And Then There Were Two

	And Then There Were Two Plasma and LCD displays duke it out by Gary Kayye, CTS

	Five years ago, Mitsubishi shocked the world during NAB when it announced that it was out of the CRT manufacturing business. Mitsubishi said that it wanted to transition all consumer and professional screens over 20" from CRT to Plasma -- dubbed the "screen of the future." Flat, at only four inches deep, and using some of the same performance properties as CRT with a phosphor-based color system, the Plasma was off and running, with an advanced technology that left bulky presentation CRT monitors an artifact of display history. By, 2000, the Plasma was the direct-view monitor of choice for virtually every ProAV display application over 27". But, like the CRT, Plasma still has that nagging burn-in issue -- static images displayed for long periods of time are burned into the phosphor elements inside the Plasma. Despite burn-in potential, the advantages of the thin, flat display outweighed the disadvantages, as Plasma displays became practical in applications where they would have never considered them before. Not only are they being used in conference rooms and boardrooms, you now find them in airports, retail stores, kiosks, lobbies and even in fast food restaurants. Plasma has truly helped create the new cottage industry of dynamic signage, where content is changed to suit the audience's (or advertiser's) preferences for information at any given time. [an error occurred while processing this directive] Fast forward to 2003. Now, here comes LCD – Liquid Crystal Displays. Once relegated to digital watch displays, the new, new thing appears to be flat-screen LCD technology in everything from PDA (personal digital assistants) to back-seat entertainment center displays in cars to the ultimate in flat-screen, light-weight TVs. This time, however, so far, Sharp and Samsung seem to be leading the pack with a host of large-format LCD screens. 37", 40" and soon 46 & 50-inch LCD screens boast the same ergonomic and aesthetic characteristics of Plasma, but without that nagging burn-in. Although vast improvements in plasma technology have made burn-in less of an issue, it is still inherent to the technology. Liquid Crystal Technology in large format, flat-panel displays work virtually identical to those in laptop screens where a back-light passes white light through red, green or blue LCD windows. Put hundreds of thousands or even millions of these little windows together and you have a large-format 40" display. But, LCD can weigh 50-75% less than plasma – of course the power supply, in some cases, and electronics may be housed in a separate box that's either racked or set on a shelf. In fact, at January's CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, a host of manufacturers were demonstrating LCDs that were upwards of 40" diagonally that could be lifted and moved by one person under one arm. So, now there are two technologies vying for the attention of millions, if not billions eventually, of buyers of flat-screen, large format televisions and monitors. The consumer market with its sheer size and volume will eventually decide the winner of that technology battle, but in the mean time, the ProAV market early adopters are leading the technology adoption curve. And, so far, Plasma has a huge advantage. Not only is Plasma five years ahead of the curve of LCD, but factories are cranking them out by the tens of thousands. Source: Kayye Consulting, Inc. 1 2 Next