OT: Plasma or LCD TVs

[AK]

I have been trying to look up the pro's and con's of Plasma Vs LCD TV's and to be honest I am thoroughly confused as sites seem to contradict each other. From what I can gather:

Plasma is:

Good picture Very heavy so need professional fixing has problems with screen burn Has a limited life of around 4-5 years of normal use

LCD is:

Good picture limited on size (though they are getting bigger) much lighter than plasma so easier to fix to a wall. Longer life no problems with screen burn Can have dead pixels More expensive than Plasma

Some web sites contradict these statements. Does anybody have any experience or have done any research around these. I really can't decide what to buy!!

Angela

[AK]

Ok, but LCDs have a life of around 60,000 hours so regardless of how many hours a day you use the TV it still has twice the life of a plasma - so what about the other benefits? Do you own a plasma TV? what's it like? what are the pro's and con's in your view?

[AK]

This site dives the advantage overall to LCD

[Ash]

Why? I managed to mount a Plasma in my last house on a lath and plaster stud wall with no problems.

If you get the right bracket, think about how it should be fixed, get someone to help lift the screen, shouldn't be a problem.

Ash

[Victoria Clare]

"AK" wrote in news:cdoaeg$n2o$ [e-mail]:

They are heavy, but not *that* heavy. You'll need at least 2 people, preferably 3 (2 to lift, and one to shout 'Left a bit! Right a bit!) and you won't be able to get it home in a car.

We bought our wall bracket from argos for 99 quid: fitting it was fairly simple.

LCDs are smaller and although small (17 inch) ones are now really quite affordable, plasma gives you much more screen size.

Note that you need not just a screen, but a tv tuner of some sort. Screens sold for presentation use or as computer monitors may not come with tuners as standard, so make sure you are comparing tv with tv, not tv with screen-only. Our plasma has a separate tuner box.

If you need a big telly for watching films or playing games in a big room, go plasma.

If you need a flat screen on the wall to save space, but it doesn't have to be huge - go LCD.

If you want the best picture for the least money and have room for a telly that isn't wall mounted, go CRT. We did a lot of shopping around, and CRT still offers the best, clearest and brightest picture most cheaply.

Also recommend: don't do all your research on the web or in small shops. Go somewhere like the huge Dixons in Cardiff where you can see loads of screens side by side, and take a good long look at them all in action.

Victoria

[Nick Brooks]

I'd be very careful doing this. I've long had an unfounded suspicion that large high street stores feed different quality signals to different tv's making some look much better than others. I've seen £100 no-name brands looking better than £500 Sony's and I can believe that really reflects the quality of the products

Nick Brooks

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The big snag with this is that the individual sets are rarely adjusted properly - or even have a guaranteed good aerial feed. In other words, the set with the 'best' picture in the shop may not be truly the best.

I'd rely on Which etc to narrow the choice down first.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Depends what you mean by life. Leave a static picture on one - including the 'dogs' that many stations use, and it's permanently burnt in.

[Alan]

No no no no no! This was covered last week. Plasma's have a life of around 30,000 hours, which at a typical 4 hours a day is over 20 years. Obviously if you plan to be watching it 24 hours per day then the life will be nearer 5 years!

Alan.

[usenet]

So can I, they probably all have the same chips in them. (However I suspect you lost a 'not' somewhere in your posting).

[Nick Brooks]

Yes, sorry, trying to concentrate on too many things today, I can NOT believe . . .

[Christian McArdle]

A plasma screen is very unlikely to be used with an analogue tuner. Analogue is useless as it doesn't support widescreen.

I haven't used an analogue tuner on anything in about 5 years. You just need a composite video input. Mine is switched by an AV amp with outputs via SCART leads attached to the cable decoder, video (hardly used) and DVD player. I've also got a direct S-Video link between the DVD and TV which can be selected for a quality boost. I don't think I've seen a UHF aerial lead plugged into a TV for half a decade, so a "tuner" is pretty much useless, unless by the word you mean a FreeView decoder.

Christian.

[Dave Liquorice]

One thing you missed, plasma screens (and LCD?) have a significant delay between signal arriving at their input and appearing on screen. You may need to buy suitable audio delay line(s) to bring things back in sync.

This was also covered in the recent thread. Worth a look at that via google.

[Dave Liquorice]

Using composite video somewhat defeats the object of getting a digital signal does it not? RGB is what you should be using or if you must S-video.

[Dave Liquorice]

True enough but you can make a real pain of yourself by getting the assistant to set 'em all up for you or better still get the remotes and manuals so you can do it yourself as I doubt the average Dixons assistant would know how to or could do it properly.

[Victoria Clare]

"Christian McArdle" wrote in news:40ffcc74$0$6445$ [e-mail]:

None the less, I think that someone who thought they'd bought 'a tv' might be a little surprised to find that they couldn't actually just take it home and watch telly on it, without also buying a digital decoder, tuner, or pc with tv card.

I suppose I was using tuner as shorthand for 'thing what sends signal to your screen'.

We watch analogue on our plasma from time to time. Not that often, as we do have 2 sky boxes, but sometimes. We were certainly pleased to have it the day our first sky box died.

I agree that seeing the screens isn't a perfect guide, but nothing is! I trust Which about as far as I can throw my car, and the review sites are often contradictory / confusing. Having made a shortlist, going to an actual shop helped us make a decision.

We found it helped to judge things like build quality and general appearance as much as display quality.

Victoria

[Charles Middleton]

Hi,

Agreed - the picture is excellent.

No so, with advise from this group and others I fixed mine onto two wooden batons behind my plasterboard wall. Loads of screws and its still there to this day.

My Panasonic plasma has what's called pixel shift where it moves the picture around every so often to limit the effect.

Well I'm sure my Panasonic has around 40,000 hours life before it starts to degrade which must be similar to a CRT.

On some of the smaller sets yeah, I'm yet to see a decent sized one with a good picture.

Cant comment on the other aspects of LCD.

Also, don't view them at Dixons etc as they have every television connected to the same ariel and you wont get a true appreciation of how good/bad they are. I suggest going to somewhere like Selfridges where they tend to set them up properly and show reasonable demonstration material. I wouldn't suggest buying from there though as you can get one cheaper from else where.

Also, some of the plasma panels require an external tuner box. The new Panasonic Viera (?) range is classed as a Plasma TV and has built in digital tuner so you wont need one. I use a digital free view box and DVD player to feed my panel.

CM.

[Christian McArdle]

For most people, that would require professional assistance.

Christian.

[Christian McArdle]

Indeed. I use S-Video from the DVD when I remember. I decided to go with composite rather than RGB SCART for the rest, as my family find it difficult enough to control the system anyway without having to remember to switch the TV source independently from the sound source. The AV amp supports composite or S-Video switching (but won't reformat, so can't be mixed), but the cable box only supports RGB and composite, and the video is composite only.

However, the main purpose of the digital signal is (a) to get more channels and (b) to get widescreen. I can live with the PAL artifacts, even if they're not ideal.

Christian.

[Tim Mitchell]

In article , Charles Middleton writes

The "life" figure quoted is the (estimated) runtime till the screen is half the brightness it was to start with. It starts to degrade immediately. The problem with plasma screens are that they do not degrade evenly, consistently bright areas wear out faster.