This new technology utilizes a unique display panel that alleviates the need for a cathode ray type picture tube. At the present time this type of TV is somewhat expensive. A major benefit of the plasma display is that it has been sized to accommodate new HDTV 16:9 aspect ratio's and is similar in pixel resolution to a personal computer monitor, thus allowing drastically improved picture clarity.
Plasma displays are bright (1000 lx or higher for the module), have a wide color gamut, and can be produced in fairly large sizes, up to 262 cm (103 inches) diagonally. They have a very high "dark-room" black level, creating the "perfect black" desirable for watching movies. The display panel is only about 6 cm (2½ inches) thick, while the total thickness, including electronics, is less than 10 cm (4 inches). Plasma displays use as much power per square meter as a CRT or an AMLCD television. Real life measurements of plasma power consumption find it to be much less than that normally quoted by manufacturers. Nominal measurements indicate 150 watts for a 50" screen.
Plasma displays are bright (1000 lx or higher for the module), have a wide color gamut, and can be produced in fairly large sizes, up to 262 cm (103 inches) diagonally. They have a very high "dark-room" black level, creating the "perfect black" desirable for watching movies. The display panel is only about 6 cm (2½ inches) thick, while the total thickness, including electronics, is less than 10 cm (4 inches). Plasma displays use as much power per square meter as a CRT or an AMLCD television. Real life measurements of plasma power consumption find it to be much less than that normally quoted by manufacturers. Nominal measurements indicate 150 watts for a 50" screen.
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Last Updated: Sep 2009
Last Updated: Sep 2009
What is a Plasma TV?
The lifetime of the latest generation of plasma displays is estimated at 60,000 hours of actual display time. More precisely, this is the estimated half life of the display, the point where the picture has degraded to half of its original brightness, which is considered the end of the functional life of the display.
Competing displays include the CRT, OLED, AMLCD, DLP, SED-tv and field emission flat panel displays. The main advantage of plasma display technology is that a very wide screen can be produced using extremely thin materials. Since each pixel is lit individually, the image is very bright and has a wide viewing angle. Most cheaper consumer displays appear to have an insufficient color depth - a moving dithering pattern may be easily noticeable for a discerning viewer over flat areas or smooth gradients; expensive high-resolution panels are much better at managing the problem.
The xenon and neon gas in a plasma television is contained in hundreds of thousands of tiny cells positioned between two plates of glass. Long electrodes are also sandwiched between the glass plates, in front of and behind the cells. The address electrodes sit behind the cells, along the rear glass plate. The transparent display electrodes, which are surrounded by an insulating dielectric material and covered by a magnesium oxide protective layer, are mounted in front of the cell, along the front glass plate. Control circuitry charges the electrodes that cross paths at a cell, creating a voltage difference between front and back and causing the gas to ionize and form a plasma; as the gas ions rush to the electrodes and collide, photons are emitted.
In a monochrome plasma panel, the ionizing state can be maintained by applying a low-level voltage between all the horizontal and vertical electrodes - even after the ionizing voltage is removed. To erase a cell all voltage is removed from a pair of electrodes. This type of panel has inherent memory and does not use phosphors. A small amount of nitrogen is added to the neon to increase hysteresis.
In color panels, the back of each cell is coated with a phosphor. These phosphors are excited to give off colored light by the ultraviolet photons emitted by the plasma. Every pixel is made up of three separate subpixel cells, each with different colored phosphors. One subpixel has a red light phosphor, one subpixel has a green light phosphor and one subpixel has a blue light phosphor. These colors blend together to create the overall color of the pixel. By varying the pulses of current flowing through the different cells thousands of times per second, the control system can increase or decrease the intensity of each subpixel color to create billions of different combinations of red, green and blue. In this way, the control system can produce most of the visible colors. Plasma displays use the same phosphors as CRTs, accounting for the extremely accurate color reproduction.
Competing displays include the CRT, OLED, AMLCD, DLP, SED-tv and field emission flat panel displays. The main advantage of plasma display technology is that a very wide screen can be produced using extremely thin materials. Since each pixel is lit individually, the image is very bright and has a wide viewing angle. Most cheaper consumer displays appear to have an insufficient color depth - a moving dithering pattern may be easily noticeable for a discerning viewer over flat areas or smooth gradients; expensive high-resolution panels are much better at managing the problem.
The xenon and neon gas in a plasma television is contained in hundreds of thousands of tiny cells positioned between two plates of glass. Long electrodes are also sandwiched between the glass plates, in front of and behind the cells. The address electrodes sit behind the cells, along the rear glass plate. The transparent display electrodes, which are surrounded by an insulating dielectric material and covered by a magnesium oxide protective layer, are mounted in front of the cell, along the front glass plate. Control circuitry charges the electrodes that cross paths at a cell, creating a voltage difference between front and back and causing the gas to ionize and form a plasma; as the gas ions rush to the electrodes and collide, photons are emitted.
In a monochrome plasma panel, the ionizing state can be maintained by applying a low-level voltage between all the horizontal and vertical electrodes - even after the ionizing voltage is removed. To erase a cell all voltage is removed from a pair of electrodes. This type of panel has inherent memory and does not use phosphors. A small amount of nitrogen is added to the neon to increase hysteresis.
In color panels, the back of each cell is coated with a phosphor. These phosphors are excited to give off colored light by the ultraviolet photons emitted by the plasma. Every pixel is made up of three separate subpixel cells, each with different colored phosphors. One subpixel has a red light phosphor, one subpixel has a green light phosphor and one subpixel has a blue light phosphor. These colors blend together to create the overall color of the pixel. By varying the pulses of current flowing through the different cells thousands of times per second, the control system can increase or decrease the intensity of each subpixel color to create billions of different combinations of red, green and blue. In this way, the control system can produce most of the visible colors. Plasma displays use the same phosphors as CRTs, accounting for the extremely accurate color reproduction.
