Should I Buy A Plasma TV?

The full name of Plasma TV is Plasma Display Panel, which is called Plasma TV in Chinese. It is a device that injects a mixed gas between two ultra-thin glass plates and applies voltage to use phosphors to emit light. Compared with the CRT picture tube display, it has the characteristics of high resolution, large screen, ultra-thin, colorful and vivid. Compared with LCD, it has the characteristics of high brightness, high contrast, large viewing angle, bright colors and rich interfaces.

Plasma television

Over the years, the industry has circulated such a sentence: "Outsiders buy LCDs, insiders buy plasmas

Compare with LCD TV

LCD TVs can compete with plasma TVs only over 42 inches. Take the 45-inch LCD TV launched by Sharp in 2006 as an example. Its market price is nearly 70,000 yuan, while the price of plasma TVs with the same display area has dropped to less than 20,000 yuan. It still takes a short time for the price of LCD TVs to fall within the similar price band of plasma TVs of the same specifications. The cause of this situation is mainly due to the low yield in the manufacturing process of large-screen liquid crystal display panels, which can not reduce the cost. The technology of large-screen liquid crystal display panels is still in a relatively closed state, and there is still no competition for mass production in the world, and there are also large differences in quality.

A survey by German authoritative computer magazine "Macwelt" shows that although the LCD screen emits much less radiation than ordinary displays, but because it is too bright, it is more likely to make our eyes tired, and may even cause headaches, etc. symptom. Researchers have pointed out that when the brightness of the display reaches 100cd per square meter (that is, the luminous intensity unit "Candela"), it has already caused some impact on the eyes. However, the luminous intensity of the LCD screens they tested exceeded 300cd per square meter, and some even reached 400cd-500cd.

German computer expert Dr. Weihain, who led the survey, said that not only LCD computers but also LCD TVs have this problem. In order to increase the clarity of these LCD TVs, in addition to relying on the light pipe behind the screen to increase the brightness, they also commonly use a special "polishing technology" to make the display surface look like a glass, which looks very texture, and Improved screen color contrast and saturation. However, it also reflects light like glass. Especially when the light hits the screen, it will increase the light reflection. Consumers using this type of display are easily "stabbed" by light and produce symptoms of eye fatigue, which can slowly cause health problems such as vision loss and headaches.

Comparison of advantages and disadvantages of plasma and LCD TV
	Plasma TV	LCD TV
advantage	1. Good color reproduction ability and natural display colors; 2. Large dark field dynamic range and rich image layering; 3. Small image smearing time and high dynamic sharpness; 4. Large viewing angle and good brightness uniformity; 5. Easy to achieve large screen.	1. Complete size and model, covering size; 2. Small size, relatively thin, and low power consumption; 3. No inter-line and large area flicker in the image; 4. High brightness, display image is transparent and bright; 5. Not easy to cause residual Shadow and burn-in phenomenon.
Disadvantage	1. Less screen size, no small size models; 2. Larger size, larger weight, higher power consumption; 3. Easy to burn screen due to high temperature discharge; 4. Low screen brightness, more grainy Obvious; 5, the heat is larger, and the noise is more obvious.	1. The viewing angle for viewing images is small; 2. Motion images are prone to smearing; 3. LED high-energy blue light is too high in brightness, damages vision, is prone to light leakage, and has poor uniformity in full screen brightness; 4. Small dark field dynamic range, contrast Poor; 5. Poor color reduction ability and small color coverage.

Advantage

The advantages are high brightness, good color reproducibility, rich grayscale, fast response to rapidly changing pictures, and wide field of vision

In the past, a large number of mainstream TVs were made by the same technology, that is,

Plasma display screen (hereinafter referred to as PDP) is a new-generation display device using plasma flat screen technology developed rapidly in recent years. It originated in the United States in the early sixties of the last century. The basic principle and technology of PDP is different from other display systems. It uses Matrix mode to display images. Its picture is composed of countless pixels (dots). Some of the special glass on the front and back are marked with some. Inert gas, voltage is injected into each pixel through the address electrodes on the rear glass substrate and the transparent address electrodes on the front glass substrate. The pixels that are injected with voltage will therefore emit ultraviolet light (Ultra Violet), causing The red, green, and blue primary color phosphors respond accordingly to produce visible light of various colors.

Since the advent of the PDP in the 1960s, its development has been remarkable. Because the injected voltage is divided into AC AC and DC DC, PDP is also divided into AC PDP and DC PDP. At present, AC PDP (AC-PDP) technology has become more mature and commercialized; while DC PDP (DC-PDP) technology is also evolving. Compared with AC-PDP, DC-PDP has a more complex screen structure than AC-PDP, its cost is slightly higher than the former, and it is slightly inferior to AC-PDP in terms of brightness and life efficiency, so it is not as widely used as the former.

Currently, PDP manufacturers in the world are mainly Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Sharp, Philips of the Netherlands, Photonic, Plasma of the United States and Thomson of France. Domestic production (assembly) manufacturers include Changhong, SVA , TCL, Haier, etc. It has gained attention in just a few years because of its many advantages:

Slim and lightweight

Since the advent of televisions, CRT kinescope technology has been the mainstream of display technology. Although CRT kinescopes have improved in brightness, contrast, and resolution for decades, their thickness and bulkiness have not changed. The larger the screen, the larger the screen. More serious. A 38-inch CRT color TV is about 800mm thick and weighs 90kg, and a 43-inch (4: 3)

Plasma TV screens have undergone roughly four stages of development in recent years. The first-generation screen has a brightness of less than 550 nits and a contrast ratio of 500: 1. The second-generation screen has a brightness of 700 nits and a contrast ratio of 1000: 1. The third-generation screen has a brightness of 1000-1200 nits and a contrast ratio of 3000: 1 to 5000: 1. The fourth-generation screen has a brightness of 1300-1500 nits and a contrast ratio of 10,000: 1. It has been updated to the fifteenth generation screen, and some plasmas below 10,000 yuan have appeared on the market. The low price makes many consumers tempted.

As flat-panel TVs began to rise, plasma TVs and LCD TVs were evenly matched. The reason why plasma TVs can compete with monotonous size products and product line layout LCD TVs at the beginning of the competition is largely due to the inherent technical advantages of plasma TVs: the principle of display technology is destined from innate In view of the viewing advantages of plasma TVs, at that time, when we read documents such as experts' evaluations, we could easily receive this message: plasma screens are more suitable for TV screens, and LCD screens are more suitable for computer screens. The plasma screen display is clear, and the performance of moving pictures is far superior to LCD TVs.

The advantages in the trailing phenomenon of moving pictures make plasma TV the pursuit of many game enthusiasts. Of course, at the beginning, there were no online games or smart TVs. Just simple games or war martial arts were enough to make fans prefer. Plasma TV. Time shifted to 2010, when 3D TV began to prevail, in fact, plasma TV also found a feeling of rejuvenation in a short time. 3D display technology and plasma display screens have a natural demand for each other, and domestic TV company Changhong also emphasized this at that time. At that time, it seemed that time and place were all there was. The only thing was the lack of people: the plasma that had been silent for too long had begun to make more people no longer believe.

Therefore, the era when the plasma LCD chamber resisted, Panasonic, Hitachi, and other domestic brands were doing their best. The era when other brands followed suit but did not leave the scene was destined to become history. When I visited the home appliance store, I have carefully watched all the TV brands' products, and found that plasma TV technology can only be seen in Panasonic and Changhong, and even Changhong has gradually begun to focus on LCD TVs and plasma TVs. It's a little bit hard to find. I saw in the store that some people who buy TVs will not consider plasma TVs at all. Of course, some people who like to play games will still consider large-size plasma TVs, but this is not the mainstream after all. Relevant store data statistics show that plasma TV's on-shelf rate has been reduced to only about 2% of the market. In 2012, global plasma TV shipments were only 13 million units, and LCD TVs were as high as 200 million units. It can be seen that global TV shipments fell by 3% year-on-year, but LCD TVs increased by 4% year-on-year and plasma TVs fell by 19%.

The failure of plasma TV is doomed: Although the company's stubborn adherence to plasma display technology has improved its unique position, it has also accelerated the isolation of plasma TV. When the two major display technologies were just emerging, most companies were on the sidelines, followed the trend, or chose one of them as the new leader. Other companies did not see the hope of mastering plasma display technology, so they chose LCD and desperately carried out technology research and development with a view to Become a new leader. As a result, we have all seen that more and more LCD TVs have more and more products, and the market has naturally become wider and wider. In contrast, plasma, except for the original Hitachi and later Changhong, almost all other companies are playing soy sauce. The mentality is not as indestructible as the LCD TV. Plasma TV went a narrower and narrower path until there was no way to go, so it had to suffocate itself from the people. ^[3]

If you want to make a list of the most regrettable retired technology, plasma TV is definitely on the list.

Reason for defeat

From the product itself, the performance of plasma is even better than that of liquid crystals. As for the market's last lag behind liquid crystals, the important reason is that plasma's past mentality is too conservative. When these two technologies just started to rise more than a decade ago, it was not clear which technology could represent the future direction of flat-panel TVs. The Panasonic-based plasma camp has adopted a relatively conservative strategy in the development process. For example, it is unwilling to share its technology with others and unwilling to share panel resources with others, resulting in fewer and fewer companies joining this camp. The LCD industry is relatively open-minded, and technology can be shared, which has led to more and more companies joining the LCD camp. Moreover, LCD panels can be used on smartphones, computers, and tablets, which not only expands their scale advantages, but also finds a way to digest their inventory and outdated technology, and also effectively dilutes costs ^[1] .

Only a few Japanese manufacturers, including Panasonic, Hitachi, Pioneer, etc. have mastered the core technology of plasma. Except for Japanese manufacturers, other markets around the world rarely have capital investment in plasma panel production lines. Not only that, because the plasma camp is mainly Panasonic's choice of beams, and Panasonic hopes to use plasma advantages to get rid of followers, and has a strong sense of confidentiality in technology, is unwilling to share with other companies, for fear of being copied and imitated by peers, and even more Form a strategic alliance with any enterprise, and want to enlarge the plasma industry on its own. It is also in this context that most manufacturers have retreated, and started to develop the LCD industry, which stimulated a large amount of funds to be used every year to expand the LCD panel production line. The situation of big technology camps.

Timetable for major companies to fade out of the plasma market

Since 2007, Pioneer, Hitachi and other plasma manufacturers have announced their withdrawal from the plasma market.

Sony: Exited in 2004 and later denied it. It was confirmed in August 2006.
Toshiba: It was reported in 2004 that it will withdraw in 2005, and then confirmed the withdrawal.
Fujitsu: The exit was reported in January 2005 and confirmed in February 2005.
Philips: Exited in March 2007 and later denied it. The exit was confirmed in September 2007 and completely withdrawn in 2009.
Pioneer: It was reported in March 2008 that it would withdraw from the manufacture of plasma panels, which was later confirmed. Completed withdrawal in March 2009.
Hitachi: Exited in September 2008 and later denied it. It officially withdrew in February 2012.
Panasonic: In 2011, it gradually contracted its plasma panel business and increased its investment in the LCD business. Production was announced in November 2013, and all plasma operations will cease in March 2014.
Changhong: In October 2012, the acquisition of Orion PDP from Changhong Group was terminated, and LCD shipments exceeded Plasma. ^[1]