Plasma TV's

The first noticeable thing about plasma TV is the brilliance of the color. The blacks are really black in contrast to the brightness of the color. Powered with 1000 lux, this TV provides a wide color gamut. They are produced in only large sized TVs, 40 inches to 150 inches and they are quite thin, about 6 inches.

They expect these TVs to last about 100,000 hours or about 25–27 years. When they start to fail they will not go out all at once but will grow progressively dimmer.

Some of the intrinsic problems with plasma TV is the possibility of permanent burn-in on the screen. This can happen if you watch such programs as national news programs which have a continual news bar at the bottom of the screen. This can eventually cause a burn-in. For most people, that will never happen. Another problem is that the screen is made of glass, which reflects backlight much more than the material used in LCD TVs. If you have a window behind your seating position you will be bothered by this reflection. A solution to this problem is to install drapes on the windows. Some of the newer plasma TVs have an anti-glare filter installed at the factory. Another problem is that they are thicker than the LCDs. They are usually 6 inches in depth and are bulky. The Samsung LED is about 2 inches in depth.

The display panel is made up of hundreds of thousands of tiny cells placed between two plates of glass. Each cell is wired to a control which changes the voltage difference creating photons which emit light. Each cell is coated with three different colored phosphors. The photons emitted by the plasma gives off colored light. The mixture of the triad of lights creates about every possible color. This is known as the RBG (red-blue-green) system.