Sony Plasma Screen Fade

Earlier today, I went out to buy the 32" Sony Plasma set. I called HiSpek in St Albans to get their price & availabilty, the price quoted was £400 cheaper than anyone else & they had loads in stock. However, when I got to the shop I was told that they had sold the last set that morning.

After protesting that just 30 minutes earlier that I had been told that they "had loads", I enquired about taking the display model. (I really fancied the idea of taking it home & messing around with it over the Bank Holiday) HiSpek didn't want to sell that on the grounds that these sets experience "screen fade" after 8000 hours. Is this true? In a way I'm glad they didn't have any in stock or else I would not have been aware of the picture degradation issue. Should I continue in my hunt for this set or should I concentrate on getting a good 28" CRT (my front room is too small for the hulking chasis of a 32")

I look forward to hearing your views.

PS Things got worse with the salesmen at HiSpek. I didn't want to go into details as I want to concentrate on the plasma problem & not have my first post unceremoniously removed!

 

Hi,

the brightness of Plasmas does eventually reduce but current Plasmas should last longer than 8,000 hours. I heard 20,000 hours being quoted as to when a Plasma should have lost half of its brightness. Since Plasmas are very bright to start off with and you don't usually run them on full brightness, that shouldn't be that much of a problem.

Apparently the "run in"-period is also important - you shouldn't set contrast or brightness too high during the first 100 hours.

Why don't you send an e-mail to Sony and ask them about expected mean time between failures and also time in hours after which the Plasma will have lost half of its brightness? They should have tested that.

Regards
Carsten.

 

Thanks for that Carsten.

Whilst driving back, I was wondering whether it is going to be worth spending that much extra on a plasma. At the end of the day it's all about the picture - will I get better viewing from a good CRT (I was considering a Loewe) & keep the money for something else, like a decent holiday!

 

Thanks for that Carsten.

Whilst driving back, I was wondering whether it is going to be worth spending that much extra on a plasma. At the end of the day it's all about the picture - will I get better viewing from a good CRT (I was considering a Loewe) & keep the money for something else, like a decent holiday!

 

A Loewe whould at least last longer than the plasma without any degradation in image quality.

Also, plasmas will continue to get cheaper and better every 6 months for the next few years.
That is not to say the ones out now aren't worth it (I've ordered one), but if you aren't desperate for one now, then stick with the CRT.

Should you decide to change to a plasma later on, you could always sell on the Loewe. Selling a plasma after a while if you decide to get a later better model, will not be as easy, without taking a big loss in the depreciation.

Arif