I need some help with deciding to go with Plasma or LCD. I heard that Plasma's can have burn images on their screens. Any and all info will be greatly appreciated.

There are a lot of factors here. Price is first and foremost in my mind as a lot of things change as your budget increases, or decreases for that matter. Just for giggles though, lets say we are looking at similiarly priced 50" units. Plasma right off the bat is going to have a “deeper” picture in that the blacks are truly black (or as close as one can get to a CRTs performance in this form), the colors tend to come off more realistic, and there is less ghosting and blurring in fast motion sequences. Although I have seen many a cheapo plasma suffer from gridding, I see it almost across the board with LCD save a few of the newer Sony XBR LCD panels, Toshiba LCDs, and …believe it or not, Panasonic LCDs.

LCDs tend to be a little higher resolution in relation to price, but the higher native resolution doesn’t necessarily mean that that particular mfr didn’t decide to use conversion software that makes standard broadcast TV look terrible. Something I think I find more endemic to LCD than plasma, even when I fiddle with the settings for a while. LCDs are marginally lighter than equivalent plasmas, but it isn’t like we are talking CRTs, this is not a truly pressing issue. LCDs most prominent feature is the fact that they do have the same fairly in your face risk of burn in. Leave a static image on an LCD panel for long enough, yes there will be some effect, but not like what one would see by leaving a bright static image on a plasma for just 12 hours.

Before I go into why I think that overall plasma is the way to go for mid sized flat panels, keep in mind when you go into a big box, whether Best Buy, Fry’s, Circuit City, Tweeter, Good Guys etc, you are in a bright environment with light provided by metal halide bulbs, lots of them. This VERY blue spectrum of light will effect how the panels look in the store. Also keep in mind that the vast majority of these stores pull the product out of the box, throw it on the shelf, turn it on and hook up the ungodly poor quality feed and walk away. No tweaking, no optimizing, nothing. This too will heavily color (lol, see what I did there…?) your impressions. Once you find a panel you like, find the remote and start tweaking…. If the staff even knows where it is any more.

Plasma provides a cleaner more color accurate picture in my opinion. I find the blacks to be fairly smooth without the classic LCD graying effect. I find that bright lines have less bleed and less perceived crawl on diagonals (when viewing standard broadcasts). The blues and reds seem deeper and richer and the picture doesn’t exhibit the almost Matrixesque green tinge I see with many LCD units. Burn in with plasma is a fact. Keep that in mind. If you are a gamer, don’t get a plasma, consider LCDs or better yet, slim fit DLPs which I would recommend all day every day over LCD panels unless space is the primary issue for purchase. Pioneer insists, and they make a LOOOOOOOOOOOT of plasmas, that there is a repair cycle for even severe burn in, I get preferred mail from them weekly, but ask yourself this? Do you really want to go that route? Unable to use your set for maybe as much as a week, unsure if your gaming just destroyed the usefulness of a $4000 . . well . . .possibly paperweight? What if the cat just happens to turn on FNN when you go away for three days and the ticker scrolls for 72 hours at high contrast…. Oy. Lifespan is still underreported by the LCD pushers. Plasma life spans are now estimated at 90,000 hrs for some of the super premium sets, but neither LCD nor plasma is really ideal for brightly lit rooms. Plasma is much happier in a dark environment.

Ok, sure I have made some broad comments here. I am not saying there aren’t higher priced LCDs I have seen that wouldn’t easily blow some cheaper plasmas out of the water, but it would be in that form. Conversely I have seen lower priced plasmas perform admirably well next to similar sized expensive LCDs. A good example of this is the Dell plasma, you know what, It’s a heck of a plasma for the price and has a very attractive form factor.

The bottom line I think, and this is what I tell most folks, go look at the unit with your eyes and see what YOU think. I tend to be overly critical sometimes, I also tend to be far more nit picky than 90% of the ppl around me. Don’t let me tell you what to get, let your eyes decide, well, that and your wallet.


Oops, am I running at the fingers?

Some very non-technical advice:

I still have trouble with the LCD TV - I feel like I'm watching movies on a computer - it's just not quite there yet for me.

Plasma seems to just give a better picture, from what I've sampled.

xoxo Robin