If you put the two television sets side by side in a room with light, chances are that you will not see a dramatic difference between the two pictures. However, if the light is turned off, the picture on the plasma TV will appear to be clearer and crisper. This sharper contrast and brightness in the plasma TV is due to more light being blocked from the background. On an LCD TV, some of the background lighting is not effectively blocked, which makes it look like weakened background color.
Another factor in the picture you see when comparing a plasma screen TV with an LCD TV is the angle at which you are viewing it. If you are head on, watching from the center of a room, you will have a more accurate comparison. When you view from an angle, plasma TVs tend to have the edge on the LCD models. The LCD models lose quality in brightness and contrast as you move away from their center. Plasma TVs, then, are great if you plan to put them in a room with a lot of seating options from various angles so more people can see a good picture.
When it comes down to making a decision between choosing a plasma screen TV or an LCD screen TV, the truth is that it is simply a matter of personal taste. Both kinds of television sets have the same approximate life span, about 25 years if the television is watched six hours a day or less. Both even pull the same amount of electricity on which to operate. At one time, this was not the case. In the beginning days of plasma TVs, those models required more power to run them. Advanced technology has evened out that issue over the past few years.
The big advantage that the plasma screen TVs have over the LCD TVs is size. Most plasma TVs are two to five inches thick. The LCD TVs are much thicker. Because of the flat, thin nature of the plasma television, the owner of a plasma TV can choose to wall mount the television. It becomes more of a piece of art than a mere entertainment accessory!
Introduction to 50hz televisions A standard PAL television will refresh the picture at a frequency of 50Hz or 50 Frames Per Second (FPS). The Frames Per Second are the number of frames needed to create the illusion of movement. On a 50Hz Cathode Ray Television (CRT), because the picture was produced by an electron scan, there was a visible flicker that could be detected by the human eye. Our eyes are at times are sensitive to this frequency depending on the speed of the image, the level of darkness, and the level of brightness so you will sometimes notice the picture flicker on a 50Hz TV. Also the larger the screen is the more noticeable the flicker is. Early 100 hertz technology Originally 100hz (100 FPS) televisions operated at double the Frames Per Second by creating a duplicate of each frame and inserting it after the original one. By doubling the frequency of the scan to 100Hz and inserting a replica frame this effect was eliminated as far the human eye perceives it. The effect of this is to significantly reduce the flicker. Does 100hz improve the picture on 100hz Plasma and LCD televisions ? LCD and Plasma televisions dont produce flickering because they don't produce the picture with an electron scan. However LCD TV's still benefit from 100Hz because advanced digital circuitry creates an extra frame or middle image. This is done by the TV inventing an extra frame using complex interpolation and motion compensation calculations to work out what the extra fields and frames look like rather than inserting a replica frame. (e.g. the second frame is not the same as the first frame). However even at 100 FPS the picture still does not deliver a entirely smooth picture particularly with fast motion images. Some television manufactures attempt to reduce this further by employing digital picture processing. Typically there is still a little blurring on quick moving images but the benefits are clearer and better-defined surfaces, sharper pictures, and smoother movement than is possible from 50 Frames Per Second Plasma and LCD televisions. i.e. if a football moves ten pixels from right to left between frames one, two and three, the 100 Frames Per Second television will digitally create two added frames between one and two, along with two and three, in which the ball will travel five pixels. This therefore results in a total of five frames in which the ball moves a total of ten pixels i.e. the original frames one, two and three plus the digitally created frames that are inserted in between one and two, and between two and three. The eye thus sees a picture that moves more fluidly than before. The benefits of 100 Hz 100Hz televisions have the clear benefit of eliminating a lot of the ghosting effects occasionally seen in LCD TVs. Ghosting effects caused by the next image being shown before the earlier one has faded away. Even on Plasma tv the creation of the middle frame results in a more fluid picture Most top manufacturers have now got 100Hz LCD and Plasma televisions including Panasonic, JVC, Samsung, Toshiba, LG, Sony, Philips, Pioneer and Hitachi. Sony lead the way into 200Hz Sony has just launched a 200Hz range which digitally inserts three additional frames between the original 50Hz frames. The effect of this is that fast moving sequences are delivered with a smoother, more fluid and sharper picture than 50Hz or even 100Hz TV's. Additional benefit for photosensitive epilepsy sufferers Scientific studies have proven that for patients with photosensitive epilepsies 100Hz televisions can help prevent seizures when playing video games or watching Tv.
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