What's Best for Freeview - Plasma or LCD ??

[here's jonny]

I'm looking for a new TV.

I don't have SKY, but do have a Humax 9200T and PS2.

What's best for normal / standard def TV..

LCD or Plasma ?? I'm thinking around 40".

Thanks

 

[brian s]

In my view Plasma at this size is best unless you are going to be watching a lot of stations with logos/dogs such as ITV2, BBC3,etc. In which case go for LCD as it won't suffer screenburn problems.

 

[per-Sony-fied]

IMO the latest Plasma's don't suffer nearly as much with screen burn as they used to... some use a technology of moving the whole screen 1 pixel in rotation, i.e the whole lot, to allow refresh of the pixel's. This is not noticable either due to the 1 pixel movement.

Personally since LCD has a response delay of around twice or more of Plasma which is not good for fast moving scenes causing smearing & difficult to read text I'd go for Plasma. Also in my opinion they provide greater detail (partially helped by better response time). My recommendation is a Pioneer 427XD or a Panasonic 42PX70 or the smaller 37" variant, 37PX60 I think.

 

[MarkE19]

Plasma offers far better display of black, especially the Panasonics. I have also seen a retailer state that they have never seen screen burn on a Panasonic plasma, even after several months with stationary logos being displayed. However even a fairly new Pioneer had some evidence of screen burn.
LCD though does have the advantage of being available in a far greater range of screen sizes and as already stated does not suffer from screen burn.

Mark.

 

[brian s]

I have also seen a retailer state that they have never seen screen burn on a Panasonic plasma, even after several months with stationary logos being displayed. However even a fairly new Pioneer had some evidence of screen burn.
LCD though does have the advantage of being available in a far greater range of screen sizes and as already stated does not suffer from screen burn.

Mark.

Retailers say this a lot about no screenburn on Plasmas in general but I am not convinced. Mine is a Pioneer and can suffer from an after image if something is left on too long. The worst is the red teletext symbol the BBC put over their news broadcasts. If my wife is watching on her own she tends not to notice and leaves it on. The after image fades then disappears after some time but I dread to think what would happen if something like that was on for hours.

Cheers
Bri

 

[here's jonny]

Are there any plasma's with a reflective coating ???
I've only seem this on LCD's..


Screen burn is a concern, any links to a plasma, that doesn't suffer ??

Thanks

 

[per-Sony-fied]

Are there any plasma's with a reflective coating ???
I've only seem this on LCD's..


Screen burn is a concern, any links to a plasma, that doesn't suffer ??

Thanks

I think you'll find that Plasma's reflect much much less light than good oll (and it is still good) CRT so I wouldn't worry to much here.

Screen burn is a worry for most people whom consider a Plasma purchase but just ask in the Plasma forum's I think you'll be more than surprised about the lack of burn. They have come quite some distance since this bain of trouble.

 

[MarkE19]

I've had my Panasonic plasma now for several years and never had any sign of screen burn - not even temporarily. I was paranoid at first and checked carefully for a good while. I now listen to the Freeview radio stations a fair bit and often forget to turn the plasma off, but still don't see any after image.

I think the best advice is to be careful for the first 100 or so hours use and then just use common sense after that, ie keep the contrast/brightness turned down as they always seem to be factory set way too high.

Mark.

 

[ROYOLD]

The one thing which puts me off Plasma TVs is the amount of power they use and a fact which Mfrs seem to pretty much hide. A 42 inch Plasma uses 260 watts per hour.

 

[hornydragon]

The one thing which puts me off Plasma TVs is the amount of power they use and a fact which Mfrs seem to pretty much hide. A 42 inch Plasma uses 260 watts per hour.

erm if you look at proper specs you will see a plasmas power usage varies with the screen content. Where as an LCD is consistent, even when showing a dark image the backlight is still on as much as when viewing a bright image. Plasma power usage isnt going to tip your elec bill over the edge (no more than leaving a bulb on unecassairly) much better picture quality too

 

[SamRadford]

you will se a plasma power usage aries .....

when viewing a bright image plasma power isnt tip

Also available in English?

 

[ROYOLD]

Still three times as much as a CRT..... however..... if you are using a plasma as a room heater also, then I suppose it doesn't matter.

The source I used BTW was the SVP website for the Panasonic 37 and 42" plasma TV's. 241 watts and 261 watts respectively :

http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=2051

 

[hornydragon]

Still three times as much as a CRT..... however..... if you are using a plasma as a room heater also, then I suppose it doesn't matter.

3 times as much as a 42" 16:9 CRT???? really

 

[aekostas]

Here is an example of a calculation, Hornydragon, from the spec sheet of my Philips 28/32PW9505 (PixelPlus2, so lots of processing going on): the 28" model burns 129W. The 32" burns 149W. 32/28*129W = 147W, so they are provbably more or less proportionate with the diagonal, thus the expected wattage for a 42" would be 42/32*149W = 195W.

So, while there are no 42" CRTs, it is a fact that Plasmas burn a lot of energy.

 

[Bearded_Malc]

I've just looked up the power figure for my 42in plasma, 270W, and for a samsung Z41 32in CRT, 160W. As we are talking area here the increase is (42/32)^2, so 160W => 275W. Or in other words plasma is not that power hungry, it is bigger so you need more power.

As matrix fans will know 100W is about what a human produces so I guess I can keep my plasma instead of a 32 CRT if I kill 1/6th of a person (assuming I watch 4hrs/day). Or I could spend 5 minutes less in the shower (10kW for 5 min = 100W x 4hrs x 2 days). Or I could read up on the GW issue and realise that it is 90% spin (like how come it was warmer in the middle ages? 4x4?).

 

[NonPayingMember]

A these display have an exponential not linear power usage. One would expect a circa 40" CRT to burn an awful lot of watts since the actual wattage rate per screen inch also increases as you go up.

The linear assumption is very dangerous here since it is based on a tiny part of what is actually a curve not a straight line (a 0.05 error over just 4 units is quite significant IMO). To disprove: based on the assumed rate of roughly 4.6-4.7w per screen diagonal unit, 14" TVs must only run at 60 watts! Amazing. I should have 14" TVs hanging in my house instead of light bulbs.

Also, a diagonal measurement is difficult to make a proportional relationship with in this context. Remember a 42" diagonal surface area isn't twice as big as 21" - it's actually three or four times bigger.

 

[aekostas]

The linear assumption is very dangerous here since it is based on a tiny part of what is actually a curve not a straight line (a 0.05 error over just 4 units is quite significant IMO). To disprove: based on the assumed rate of roughly 4.6-4.7w per screen diagonal unit, 14" TVs must only run at 60 watts! Amazing. I should have 14" TVs hanging in my house instead of light bulbs.

You are right, it's only 35W, not quite enough light:

http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/1/1445rs_05/1445rs_05_dfu_eng.pdf



Of course this does not have the fancy PixelPlus consumers.

 

[NonPayingMember]

Yeah good point. That's more like small LCD TV power consumption rather than small CRT. Still shows no linearity to the power consumption rate though - at least I got something right at the end of the long day last night!!

 

[NonPayingMember]

I just clicked that pdf out of interest - 5w standby power consumption to an LCD's 1w. Considering most TVs spend more time off than on......

 

[per-Sony-fied]

I just clicked that pdf out of interest - 5w standby power consumption to an LCD's 1w. Considering most TVs spend more time off than on......

Given their size 5W is not bad.... a CRT consumes anything from 1 to 5W in standby. I wouldn't worry about that not gonna make any dent in the electric bill for years.

 

[aekostas]

It's old technology, Liam. My 32PW9509 (same maufacturer, 2-3 yo technology?) claims under 1W for standby.

But I switch off all appliances that have a switch when not in use anyway. While they may not make a dent to my pocket, when aggregated for the population it's quite a dent to energy consumption.

 

[here's jonny]

Thanks for all the comments.

What 40" - 42" Plasma would recommend... ???

I'll want to wall mount it, connect my Humax 9200T and PS2.

I'd like to try and keep the cost down if possible

Thanks