you like games, I hear tell that the PS3 is a good blu-ray movie player as well. One component in place of two. That’s the next thing on my list, personally.
December 14th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
“but I don’t expect to see those prices coming down into my range any time soon.”
Then I guess we’ll just have to buy more stuff from you and thus increase your range. :)
As for cables… Lets see, you can AV the Wii, Co-ax for TV, HDMI for a Blu-Ray player, and HDMI or Component an xbox 360… The 360 will make the DVD player redundant, as would (I believe) the Blu-Ray player…
Heck, you could even connect a computer to the thing using S-Video… Now how cool would THAT be, coloring the strip in full 1080p??
December 14th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
I currently color the strip at 1680×1050, with a second monitor off to my right holding toolbars and iTunes. I’m pretty sure a giant 1080p monitor would actually be a step down in terms of productivity.
December 14th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Yeah, but it would be BIG! And PRETTY!!!
:)
December 15th, 2008 at 3:07 am
What about a giant 1080p monitor (that’s 1920×1080, right?) with a 1680×1050 monitor on each side?
December 16th, 2008 at 7:34 am
My decision between LCD and Plasma wasn’t due to burn in but ‘Vampire Power’ or ‘Standby Power’ how much power does the TV pull when it is off
http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/transparency/008/trans008vampireenergy.html
I didn’t find the initial cost was worth the $160 a year in power costs. Since you already have the TV you might consider a smart power strip so when the TV is off, it’s really off.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Howard, you need a Harmony remote. You can just tell it what source each device is connected to and it will switch automagically as it turns everything on for you with a single button.
And if you just bought an HDTV, you should really change most of those cables anyway. There’s no point in upgrading the VCR cables, but the XBox (I assume it’s a 360) and DVD player should both look a lot better with component cables.