There are 3 basic differences when it comes to deciding between LCD and Plasma
1. LCD been backlit, you never get a true black colour, something that has been mentioned already. Often you will get a grey/black or a blue/black, not a true black like in plasma. This gives you better depth perception in your picture.
2. Motion. Although LCD have been making strides on this area, you still can't beat a plasma with regards to motion. I am under correction but think that the fastest commercial LCD is rated at 2ms. Your plasmas are around 0.001 ms - basically instantaneous. In layman terms you don't suffer motion lag when watching on a plasma, especially sports and fast action movies.
3. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is view angle. To achieve the best possible picture out of an LCD you need to sit perpendicular to the screen. The more off center you move away from the TV the more "bled out" the picture becomes. Plasma has a view angle of 180 degrees meaning that in a typical lounge seating enviroment viewers will always see the best possible picture.
The downside of plasma is that they suffer from reflection. However the usage of non reflective material in the glass has reduced this, but it can still be a problem. Fortunately you can rectify this by adjusting your lighting and using curtaning to darken your room.
BTW, I own a 47" LCD just for the record. My next purchase will be a 42 or 50" plasma because of the points above.
Below are two easy to understand explanations regarding LCD/Plasma response times.
"Why is motion lag an issue with LCD and not with Plasma technology?
LCD technology relies on twisting nematic crystals to generate its color and light throughput information. The speed of these twisting crystals may not be fast enough at times of fast motion display or particularly side to side panning of fast motion display. Nematic refers to the arrangement of long axes of liquid crystal molecules forming parallel lines. Plasma technology does not rely on twisting crystals but rather each individual pixel carries its own light and color information by way of red, green and blue phosphors. CRT tube TVs also worked in a similar way and did not have a motion lag problem. Phosphor based color production also creates the somewhat more realistic color information that plasma TVs enjoy"
"LCD panels have a tendency to blur images particularly during fast moving scenes in movies, sports, and gaming events. This is due to LCD pixels that remain lit between frames - leading to a sort of a sample-and-hold effect as a result of the relatively long time required by the liquid crystals to align themselves i.e. twist or untwist - to represent a new pixel state.
This twisting action of liquid crystals acts as a light valve that allows or blocks light emitted by the backlight source, from reaching the glass surface of the display panel in response to the driving video signal."
1. LCD been backlit, you never get a true black colour, something that has been mentioned already. Often you will get a grey/black or a blue/black, not a true black like in plasma. This gives you better depth perception in your picture.
2. Motion. Although LCD have been making strides on this area, you still can't beat a plasma with regards to motion. I am under correction but think that the fastest commercial LCD is rated at 2ms. Your plasmas are around 0.001 ms - basically instantaneous. In layman terms you don't suffer motion lag when watching on a plasma, especially sports and fast action movies.
3. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is view angle. To achieve the best possible picture out of an LCD you need to sit perpendicular to the screen. The more off center you move away from the TV the more "bled out" the picture becomes. Plasma has a view angle of 180 degrees meaning that in a typical lounge seating enviroment viewers will always see the best possible picture.
The downside of plasma is that they suffer from reflection. However the usage of non reflective material in the glass has reduced this, but it can still be a problem. Fortunately you can rectify this by adjusting your lighting and using curtaning to darken your room.
BTW, I own a 47" LCD just for the record. My next purchase will be a 42 or 50" plasma because of the points above.
Below are two easy to understand explanations regarding LCD/Plasma response times.
"Why is motion lag an issue with LCD and not with Plasma technology?
LCD technology relies on twisting nematic crystals to generate its color and light throughput information. The speed of these twisting crystals may not be fast enough at times of fast motion display or particularly side to side panning of fast motion display. Nematic refers to the arrangement of long axes of liquid crystal molecules forming parallel lines. Plasma technology does not rely on twisting crystals but rather each individual pixel carries its own light and color information by way of red, green and blue phosphors. CRT tube TVs also worked in a similar way and did not have a motion lag problem. Phosphor based color production also creates the somewhat more realistic color information that plasma TVs enjoy"
"LCD panels have a tendency to blur images particularly during fast moving scenes in movies, sports, and gaming events. This is due to LCD pixels that remain lit between frames - leading to a sort of a sample-and-hold effect as a result of the relatively long time required by the liquid crystals to align themselves i.e. twist or untwist - to represent a new pixel state.
This twisting action of liquid crystals acts as a light valve that allows or blocks light emitted by the backlight source, from reaching the glass surface of the display panel in response to the driving video signal."
From what I gather, the Plamsa is better this heavier (May be wrong) I can't really see that much of a price difference between the 2 so I'm pretty confused.
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