Perşembe, Mayıs 26, 2005
LCD vs. Plasma Screen Displays
Technology Overview & Description
Liquid Crystal Display, or LCD TVs use a florescent backlight to send light through its liquid crystal molecules and a polarizing substrate. LCD TVs work passively, with red, green and blue pixels. By applying voltage to the pixels using a matrix of wires, the pixels can be darkened to prevent the backlight from showing through. Many LCD displays double as computer displays by allowing standard analogue VGA input, a great option if you need your display to pull double duty as a PC monitor to save money and space. Nearly all LCD TVs offer flexible mounting options including walls or under cabinets.
What’s Next
Bigger, faster, cheaper. LCD screens are just starting to break the size barrier that once held them back (with some models getting as large as 55”) and it will be up to the manufacturing plants to convert or expand to the point where these larger screens become affordable and economical to produce. LCDs are not the best for contrast ratios, but they are getting better and the “blur” effect, where the pixels cannot refresh fast enough for the screen motion, is extinct in newer models.
Philips 42FD9954 Flat Screen LCD Display
Plasma Screen Televisions & Displays Technology Overview & Description
Plasma screens are basically a network of red, green and blue phosphors (each triad makes up a single pixel) mounted between two thin layers of glass. Plasma screens use a small electric pulse for each pixel to excite the rare natural gases argon, neon and xenon used to produce the color information and light. As electrons excite the phosphors, oxygen atoms dissipate and create plasma, emitting UV light. These rare gases actually have a life and fade over time.
Here’s the cool part: because all the phosphor-excited pixels react at the same time, there is never any flicker apparent to the viewer. There’s also no backlight and no projection of any kind, so the light-emitting phosphors, result in a bright display with a penchant for rich color and a wide viewing angle.
What are phosphors? Phosphors are chemical compounds on back glass that emit the visible light that makes up the picture we see. Hit them with light and they react by producing an amount of red, green or blue. On a direct-view television (CRT, or cathode ray tube) the phosphors are on the front glass and are excited by a beam of electrons from the cathode-ray. On plasma monitors the phosphors are excited by UV light produced by electromagnetically charged plasma.
Plasma screens are sometimes viewed as a wonder of the modern world, and most of their attention comes from their flat presentation and large screen sizes. They are able to be produced in sizes up to 80” (though not common) and yield a very nice picture. The downside is that they are power-hungry (not to be confused with the environmentally-friendly LCD screens) and really need to be professionally installed due to their fragile nature. You may enjoy watching commercials with plasma screens hanging on the ceiling, but even Philips will tell you that their screens do much better hanging on a wall (by a professional) or placed on a stand.
What’s Next?
Extinction. You heard it here first. Unless plasma displays can miraculously adapt and compete in terms of longevity, brightness, (true) contrast ratio, power consumption and burn-in, the technology is on its way out. As LCD displays become cheaper, faster and more competitive, plasma will be seen for the stop-gap that it truly is.
References:
http://www.audioholics.com/
http://www.flattvpeople.com/
Liquid Crystal Display, or LCD TVs use a florescent backlight to send light through its liquid crystal molecules and a polarizing substrate. LCD TVs work passively, with red, green and blue pixels. By applying voltage to the pixels using a matrix of wires, the pixels can be darkened to prevent the backlight from showing through. Many LCD displays double as computer displays by allowing standard analogue VGA input, a great option if you need your display to pull double duty as a PC monitor to save money and space. Nearly all LCD TVs offer flexible mounting options including walls or under cabinets.
What’s Next
Bigger, faster, cheaper. LCD screens are just starting to break the size barrier that once held them back (with some models getting as large as 55”) and it will be up to the manufacturing plants to convert or expand to the point where these larger screens become affordable and economical to produce. LCDs are not the best for contrast ratios, but they are getting better and the “blur” effect, where the pixels cannot refresh fast enough for the screen motion, is extinct in newer models.
Philips 42FD9954 Flat Screen LCD DisplayPlasma Screen Televisions & Displays Technology Overview & Description
Plasma screens are basically a network of red, green and blue phosphors (each triad makes up a single pixel) mounted between two thin layers of glass. Plasma screens use a small electric pulse for each pixel to excite the rare natural gases argon, neon and xenon used to produce the color information and light. As electrons excite the phosphors, oxygen atoms dissipate and create plasma, emitting UV light. These rare gases actually have a life and fade over time.
Here’s the cool part: because all the phosphor-excited pixels react at the same time, there is never any flicker apparent to the viewer. There’s also no backlight and no projection of any kind, so the light-emitting phosphors, result in a bright display with a penchant for rich color and a wide viewing angle.
What are phosphors? Phosphors are chemical compounds on back glass that emit the visible light that makes up the picture we see. Hit them with light and they react by producing an amount of red, green or blue. On a direct-view television (CRT, or cathode ray tube) the phosphors are on the front glass and are excited by a beam of electrons from the cathode-ray. On plasma monitors the phosphors are excited by UV light produced by electromagnetically charged plasma.
Plasma screens are sometimes viewed as a wonder of the modern world, and most of their attention comes from their flat presentation and large screen sizes. They are able to be produced in sizes up to 80” (though not common) and yield a very nice picture. The downside is that they are power-hungry (not to be confused with the environmentally-friendly LCD screens) and really need to be professionally installed due to their fragile nature. You may enjoy watching commercials with plasma screens hanging on the ceiling, but even Philips will tell you that their screens do much better hanging on a wall (by a professional) or placed on a stand.
What’s Next?
Extinction. You heard it here first. Unless plasma displays can miraculously adapt and compete in terms of longevity, brightness, (true) contrast ratio, power consumption and burn-in, the technology is on its way out. As LCD displays become cheaper, faster and more competitive, plasma will be seen for the stop-gap that it truly is.
References:
http://www.audioholics.com/
http://www.flattvpeople.com/
