When the first plasma screen televisions came on the market a number of years ago, they were unaffordable by all but the wealthiest individuals and businesses. As with many other forms of technology, however, the passage of time and the improvements in manufacturing methods have led the prices of plasma televisions to fall a great deal, making these great TVs more affordable to a large part of the marketplace.
There are of course a number of different manufacturers who make excellent quality plasma televisions, and the marketplace for these TVs includes a veritable who's who of electronics companies, including Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Zenith, Phillips and Sylvania.
And while the prices of these and other plasma televisions have come down quite a bit from their early days on the market, they are still quite a bit more expensive than traditional CRT televisions. The prices of most plasma televisions range from ,000 to ,500, but the sale prices many retailers often run can sometimes allow consumers to purchase a good quality plasma TV for as little as ,500 or even less.
Those in the market for a new plasma TV should begin their shopping with a good idea of what to look for and what to expect from this new technology. Plasma TV technology is quite different from the technology used in traditional CRT televisions, and it is important to understand these differences in order to get the best deal.
It is also important to purchase the highest quality accessories and cabling to go with that new plasma TV. Buying cheap generic cables can ruin the otherwise excellent picture and color quality of even the best plasma TV, so it is important to look for high quality and dependability when shopping for the cables that connect your DVD player, VCR, computer or other input device to the plasma screen.
It is also important for consumers to know that in most cases the plasma TV will not come with its own tuner, and the signal must therefore come from a satellite TV box, cable TV box or similar device. In addition, a number of different accessories, such as DVD players, Laser Disk players and even computers and laptops, can be connected to these large flat screens.
Even though the plasma display TV has only recently come into widespread home use, plasma technology actually has quite a long history, dating back to July of 1964 and research by the University of Illinois.
The screens of these first plasma devices were quite small, and the materials to create them were expensive and hard to come by. The lower cost of these materials in today's world, coupled with increases in technology, have brought these great TVs into widespread use, and their penetration in the marketplace is likely to grow as the prices continue to fall.
How does plasma technology work?
The secret to plasma TV technology is found in between the two thin panels of mounted glass that make up the screen. These panels are made up of pixels, which are small pockets of compressed gas. Each of these pixels consists of three sub-pixels, which consist of blue, green and red phosphors.
The thing that makes the plasma TV so unique is that each of the sub-pixel is individually controlled using advanced electronics capable of producing more than 16 million unique colors. When the pixel receives an electric current, the gas in the television reacts to form a plasma, which in turn produces light. This light then reacts with the red, green and blue phosphors in order to provide a higher contrast ratio and a better picture. There is considerably less flicker on a plasma screen, due to the fact that all the pixels are emitting light at the same time.
In addition, there is no backlighting or electron beam associated with the plasma TV, and this provides a sharper, brighter and richer picture with a very thin screen. The thinnest and lightest plasma TVs are barely more than three inches thick, and the true flat screen eliminates the fading and distortion at the edges that often accompanies CRT televisions.
These plasma TV displays also provide a much higher screen resolution than CRT televisions, and in addition most sets are capable of displaying a number of different signals, including HDTV (high definition television), DTV (digital television) as well as XGA, VGA and SVGA signals from a computer.
Plasma TVs are also free of the scan lines that plague traditional CRT televisions. The conventional CRT television uses a beam of electrons which scan the picture tube from top to bottom. As the phosphors are lit the image is created. This results in visible scan lines, but plasma TV technology includes built in line doubling, which further improves the quality of the images, particularly when viewing a standard analog signal like broadcast television of VHS tapes.
In addition to the lack of scan lines, plasma displays also have superior color quality and superior depth. The plasma screen is capable of displaying more than 16 million different colors, as well as more realistic colors and more subtle gradations within colors.
Plasma displays also provide a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, providing the best aspect ratio for widescreen DVD movies and for HDTV programming. This wide aspect ratio more closely matches the format of large screen movies, providing for a more enjoyable and realistic viewing experience.
Those viewers who are familiar with the limitations of the rear projection big screen TV will want to know that plasma TVs provide a much more uniform brightness, without the "hot spots" frequently seen in the middle of the screen on rear projection TVs. The plasma display is also free of the corner dark spots that plague rear projection televisions.
And then of course there is the size and slenderness of the plasma TV. It is this thinness that attracts so many buyers, and in fact many plasma televisions are lightweight and thin enough to hang on a wall, as well as thin enough to fit virtually anywhere. This contrast is particularly obvious when one compares a new plasma screen TV to the old rear projection big screen TVs, which could fill an entire room and were very bulky to move from place to place.
There is no doubt that plasma TV technology has a great many benefits over both traditional CRT televisions and rear projection models. In addition, the fact that the prices of plasma televisions have been steadily falling since they first came on the market has made this great new technology more affordable than ever.
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