Un buen recordatorio de lo que es el plasma y de lo que es el lcd.
http://www.plasma-lcd-facts.co.uk/guide/comparison/
Plasma
LCD
Contrast
plasma Intense blacks, realistic colours and tones
lcd Bright whites, greyish blacks
Colour
plasma Widest gamut of colours
lcd Vivid colours
Screen size
plasma Best suits larger screens
lcd Best suits smaller screens
Response time
plasma Best crisp, detailed motion
lcd Not ideal for handling fast motion
Resolution
plasma HDTV Ready
lcd HDTV Ready
Sharpness
plasma Very naturalistic
lcd Unnatural rendering
Image processing
plasma Focuses on picture enhancement
lcd Focuses on countering LCD weaknesses
Screen
plasma Uses screen-savers, durable surface (eg. glass, Perspex)
lcd Susceptible to damage such as touching
Viewing angle
plasma Widest viewing angle without loss
lcd Prone to Wash Out
Value
plasma Best for big screens
lcd Best for small screens
Plasma and LCD myths
Response time (Motion)
Why does it matter?
A screen’s response time is a measure of how fast its pixels can complete one full picture ‘cycle’, so that they’re ready to play a part in the next frame of the picture.
Screens with long response times can have problems refreshing every element in their pictures rapidly enough to keep up with fast motion, resulting in moving objects looking blurred and smeared.
Myth
Flat TVs have trouble retaining resolution when displaying fast moving images.
Fact
Plasma TVs can present moving objects without loss of crispness or detail.Plasma technology needs only one impulse per pixel to produce an image therefore its response time is almost instantaneous.
LCD technology requires pixels to go from active – to inactive -and back to active again, to achieve a single response cycle; their response time can measure anywhere between 4 milliseconds to and 25 milliseconds. Even the fastest LCD screens can suffer with some degree of movement blurring.
Viewing angle
Why does it matter?
If you get yourself a nice big TV, there’s one other thing you tend to get as a side effect: lots of friends! Yes, it’s remarkable how popular people with big TVs suddenly become when there’s a key football match on! The last thing you want is for people forced to sit to the side of the TV on these communal viewing occasions to have to suffer severe reductions in image quality just because your TV can’t sustain its picture integrity from wide viewing angles.
Myth
Flat TVs have poor viewing angles, meaning pictures lose much of their quality unless you’re sat directly in front of the screen.
Fact
Plasma TVs can actually be watched from very wide viewing angles without any significant loss in colour or contrast, thanks to the fact that they emit light directly from each of their screen cells or pixels.
However, LCD pixels merely ‘pass on’ a light originating from a single point behind them, therefore LCD screens can lose contrast and colour if watched from angles as small as 45 degrees.
Screen burn
Why does it matter?
Screen burn, or ‘burn in’, can occur with some TVs if you leave a particularly bright image element, like a channel logo, on screen for too long at a time. What happens is that the phosphors can eventually ‘tire’ where that logo is located, leaving a permanent shadow of the bright picture element behind. Obviously this is a very undesirable situation – especially as there’s no real way of getting rid of burn in once it’s occurred.
Myth
Plasma TVs are seriously prone to burn in.
Fact
In the early days, plasma TVs were susceptible to screen burn. However, this issue has been largely eliminated thanks to greater use of built-in screen-saving systems and major phosphors improvements.
Example
You can now play computer games or watch logo-heavy channels (e.g. CNN) on a plasma TV without worrying about various static image elements being on the screen for a long period of time.
Energy use
Why does it matter?
With environmental and green issues becoming increasingly important, it’s reassuring to know that your choice of large screen TV is ecologically sound.
Myth
Plasma TVs use more power than their LCD rivals.
Fact
The reality is that plasma TVs don’t necessarily use any more power than LCDs – a fact which makes perfect sense if you think about how each technology works.
Plasma TVs, for instance, require just a single ignition of a plasma cell to cause a pixel to illuminate. Since darkness is achieved in plasma pixels by stopping electrical current getting into them, it follows that plasma TVs need relatively little power to reproduce dark scenes.
LCDs by comparison run at a constant power regardless of whether a scene is dark or light, due to their use of an always-on backlight.
Results from an independent research conducted by the AVT.O.P. Messetechnik laboratory in Germany, showed that plasmas tend to use the same – and sometimes less – amounts of power than LCD screens.
Lifespan
Why does it matter?
Although they’re great value these days, large flat TVs are still a considerable investment for most households. Therefore anyone who’s purchasing one needs to ensure that it will give them many years of enjoyment.
Myth
Plasma screens have a shorter lifespan than LCD screens.
Fact
Plasma TVs actually have a lifespan that’s at least equal to that of LCD TVs. TVs using either technology will provide at least 60,000 hours of life under normal viewing conditions before they lose more than half their original brightness. This translates to 27 years of continuous viewing for six hours a day.
Plasma screens can actually be made to last even longer depending on the picture settings you use. For instance, keeping the contrast low could potentially extend a plasma screen’s life
End to end production
Why does it matter?
If a TV is made using components sourced from a wide variety of third party companies, it’s inevitable that those components won’t ‘gel together’ as well as those in a TV made completely from components developed by the same, single manufacturer.
TVs that combine multiple out-sourced components are also prone to suffer the ‘weakest link’ effect, where weaknesses in a single component can let everything else down.
Myth
Plasma and LCD TVs alike are built using bits and pieces sourced from a variety of different manufacturers.
Fact
Generally, Plasma TVs tend to be developed and built completely ‘in-house’.
In the early days of plasma TV, most manufacturers tended to develop their own plasma research and technology, leading to a situation where many companies now have plasma production as an integrated business model. This means that from the panels to processing, plasma screens are generally made entirely within each particular company, giving them total control over the quality of their products.
LCD TVs, on the other hand, are generally built by using a variety of third-party components, with all the quality assurance issues that entails. And even more confusingly, LCD TVs are traditionally ‘OEM’d’ –some companies buy them from another manufacturer and simply put their own brand logo on them. So with LCD, the name on the front of the TV screen you buy may not necessarily be the name of the company that built the main part of the product.
Example
LCD screens are manufactured predominantly by ‘third parties’ and then sold separately on to different brands for use them in their own LCD TVs. This method can be helpful in keeping production costs low, but buying the core screen component from a third party also reduces the opportunities for individual brands to improve, develop and apply their own quality controls to the final products they release.
This situation also compromises competition in the LCD arena, as LCD TVs from two well-known rival brands might actually have the same core LCD panel inside, reducing the potential for each brand to develop a quality difference.
When you purchase a plasma screen you can almost always be sure that the technology has been developed specifically by the brand on the front to give you the best viewing experience, without compromise.
