More and more people are appreciating the reality of digital television, but to appreciate all that digital television has to offer, one must replace their old CRT television with a modern television system. There are two major digital technologies to choose from, LCD TVs and Plasmas. This article will focus TV Plasma technology and what it can offer to the home cinema system experience.
The digital experience of today can only be enjoyed with technology that is capable of receiving and displaying digital broadcasts in HDTV and DVD-video formats amongst others.
TV Plasma Technology
The plasma screen TV became popular around the turn of the millenium, driving the emergence of large flat screen television sets. In contrast to the older CRT TV systems, plasma displays are comprised of many tiny cells that hold a noble gas mixture trapped within two panels of glass, when a cell is electrically charged, the gasses are turned into plasma, emitting an ultra-violet light in the process, exciting phosphors and generating visible light.
Plasma VS ordinary CRT (cathode ray tube) TV
When plasmas TVs first hit the market, the most obvious way in which they exceeded the traditional CRT technology was their slim profile. Plazma tvs were so thin they could even be wall mounted. The next most obvious difference was that they produced a picture with a much higher resolution than anything that had ever been seen on the consumer market.
Plama tvs produce increadibly smooth images and are naturally progressive meaning that all screen pixels light up simultaneously. This makes for an almost non-existant motion blur a plasmas screens.
In order to reproduce images, ordinary CRT televisions in conventional NTSC television sets utilize a beam of electrons that is directed at the back of the picture tube. An image is generated by moving horizontally from side-to-side as well as vertically from line to line from the top to bottom of the tube. This scanning action lights the phosphors to eventually produce an entire image, however the side-to-side action creates what is known as scan lines.
A plasma screen tv does not use the same method as a CRT to reproduce the image, plasma pixels light up simultaneously producing a much better image quality with visible scan lines all but impossible. Plasma technology utilizes line doubling that allows a plasma set to retain a high image quality even when transmitting analog video like TV broadcasts.
While power consumption varies greatly depending on picture content, TV plasmas consume about the same amount of power as a traditional CRT display.
Plasma vs LCD Technology
Plasma screens are exceptionally bright and feature a very wide color range. They feature a low-luminance black compared to an LCD tv screen.
A plama tv systems generally consume a more power than LCD tvs, manufacturers have recently taken steps to improve the power burden, for instance Panasonic have recently introduced a “neo-plasma display panel” technology in it’s series of Viera plasma HDTV TV Plazma systems, that the commpany claims consumes only half the electricity of the last series of plazma televisions when displaying the same general picture.
Plasma TV Resolution
Plama screens can produce exceptional resolutions. Most plama screen tv systems are called fixed-pixel displays work by scaling the video image of incoming signals to the display panel’s native resolution resulting in a level picture quality that is dependent on the performance of the algorithms used by the video processor used by individual display manufacturers. The most common native resolutions are 854×480 (EDTV), 1366×768 or 1920×1080 (HDTV)
Modern Hi-Def plama televisions usually feature 1024×768 on 42 inch plasma screens, 1280×768 or 1366×768 on 50 inch, 60 inch and 65 inch screens and 1920×1080 in all screen sizes. The displays are usually progressive with square pixels and will up-scale incoming standard definition signals to match their native resolutions.
Plama television screens are also capable of displaying computer display signals such as VGA, SVGA and XGA allowing you to use with personal computer and video games.
Modern Looking Design
A modern plasma television is increadibly thin, making for more modern, space-saving and generally “chick” designs. Measuring only a few inches in thickness, a modern plasma set can be wall mounted or even hung from the ceiling, which is a striking contrast to the old CRT televisions that are generally quite thick and the only practical means of mounting is to place it on a table that is wide and sturdy enough to accomodate it’s bulk.
With a plasma television you need not worry about having a bulky set of equipment occupying your room, you not only get a much wide screen display, but get to fill your living room space with a modern high-tech looking piece of equipment that seamlessly blends in with the rest of the room, but you saving on floor space at the same time.
Conclusion
TV Plasma technology has come a long way since it was introduced around the turn of the millenium. While competing technologies such as LCD now offer a viable alternative, plasma tvs offer several advantages over LCD screens and the legacy CRT televisions, while modern technology has reduced some of the common flaws:
Plasma Television Systems offer you:
- A slim, space saving profile, that can be wall mounted or set up in a variety of other ways
- Achieves superior and more accurate color reproduction than an LCD or CRT
- Produces a superior “black” color and image quality in general than an LCD as well as superior contrast ratios
- Allows for far wider viewing angles than an LCD TV with angles up to 178 degrees on some systems
- Does not suffer from motion blur thanks to high refresh rates and response time
While older plasma models could potentially suffer from screen burn-in, loss of luminosity over time and use more electricity on average than LCD technology, new advances in the technology has all but eliminated this downside.
Basically if you are are looking for the best picture quality solution for your money, buy plasma TV models that are modern and do not suffer from the negative effects that the original plasmas incurred. Prices for plasma televisions have dropped dramatically in recent years and you should not need to sacrifice quality in order to purchase a discount TV. A decent 42″ or 50″ plasma can be purchased for under $1000 and prices are dropping all the time.
Note
For video game junkies, a plasma TV in addition to the latest gaming peripherals like gaming headphones, controller and the pick of the best gaming keyboards you can find, is a great way to indulge in ones gaming obsessions, but a modern video card that can take advantage of the superior resolution offered by a plasma TV is essential.