Talk:Plasma display

Somebody mention the various prices over the years.

Any chance someone in the know could add a pros and cons section like over at the DLP page?

This article is not NPOV --Tykell 00:38, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is that a joke? What's POV about this article? --Cholling 20:10, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I gotta lol. If there's one thing that Wikipedia is reluctant to remove, no matter how ridiculous, it's an NPOV notice. --70.24.219.247 13:55, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've added a link that talks about pros and cons of both, as well as comparing them. Will give a short summary in the near future if time permits. The link is: www.plasma-vs-lcd.com Plasma vs. LCD - Comparison of Plasma TVs and LCD TVs

That page is not very accurate. For example it mentions phosphor and electron beams for plasma, when there is no such thing used in plasma displays. --Xerces8 (talk) 16:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, phosphor is the lining of every cell in a plasma display. The light photons react with the phosphor to create color. You'd be right about the electron beams as far as I know, but the phosphor stays :) 71.193.160.181 (talk) 22:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

article needs a pro con section or something similar

I do not think this article is very detail. It is neither as detail as LCD nor DLP screen technology. There is only one con section in this article, which talks about burn in. What about the stuff where sunlight hits the tv then the gas gets messed up or something similar that I heard of.

I would like to be able to compare the technologies better; however, this article is lacking for a comparison. Sp0 (talk) 22:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Possible Dangers

I found this link while doing a research project: [1] Any ideas on how it happened? Is it a consumer risk? Or just a rare occurence? However since this story has no proof behind in (no news references), it may just be spam. Still, I would like to know if anybody has any idea on whether or not it is an issue to be concerned about. Thanks much. 71.193.160.181 (talk) 02:09, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Pressure

Is partial vacuum necessary to create these noble gas plasmas? -- Beland 08:52, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Urban Legend

There seems to be an urban legend going around that plasma TVs have a working live of not much longer than 4 or 5 years... any information on this? it sounds incorrect to me... perhaps this myth could be debunked (or if it is true (unlikely)) confirmed. Hydroksyde 10:49, 23 July 2005 (UTC

As far as I know that's not right — [Mac Davis] (talk)

The earliest consumer models did suffer from an unacceptably high rate of premature panel failure, particularly when their price was taken into account. Sony stopped supplying Plasma panels in 2005 after being bombarded with complaints from early adopters. Five years was a pretty good lifespan for some early panels. It only takes one faulty transistor out of the thousands on a typical panel to make the panel unusable.

LCD screens run at much lower voltages and so are not nearly as prone to panel failure. Modern Plasma panels are much more reliable than they used to be, but I think 27 years is pretty unrealistic. In any case, it's far more likley some other more mundane component will fail before then, making the panel just as uneconomic to repair. Essentially a 27 year lifespan is not really appropriate for something that will probably get replaced for other reasons long before then.

Ultramince (talk) 04:25, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

SPAM ALERT =

The last external link (Plasma TV) goes to govinda.nu/electronics/tv/plasma-tv/index.htm where you can 'buy' Plasma TV at 'e-bay'

Another one: I removed the link to www.lcdplasmatvguide.com PDP TV Buying Guide, which has three blocks of ads on every page and barely any text. It's useless. -- Skierpage 23:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed "plasma drawbacks"

I removed the sentance:

The biggest drawbacks of plasma technology are the high cost, often lower resolution, and relatively short lifespan.

as these statements are basically refuted elsewhere in the article. While the resolution isn't specificially mentioned in the article (it should be), Plasma sets are now available in 1080p, the highest consumer resolution available. Additionall, the article states "in 2004 the cost has come down to US$1900 or less" and "So if you use it at an average of 2-1/2 hours a day, the PDP will last approximately 65 years."

I would take issue with any claims of long life. Waterloo station in London has had passenger information systems based on plasma displays for 3 years. Network Rail have had enough with the unacceptable maintenance costs as each display lasts for less than a year. So much so that in the early part of 2007, they are going to scrap the whole scheme and replace them with some (as yet undisclosed) technology. At any time several of the displays are unreadable. However, it should be noted that they are operational for nearly 20 hours a day.

86.132.205.207 17:22, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

 I know the man whose main business is in removal of scrap and waste material.  I was talking to him about the large scrapping of CRT based TVs at the present.  He told me that he scraps far more worn out plasma TVs than CRTs, and they are rarely more than 3 or 4 years old.  And the number of scrapped worn out plasmas is increasing, not decreasing as would be the case if the current breed of the technology was really lasting longer.

This accords very broadly with my observations where I work. We use plasma displays for customer presentation purposes, and they seldom give a burn free display for longer than about a year, and it becomes unacceptable after two years, necessitating scrap and replacement.

I B Wright 17:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Added sentence on IBM

I added sentence on IBM plasma displays in the early 1980's. As a young EE graduate in 1984, I was impressed by their orange on black plasma panels that IBM produced in their Kingston NY plant. I joined the company because I wanted to work on this technology (but got hired to do other work). I remember the display was divided into four quadrants which were used to display four separate mainframe 'virtual machine' (VM) sessions. Quite interesting for the time.

Illustration

I think it would be great if this article had excellent illustrations, like the CRT article, but I wouldn't know where to find a good one that wasn't copyrighted. Any help? Nicholasink 18:46, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I made a figure describing the composition of a PDP (matrix electrode model ACM). I also drew cells (WAFFLE), but I don't know if the ACM's use stripes instead. I have understood that nowadays the coplanar electrode structure is more advanced. Hope the figure is useful, though! Note: I am a newbie in drawing, so the result is far from perfect (made with inkscape). Yartsa 15:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Take a look in the Wikipedia image collection at [2]. It's a nice historic image of a U of Illinois monochrome plasma panel in a second generation Plato terminal. Shows how far things have come with this technology. 128.255.45.57 (talk) 19:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

History

The history section reads like an advertisement for Larry Weber's personality cult. I'm sure he is an impressive man who has had a lot to do with the development of plasma technology, but some of the material belongs in an article about him instead of the article about plasma technology. (E.g., the comment that as of 2008 he is back at work, and if he is successful plasmas might regain market share vs. LCDs. The point isn't if he is successful — it's that if anyone is successful. In any event, this whole sentence feels out of place in an encyclopedia article, whose purpose is not to predict future developments of the plasma/LCD battle for market-share.)Dsspiegel (talk) 13:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Pixel orbiting

I'm not familiar enough with the subject to write about it, but I believe pixel orbiting should at least briefly be discussed in the article. If not discussed, then maybe just mentioned here and addressed in another relevant article like Phosphor burn-in or even have its own article if it isn't trivial enough. --Kamasutra 00:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Brightness and Contrast

"Plasma displays are bright (1000 lx or higher for the module),"

Everywhere else I've seen display brightness (luminance) measured in cd/m^2. Lux means the amount of light that falls on a surface.

"For reference, the page you're reading now (on a computer monitor) is actually about 50:1."

That's only the case if you're reading the page on a CRT display with a white background and black text. LCD monitors don't suffer from internal reflections that "contaminate" dark areas with light from bright areas. Or, if your colors are reversed (white text on black background), a CRT monitor can give you 20000:1 contrast easily.

Lifespan

I think that modern plasma panels don't get dimmer after only 2000 hours. I have a plasma screen playing for more than 6 hours every day since 11/2004 and the only problem is a slight burn-in from the TV channel logos. --greekalien 10:48, 26 Aug 2006 (GMT+2)

The burn-in possibility should definitely be mentioned in the article. AxelBoldt 16:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

It is. Under 'Cons', though I believe that whoever contributed that has considerably underplayed the problem. Even real modern plasmas suffer severe burn in on static images. I B Wright 17:57, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

First sentence

where visible light is created by phosphors excited by a gas; discharge contains no mercury (in contrast to the backlights of an AMLCD).

Later in the article it explains that the phosphors are excited by photons created by ionized gas, I think this would be a bit more informative here [if it is true]. The sentence "discharge contains no mercury (in contrast to the backlights of an AMLCD)" remains obscure to me. What discharge are we talking about? Is the claim that the gas to be ionized doesn't contain mercury? Who would expect mercury in the gas anyway? AxelBoldt 16:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I reverted to an earlier version of the intro which was more informative. However, I have still one question regarding the operation of plasma displays. If my current understanding is correct, the applied voltage ionizes the gas, this produces ultraviolet photons, and these in turn light up the phosphors. I don't understand how and why the ionization produces photons. AxelBoldt 17:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone altered the first sentence to read 'A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display now commonly used for large TV displays are very bad and should not be bought (typically above 32").' I removed the part shown in bold. Warhead1954 11:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

First Paragraph

Great article. But should someone edit it to reflect that plasmas are being consdered superior again because of their superior resolution? --Ughmonster 11:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Why? It isn't true. In sizes where LCD panels are made, the Plasma panels have exactly the same resolution. Their only real difficulty is their unacceptably short life (in spite of claims to the contrary). I B Wright 17:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Plasma 10x more expensive>?????

This can't be true. By that logic, a 40" Plasma would cost $35,000+. Am I right???? Maybe 10% more expensive, not much more than that

Edit to pro and Cons

I took off the comment that the pros and cons are relative to LCD because there not (check the expensive comment) and removed the vandalism at the end of the cons section.

Buzzing at altitude

I heard there are problems using Plasmas at over +- 6,500 ft. altitutes; you get a loud buzzing noise. Is this true?

Certainly some of the plasma displays I've seen around 5,000 ft are noisy, but I don't know if that has anything to do with the altitude or not. They aren't ALL noisy, but some are worse than others. --Mdwyer 17:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I found this with a quick google: [3] Apparently, the pressure differential means the TV has to work harder, so you hear more eletrical buzzing and possible a louder cooling fan. --Mdwyer 18:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Fodel paste

Something to consider for inclusion: apparently there is a paste that is produced by DuPont which is used as an integral part of some plasma displays and which contains ruthenium. A new version of the paste is being developed by DuPont which will contribute to cost reductions in the manufacture of displays. Citation: Tadesse, Luladey B. (18 January 2007). "Upgraded DuPont material will improve plasma TVs". Delaware News-Journal. Retrieved 2007-01-18. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Power

I disagree with the statement, "Plasma displays use as much power per square meter as ... an AMLCD television." PDPs actually lower the drive when the APL is high, because the heat and power draw would be prohibitive. LCDs do not have this limitation. -- algocu 20:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

spam

Removed link to http://www.plasma-vs-lcd.com. Link leads to all ad site. Please watch for resubmission.

>> Actually, this seems like an info site to me. Just because it has ads on it doesn't make it spam.

Can anyone tell me the difference between an LCD TV and a plasma TV???

Anyone know the reason why laying a plasma screen hortizonal flat would be bad? Is it do to the glass possibly cracking or something with the gas internally? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.48.146 (talk) 05:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Picture data input

Is there anywhere any info how the picture data is "put" into the pixels on a typical plasma display (like a TV set)? One after another ? Line by line ? At what frequency ?

--Xerces8 (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, if anyone else is interested, I found this: (may not apply to all actual plasma displays) The picture is built line-by-line, until the entire frame is done. Then the next frame is displayed. In a line, all pixels are drawn at the same time. The "drawing" goes in several steps, as the pixels are on/off type, so different brightness values are done with Pulse-width_modulation. This can be done in 8 steps, for 8 bit input data. First a short pulse is used to lit each pixel (or not, according to the LSB of the pixels data). Then twice as long pulse is used, controlled by the second least significant bit of each pixel. And so on, until the eight pulse, which has 128 times the length as the first one. A certain type of plasma displays, called Alis (Alternate Lighting of Surfaces) imitates interlace by drawing odd lines in one go and then the even ones in the second go. Source: plasma_physics.pdf

--Xerces8 13:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Advertising?

"In an effort to stem the growing popularity of LCD panels in the market Vizio has unveiled a 32" plasma television which will debut shortly. This set will use a 32" panel made by LG. This set promises to offer contrast ratios that greatly exceed those of competing LCD TVs in the size range. This segment previously has been limited to LCD TVs, and will offer another choice of plasma display technology to consumers in a smaller size allowing them to sample both technologies and recognize some of the benefits offered by plasma technology."

Could this be taken as a form of advertising and/or bias? Bizzmag (talk) 12:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)