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Plasma Televisions

The plasma screen display was first created in 1964 by Donald L. Bitzer and H. Gene Slottow. It never successfully competed with CRT displays until recently, due to the high cost and a few technical issues like the lifespan of the technology. With the huge increase in interest for home cinema systems the plasma display was in prime position to take advantage. The traditional CRT technology cannot support screens much above 36 inches, and rear projection suffers from poor picture quality. What's the advantages of plasma then?, they perform well under most natural and artificial lighting conditions, improved colour saturation compared to LCD, displays a true black colour, support screens over 60 inches, are typically only 4 inches in depth, can be mounted on walls, future proof, the picture doesn't suffer in quality when viewed from any angle, costs less than LCDs for larger screen sizes. What's the disadvantages of plasma? LCD displays have improved resolution levels, they use more power than LCD or CRT, only last a maximum of 10 years (however this is a problem manufacturers are improving upon), fragile and can easily be damaged, once pixels are damaged due to burn-in they cannot easily be repaired, they are not available in sizes below 37 inches.

HD Ready?

Now that Sky is offering High Definition programme channels, what does a plasma display require to be HD Ready?

- HDTV uses 720 or 1080 horizontal lines of detail to give a sharper clearer picture.(Standard broadcasts are 576). Therefore screens must meet a minimum resolution standard of 1024 x 720 to be HD Ready.
- Use progressive-scan to offer viewers a flicker-free viewing experience.
- HDMI/DVI input.
- HDTV native resolution is 1920×1080, most plasma displays do not currently match this standard.