Plasma HDTV Reviews

Video enthusiasts still say that you can’t beat the picture on a plasma HDTV compared to LED HDTVs. Today’s top plasma HDTVs have gotten more modern in their form factor and most of today’s best plasma HDTVs are even packing 3D video capability when fed content via HDMI 1.4 compatible Blu-ray players or 3D capable satellite receivers. Find a full archive of plasma HDTV reviews including the best plasma HDTVs from companies like Panasonic, Pioneer Elite, Samsung, LG and many others.

Everything You Need To Know About Plasma HDTVs

1.0 The Cultural and Economic Impact of Plasma HDTVs
2.0 The Basics of How a Plasma Works
3.0 Which is HDTV Better: Plasma or LCD?
4.0 Installing a Plasma HDTV

1.0 The Cultural and Economic Impact of Plasma HDTVs
Flat HDTVs (and even EDTVs - which were mostly non-HD plasmas), led by plasma technology, changed the way the world looked at the all-important component known as a television. Gone was the hulking rear-projection set that took up volumes of increasingly valuable living room real estate and in was a wafer-thin HDTV measuring a mere four inches thick that could hang on the wall like a painting.

In the early days of plasma TVs in the marketplace, the sets were only for the rich, as a 50-inch plasma HDTV cost upwards of $20,000. However, as mainstream consumers bought more and more of the TVs, the price dropped precipitously. Today, nearly seven years since the commercial launch of plasma TVs, sets are affordable for nearly everyone and sold in easy to access stores like Costco and Wal-Mart for well under $1,000 for a sizable set.

Some AV industry analysts suggest that the rise in popularity and the ensuing fall in price of plasma HDTVs was the cause of death for many of the brick-and-mortar specialty audio dealers. These dealers loved how easy it was to sell the sexy new video technology, but once the prices dropped below a certain threshold (some say $4,000 per set), these dealers couldn't make money working on the lower margins at low volumes. Enter in Wal-Mart and Costco, along with Best Buy and Circuit City. With tremendous downward pressure on the price, the margins on flat HDTVs shrunk to less than three percent in some cases. Dealers who got away with selling 50 percent profit margin audio products could no longer make their businesses operate effectively on these new, lower margins, and many closed.

2.0 The Basics of How a Plasma Works
The way a plasma HDTV works is that "noble" gases (remember those from chemistry class?) interact with cells in between two relatively large pieces of glass. When electricity is introduced to the gas and cells, they turn into plasma that has phosphors that can emit light.

3.0 Which is HDTV Better: Plasma or LCD?
The term "plasma" has become the ubiquitous term for a flat HDTV, despite the fact that there are two major technologies driving the flat HDTV market today, with others being developed for future technologies such as OLED.

Plasma HDTVs are thought by video calibrators to have the best "blacks," as promoted by Pioneer and their line of KURO sets (KURO means black in Japanese). In a darker room, the blacker blacks allow for more contrast, which creates a more three-dimensional-looking HDTV image.

LCD HDTVs are generally sold for premises that might have more ambient light in the room, as they tend to be able to make a brighter picture than other HDTV technologies.

To date, both formats have been honed to a point where they make fine HDTV images, so most people pick one of the best sets in the biggest size they can afford. If you pick a premium brand, get it professionally calibrated and hook up a Blu-ray player for a 1080p video source - you can't lose.

4.0 Installing a Plasma HDTV
Even though a plasma HDTV looks like a picture you can hang on the wall, it is a heavy, sensitive video display device that will be rendered useless if it is dropped, and therefore it requires firm mounting, wherever it is placed.

There are mounts for plasma HDTVs that can get the HDTV close to the wall. Other mounts allow the set to move on an arm to accommodate different seating positions and heights.

Some people build small niches in their drywall to accommodate the depth (including a little room to breathe) around their set.

In very high-end installations, some clients use a lift built into a cabinet that can stow the plasma under the bed and slowly swing the set up to a viewing spot right at the foot.