Panasonic throws in towel on plasma tellies, preps for BILLION-dollar kick in pants Panasonic is reportedly planning to pull out of the plasma TV business by the end of the financial year. The TV market has proved more and more unprofitable for once-dominant Japanese consumer electronics firms and Panasonic was expected to give up on the plasma display industry at some point, though its exit is sooner than …
I have two Samsung LCD-LED tv's and had a third (fluorescent backlight) but gave it to my son. I never got into any plasma's since I had always been told that they have a tendency to burn in images and my kids like to game. From what I've seen the only advantage of plasma is higher refresh rate which impacts some action scenes.
All work very well and the oldest is about seven years old. The latest (two years old) 46" w/ 240 hz refresh has damn near every bell and whistle available and I can't fault it at all. I use it as a TV and a computer monitor. Never any burn in and though some pictures can be a little "bright" depending on source, I always found the color representation to be fairly accurate. I probably could have bought one with less features but the price at Sam's Club was $200 less than Best Buy was. Viewing angle is close to 170 Degrees and there is no banding at all. If the screen is completely black there can be some irregularity at the edges but not that you'd notice during regular viewing. All that and my power bill is somewhat less than the older fluorescent backlit LCD was.
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If the picture (on any TV) is "overly vivid" you might try making an adjustment. It's really neat you use this thing they call a remote and there is this button you push up or down to make it darker or brighter. You can even calibrate the color, black level and contrast.
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My first HDTV was a noname 32" piece of crap LCD. My second was a 42" 1080p Panny plasma, and it is fucking gorgeous. The dark bits are dark and yet have graduation, the bright bits are bright and the quality hasn't dropped in the 5 years I've had it.
I got my Panny from Richer Sounds. I ordered it online and went in store to pick it up, and 4 times the sales drone tried to get me to buy an LED instead. Even when you ask for the plasma they were trying hard to sell you something else, its no wonder Panny aren't selling enough.
I like my LG 3D LED LCD for one thing - the Plex Client which comes with it. This and a Plex server on my NAS made my media player instantly redundant.
Can't comment on LCD vs plasma though since I never had a plasma TV before, I guess the glossy screens put me off at the time. However now my LCD also have a glossy screen, and I still hate it as much as I did from CRT days when I sprayed the screen with some mat clear coat you could buy at the time. Wonder if that stuff is still available out there?
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Living in Aussie,, we have a problem that LCDs still can't overcome....... Huge amounts of light.... in a bright room an LCD is washed out to the point you need to close the curtains to see the damn thing.
That was the case with my first flatscreen a Pana 32" LCD. When we were in the market for a bigger TV, the only option for us was Plasma.
Looking at other Tvs and their EPGs helped make the descision easier, the only choice in the end was a Pana 50" Plasma.
Most people buy on price alone which spelt the death for plasma.
Vale Panasonic Plasma screens, Now I hope mine works for a lot of years to come.
One issue with plasma televisions in the North American market is that manufacturers have switched to phosphors with a very short decay time. While this is great at preventing ghosting and other color issues when transitioning from very bright to very dark scenes, it comes at the price of having increased flicker. It is not unlike looking at an early 1990s VGA monitor with a low refresh rate. It gives a lot of people eye strain and headaches.
In countries with 50Hz mains, higher end CRT and plasma televisions have avoided this issue by doubling the refresh rate to 100Hz. But such double scan modes don't seem to exist in the 60Hz mains market.
The maddening thing is that 3D plasma televisions do have a 120Hz mode for 3D content, but then they drop back to 60Hz for 2D content. A few accept a 1080p120 2D signal over HDMI, but then you're locked to that input to retain the 120Hz refresh.
And another issue with all plasma televisions is that a few years ago, manufacturers introduced some power saving techniques that resulted in sudden jumps and drops in brightness between scenes. Firmware updates reduced the problem, but with some televisions, it was still noticeable.
My two 42" Panasonic plasmas are only six years old, so they have a lot of life left in them. But I now have a larger living room and would like to replace one with a 50". I brought home a new Pani last year, but had to send it back after just a few days. Between the refresh rate and brightness jumps, I couldn't stand it. Since I can't stand the color rendering of LCD screen, it appears that I am going to hang onto my current sets as long as I can.
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