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Let's be honest - home theater is one of the hot topics of conversation nowadays. Why is that? Well partly because it's great when you have the newest toys on the block. Then partly because people love the home media experience, and want to take advantage of new high definition broadcasts. And lastly?...because it's so darn confusing that people have literally a million questions they need to ask!
So who do you go to for all the answers?
Option 1: Go to a big box electronics retailer. Spend 20 minutes parking at the mall, and then try to find one of those middle school boys in the blue vests with the nametag that seems to always read "Bob". You know that kid... the one with the purple mohawk and eye makeup? How are you supposed to take any of his technical advice seriously? Speaking for myself, I do not generally spend 3 or 4 thousand bucks because some kid says, "that plasma is totally sick, dude!" I'm just busy praying he doesn't ask my daughter to the homecoming dance.
Option 2: Go to the local cut-rate discounter. But are you going to be comfortable asking technical questions to a guy who starts the conversation with "psssst...hey buddy...I got plasma TV's for cheap...you weren't looking for a warranty, were you?"
Option 3: Settle down at your computer with a tall cup of coffee and a spare 10 or 12 hours to surf the internet. Do you have any idea how many web sites a Google search for "home theater" returns? Last time I checked, it was 4 bazillion trillion or something like that. I swear. So you pull an all-nighter and read through these blog postings from...well, from who? The thing is, you never know. It might just be that kid with the purple mohawk. How much experience do they actually have with various products and system configurations? Have they even done an installation? How old and outdated is their knowledge base?
Through industry contacts; by visiting scores of tradeshows; and with the experience of 150 installations last year I'm going to dissipate a couple myths about plasma TV's that you may be wondering about.
Myth: Plasma monitors just don't last as long as LCD
Top plasmas have the same rated life as LCD's and both are only outlived by traditional CRT "tube" TV's. Most newer plasmas are estimated to have a half-life of 60,000 hours. That's over 27 years of viewing at 6 hours/day! By the way, the half-life is a measurement of how long it takes until the brightness of the plasma pixels noticeable degrades. You might ask how do they know a new TV should be rated for 60,000 hours? Well, a group of magic elves watches cartoons non-stop in a secret underground laboratory until the TV dies. Seriously, they take daily light measurements on a plasma that's displaying a white picture for 24 hours a day over several months. They use a series of mathematical calculations to project the half-life.
Actually, you don't need to trust the estimated lifetime rating from the manufacturer. Plasma has been in mass production long enough to have several viable case studies. For example, In Motion Pictures handles plasma display advertising in some large airports around the United States. They run displays from 6am to 10pm, 16 hours every day. These earlier-generation Panasonic Tau units are being replaced but only after about 5 years of use. So that's roughly 30,000 hours; which is what they were rated for originally. And I don't recall seeing any noticeable reduction in brightness as I've walked around the airports...do you?
There may have been more substance to this myth in years past, during earlier generations. Plasma is relatively recent technology, dating back to 1964 and in production only since the very late 1980's. While LCD technology is traced back to the early 1900's, believe it or not. From experience, I will say that I've seen several cases of plasma failure in about 400 total installations. But all of these, except one, happened in the first 90 days of use. Most warranties last a year, and SAMSUNG offers 2 years, including on-site service.
Myth: Plasmas suffer from "burn-in"
When a static image is displayed on a plasma for about 800 hours and a new image is then displayed, the black and white often produce "negative imgages" that appear as "ghosting". It looks like an outline of the previous image. This is different than the burn-in issues that happen with CRT "tube" TV's. In CRT sets, the phosphor in the tube can actually etch itself onto the inside of the tube, creating the same type of ghosting effect, but in a permanent way. But I'm sure you know from your own experience with CRT sets that this doesn't happen with normal household use.
Since plasmas do not use traditional phosphor they aren't susceptible to burn-in. But they can demonstrate the "ghosting" effect which is almost never permanent. Although it can be annoying, as it can take 48 hours of moving images to completely erase the condition.
Most recently, manufacturers have introduced technology to prevent this effect from happening. Sometimes called "pixel shift", it is the ability for the unit to sense static images and periodically shift rows of pixels, which changes their color and alleviates ghosting.
In all honesty, I would still suggest that you don't pause your DVD for more than 10 or 15 minutes. And I would strongly recommend LCD for business applications like static advertising, desktop PC's, or monitoring surveillance cameras.
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