I had heard the stories about the short life of Plasma displays and almost believed them. until I read about an airport that has been using them for years without much degradation in picture quality.

Recently I asked a employee of CCity about why I was seeing larger and larger LCD TV's upwards of 32 inches when a person could get a nice 42 inch Plasma HD instead.

He told me that LCD's will continue to increase in size because they are much more reliable than Plasmas. He says LCD TV's will last for a very long time but you can not expect more than about 5 years out of a Plasma before you start having trouble.

Is he referring to Plasmas made years ago that may not have had all the bugs worked out of them ?

In addition a coworker told me that a Bar Restaurant he frequents has several Plasmas and two of them are displaying a problem at the top of the screen where the cells are dying and turning a green color. He thinks it is gravity related but that was just a guess. ANd not from dropping the display !!!

So my question is "Is there anyone that has owned a Plasma for a long time and had any problems with picture quality ?"

Thanks DOn B

Sounds like burn-in at that bar. I don't think gravity could have any such effect. Plasmas are subject to burn-in, which is permanent and can be considered the death of the TV, IMO. Saw the exact same issue at the QVC store at the Mall of America, where they show their own channel all day long. Greenish burn-in ruined their first set of TVs. You could see part of their sales bars 100% of the time in green haze. Not exactly sure why it was greenish, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation. Last time I was dragged there I noticed they had replaced them with LCDs instead.

Spikey,

I am going to try and get to the Bar and see formyself.

Maybe the bar keeps something on the top of the screen that causes burn in.

Don

My first thought at a bar was those silly ESPN bars, although they are on the bottom, not the top.

If EBAY can be any judge I would say that the used Plasmas being sold with problems fall into a few categories:

1. Broken Glass
2. Smudged area on screen.
3. Electronic Problems
4. A line thru the screen in a vertical or Horizontal direction.
5. Just plain outdated Plasmas with few I/O choices or Monitor only.
6. Internal Fans failing

I can't see any obvious Plasma trend failure to scare me away "Other than Price"

-Don B

This message was edited by barlow on 11/02/04 13:42 ET.

From what I've read, the problem with Plasmas is that they picture degrads over time. This means that it's not very noticeable and you would get used to the picture as it's happening and not realize that the picture isn't as clear and bright as it was when the Plasma was new. However, if you were to have a brand new Plasma and the exact same Plasma display that was a few years old side by side, you would notice the difference.

The problem with all CRT based technologies is that the phosphor coating on the CRT degrades over time. Burn-in is the speeding up of this process. This means that plasma, tube, and most RPTVs are all similar in this. If you could find the exact same tube TV that you bought 10 years ago brand new on the shelf today, you would see the same problem.

FWIW, other technologies have other time-degrading issues. All digital front projectores have a bulb that, not only has a limited lifespan, but also the color degrades with use before it dies. These also have issues with the lamp affecting other pieces of the PJ, things like yellowing the lens.

What I'm saying is, don't be scared off from plasma just because the set will eventually die. I haven't see a TV/monitor with a 100 year life span advertised yet. Don is right, price is the only thing that puts me off plasmas. Well, the size is also limited. Not small enough or big enough for all my needs. Good for the living room, I guess.

After looking at the Pioneer PDP-433CMX and the ViewSonic 42inch HD VPW450 I have added fans to my list. Lots of Plasmas don't use fans but some do.

I also read that people experience lockup and have to uplug the Plasmas to get them working correctly again. But... this it not a problem that is limited to Plasmas as I have experienced this with my Dell 17 inch HD 16:9 TV monitor which has locked up so severely that I have had to replace the unit twice so far.

-Don B

This website might help answering some of your questions about plasmas.
www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com

J. Bond

Hmm, I think much of the LG plasma line doesn't use fans. At least they were boasting something like that at CEDIA.

Daniel,

The two I mentioned above appear to. If I can believe what I have read as I have yet to see one in person. And don't know if I could hear the fan if I did. One of the models even metioned the word fan in plural !!!

They both are brand new units but could still be a couple years old in technology. Maybe best to describe them as New old stock.

I hope the fans are a thing of the past as they are a moving part that can go bad.

Anway now I am leaning towards the Dell 42 inch HD that Dell just started selling.

Not sure who makes it or how good the quality of it is, But the price is right and it has a lot of component I/O built in as well as two tuners one being an HD tuner.

-Don B

I bought the Panasonic 50" Plasma industrial/commerical model, not the consumer model, about a year ago. I love it! Have absolutely no complaints at this time. Was thinking of DLP, but really wanted the ability to hang on the wall. This replaced a rear projection TV, which I don't miss the BIG BOX. The difference being it is a monitor only, no tuners or speakers. Panasonic claims it has 60,000 hours til half-life. That's a long time. Most of the local dealers try to turn you off of Plasma, because the profit margin is greater on the other sets. The biggest thing to shorter life IS burn in. This is true with any CRT type screen. So I ensure I always have movement on the whole screen, no side bars, no games, nothing static. I use aspect change, picture position or what ever I have to do to fill the whole 16.9 screen. At night, about 2 AM, I have it do a screen saver program that slowly shoots a bright white bar from left to right with the remaining screen black. This runs for about 10 minutes. It "washes" the screen in a sense.
If you want confidence in a plasma for reliability, buy a name brand Japanese Plasma, stay away from the other Asian makers, as they rarely make the parts for their TV's, they buy from several sources and mix it all in. It might cost a bit more, but if your investing this much money anyway, go with the best, most reliable manufacturers.

We put the first plasma in Nebraska in 1997. It still works perfect and has never had any issues. The half life of a Pioneer is 15 years. How many people expect to have the same TV in 15 years? Technologies change so fast, in 15 years there will be something new you'll want to have and you can give that old plasma to your kids.

The Dell, Gateway and other $2000 plasma's are total junk for home theater. The image quality is terrible...washed out blacks, pixelized motion, cartoonish colors. If you cannot afford a good plasma (Toshiba, Samsung, Panasonic) or a great one (Runco, Vidikron, Fujitsu, Pioneer Elite) then don't buy one yet. That is way too much money to pay for a terrible picture.