Plasma vs LCD? Honestly, it is a question I didn’t ask myself until I had a brand new Samsung sitting in my lounge room.

So like everyone else at the moment, I decided that pre-olympics was going to my time to upgrade from my dodgy 68cm Konka to a nice big tv.I have to admit that I have driven my wife crazy, dragging her through every TV store looking at sets we could never afford - pointing out "If we had the money that is the set I would get…". Anyway the stars aligned at at the end of June and we had a proportionate sum of money that would  put me in the market for the TV

My father had mistakenly purchased a Panasonic 1080p plasma late last year. We had walked into Harvey Norman - saw the plethora ofTV’s on display and immediately went to the 50" PZ series. It had the most natural looking picture of all the sets and almost immediately the set was bought. It was only when we got it home that we discovered that it was a plasma. It turned out to be a great purchase. We have watched everything fromDVD’s, free-to-air and crappy Foxtel on the set and it has done a superb job all round.

So as I started shopping, I immediately disregarded the plasma ( for no reason). I suppose I believed more what I read about the ‘better and newer’ technology of the LCD rather than the experience of the plasma. I researched, and found a commensurateSamsung A650 for a good price. I parted with my cash, got it home unboxed it and set it up. It looked beautiful in my lounge room. However after playing and tweaking I decided that it was the TV for me. Some hours into my setup one thing had become very apparent- the LCD simply didn’t handle the many different quality of signals I was throwing at it. DVD playback looked okay,FTA HD looked stunning and Foxtel looked like YouTube . I found myself having to customise the picture settings of every input (and sometimes every channel - sport/lifestyle/drama) just to get a smooth viewing experience.

So in light of my mistake I took it back to place of purchase (thank you Lord for change of mind policies) and exchanged it for a  1080p 46" Panasonic (Th46pz800a ). I had been eyeing off the set when putting down the cash for the Samsung.  The plasma has been installed for a week and is working a treat, just as I expected it to.
 
Their are tons of good sites out there explaining the differences in the technology of the two flat panels (LCD/Plasma). Simply put - plasma uses indivdual cells which are filled with gases that are stimulated into colour as different currents are applied - so colour is made by the turning on and adding of light. You can see these when you get up close to a plasma. LCD on the other hand have a much tighter ‘dot’ or pixel. An LCD is made up of a film/weave of liquid crystals sandwiched with a backlight that change colour when the current is passed through them. However they aren’t very bright - hence the backlight is needed and shines behind liquid crystals to illuminate the colour. This is what enables LCD’s to appear brighter and more colourful in well lit conditions - however it also means that whenever there is black - light still emits -  coming from the backlight.

I watch movies and sport - and it is generally accepted that plasmas do better with these sources than LCD’s because of the responsiveness of the plasma dot. For me it is all about clarity and sharpness. My educational background is in graphics and photography. One of my trully obsessive compulsions is for sharp images. In photography sharpness is delivered through a few mechanisms, but histoically that has largerly been dominated by contrasty grain. The grainier a picture appears, the sharper to the eye it is. Obviously there is a point where the grain takes away from the picture - but one of the tricks employed by photomedia peeps to sharpen up images ( in the darkroom before photoshop sharpening filters) was to increase grain. Plasma’s are noticably more grainy that the smooth tones of an LCD - but that is where their inherant clarity is discerned. That is not to say that an LCD can’t be sharp - but in theprocess that an plasma behaves, it will almost always render a source to appear sharper than an LCD.

From what I have read I think the next true step of flat panel TV will be LaserTV and OLED - which seem to overcome current LCD and Plasma shortcomings. Next major decision is Blueray/PVR device - at this stage all signs point to PS3…