New Larger TVs Favor LCD Over Plasma 211
Information Week is carrying a Reuters story examining the shift towards LCD technology in recent large-screen television models. Though some analysts acknowledge that plasma displays have faster response times over large surfaces, the industry seems to be betting that consumers will prefer higher resolution images over time. From the article: "CPT's Wu agrees that plasma panels, especially 50-inch and larger ones, do excel LCDs in some aspects of picture quality, but he says the sheer size of the LCD camp will help LCD panels overcome whatever drawbacks they have in a timely manner ...With the 40-inch-class market gradually taken over by LCD TVs, plasma models need to migrate to the market for 50-inch TVs and above, but demand is not as well developed there, analysts say. 'The United States accounts for more than 70 percent of demand for 50-inch plasma TVs and larger. In other words, there is virtually no 50-inch-class plasma TV market outside the United States,' DisplaySearch director Hisakazu Torii said."
Re:Why would anyone buy either? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a number of reasons why people don't want or can't use front projection.
- Not enough room. You need to have a sizeable room for front projection if you really want to get to that 100" size. Being able to project the image is only part of the equation. Optimal viewing distance for a 50" set is between 6 and 10 feet (depending on HD or SD content). Do you really have a room big enough to accomodate a 20ft viewing distance for your 100" image?
- Not enough control over ambient lighting. Front projection needs a relatively dark room, much moreso than a rear-projection TV (CRT, LCoS, DLP, LCD) or direct-view (CRT, LCD, Plasma).
- Wife-acceptance factor. Try telling your wife that she has to make sure the blackout shades are down if she wants to watch her soaps or Oprah in the middle of the day.
- You realize that size isn't everything. Sure, you can get a 100" display, but depending on the technology in your projector you'll likely suffer screen-dooring or pixelization (especially for low-end consumer-grade projectors). 1280x720 (16x9 720p) at 100" diagonal is 14 pixels per inch.
- You realize that the price of the projector isn't everything. For proper viewing, you really need a good screen. A flat, white wall is merely "okay". A flat wall with special paint is better. A proper screen is best. Bear in mind that most people don't have truly flat walls, since drywall is usually somewhat textured. It might look flat, but project an image on it and you've suddenly got a bunch of little bumps causing little shadows all throughout the picture. A screen is really the way to go, and that's not cheap, especially if you want a roll-up model so it hides easily.
When all of the variables are right, front-projection is nice. Getting everything to come together for a proper viewing experience either requires extreme luck or large amounts of money. You can certainly go overboard, like a friend of mine who just put in a $15,000 theater, but even a modest projector + screen + blackout curtains will run you more than the $2000 I spent on a 50" rear-projection DLP.Re:Why would anyone buy either? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because you have the exact same problem with DLP sets, and a similar issue with LCD (backlight). DLP bulbs are replaceable, though they usually last 2-3 years before replacement. Buy yourself a good store warranty for $100 and you'll get a free lamp replacement out of it (the only time store warrantees are worth anything). By the time you need a second lamp replacement (around the 5-6 year mark), you may as well buy a new TV.
eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how 30% becomes virtually nothing when analysts work their magic.
Re:Why would anyone buy either? (Score:5, Insightful)
> big display would ever purchase anything other than a projector.
Because most people also use their TVs in the DAY or with lights on and projectors are absolutely crap in the daytime. The contrast ratio falls to next to nothing if there's any light in the room whatsoever.
The darkest black a projector can display is the black that you see when you look at a WHITE wall. Look at a nearby white wall NOW and decide for yourself if that's an acceptable BLACK level. If LCDs or Plasmas had a black level that bad, NOBODY would buy them and we'd all still be using CRT screens. The ONLY advantage of a projector is it's picture size, but the vast majority of people aren't prepared to cope with all the drawbacks just to get a bigger (washed out) picture.
Also, projectors are very difficult to site in the average living room. They need to go at the opposite end of the room to all your AV kit and preferably high up on a wall or ceiling. You either have to move all your AV kit to the back of the room and fire your remote controls backwards, or run a signal cable the whole distance of your living room to feed the projector.
They're great if all you want is a big picture in cinema-like blackout conditions, but they're hardly practical for the average family who needs to install it in a room with windows.
Re:Energy efficiency (Score:5, Insightful)
Another fine example of money being pissed up the wall in Britain.
Re:Memory (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not really comparable to a plasma TV since you're talking about an LCD projection TV, not an LCD flat panel. A fair comparison is that a 60" plasma is about $7K while a 65" flat panel LCD (couldn't find any 60") is about $8.5K. Back on the greater topic, personally, I prefer the image of plasma's to LCDs right now simply because of the image blurring. I watch mostly hockey and the bright colors on a white background makes for a lot of blur on the LCDs I've watched games on. On that note, I think LCDs will win out over plasma's if they get ghosting issues figured out -or- if they present such a price advantage that ghosting becomes tolerable.
Re:Why does nobody ever mention DLP? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure why anyone would find this appealing though. Where do you put your cable box, DVR, home theater receiver, DVD player, etc.? All that shit goes in the stand under my 32" CRT TV now. I don't know where the hell I'd put them if my TV just hung on the wall. I guess you could go crazy and build it all into shelves on the wall, but you'd still have the ugly cables hanging down from the back of the TV going over to your components unless you went nuts and cut holes in your wall and ran them down between the wall somehow.
Re:I have seen it (Score:2, Insightful)
The about.com article didn't go into it but from what I've heard, most LCDs with a memory problem are either being forced into extremely fast color change times, or are extremely large (>24"). The former means the pixels are *very* sensitive, the latter meaning the traces per pixel are larger. In both cases, the persistance problem is simply that the capacitance voltage of the wires is approaching the lower threshold of the sensitivity of the pixels. To properly ground the traces to eliminate the problem would mean orders of magnitude more time and/or energy to turn the pixel on, which is unacceptable (ghosting, etc.)
In the end though, it's not a burn in problem, because simply powering off the system for a little bit will discharge all the capacitance. It won't be any worse 5 or 10 years down the road.
Large always-on displays can simply be much less sensitive if the content doesn't move around much.