Is Plasma HDTV approaching its Twilight?

Once upon a time, if you wanted a flat panel HDTV and a plasma display was available in your preferred size and price range, that’s what you bought. When making the purchasing decision, there was no thought given to things like weight, energy use, room light or burn-in. When flat panel HDTVs became the must have TV, a comparison to its competitor LCD, wasn’t much of a comparison. Back then plasma displays had the wider view angle, better color depth and contrast, performed much better with motion and was the TV on everyone’s wish list.

Little by little LCD has chipped away at the areas where there was a disparity between its performance and that of a plasma display. LCD flat panels are now made in larger screen sizes at competitive prices, offering consumers who need to go big a choice. The viewing angle of LCDs has improved to 178 degrees, making it wider that the 170 degrees of plasma displays. Contrast levels and colour depth improved, panel response times dropped, and the introduction of 120Hz refresh along with the use of motion compensation frame interpolation (MCFI or MCI) , allowed LCD HDTVs to perform much better with motion. As prices of HDTVs dropped and more consumers began to introduce HDTVs into their homes, the discussion surrounding flat panel HDTVs changed from which one is better (Plasma or LCD), to which one is better for me!

Back when Flat Panel HDTVs were introduced a modestly sized set could set you back around $10K. Flat Panels where generally displayed in special “Home Theater” rooms constructed in show rooms across the land. These rooms usually had a comfortable couch, a killer surround system, and very carefully controlled lighting to give people a real sense of the concept of “Home Theater”. Even the big box stores followed this blueprint to introduce consumers to the HDTV and “Home Theater”. As stores sold more and more flat panels, some of the lesser quality sets began to be displayed outside of the home theatre rooms, in well lit portions of stores. Eventually as CRT disappeared from showroom floors and a greater number of HDTV were put on display, stores started taking down the home theatre room to regain the real estate and display even more models. This transformation in how HDTVs are displayed coupled with the improvement in LCDs is what has changed the nature of discussions surrounding flat panel HDTVs. The original display environment perfectly suited for displaying plasma HDTVs, changed to conditions that better suited LCDs; bringing to light (pun intended) the Achilles heel of plasma.

Plasma is more and more becoming an HDTV for the basement dweller or the enthusiast, who can afford to build that light controlled windowless room. Some HDTV manufacturers (notably Mitsubishi and Sony), have exited the consumer plasma markets altogether. The market for plasma continues to shrink, and top-shelf plasma manufacturer Pioneer has reportedly been losing money in their plasma program for the past few years. Pioneer has stopped production of their own plasma panels, and will purchase panels from Matsushita Electronics (Panasonic), in the hopes of turning their economic fortunes around. If the maker of what is arguably the best plasma HDTVs on the planet can’t make any money with the technology, is Plasma HDTV doomed?

Sony's RGB-LED Backlit LCD HDTV KDL-55XBR8

The majority of flat panel display sales are to Mr. & Mrs. Average Consumer, who will be watching television in a room full of windows, skylights, sliding glass doors and lot of lights; LCD is better suited for that type of usage scenario. For the basement dweller or enthusiast who will do what it takes to control the lighting environment, Plasma with better natural contrast, color depth and performance with motion, is still a better fit. In the serious home theater arena, Plasma HDTV will have to face-off against the incumbent (Projectors) to be the dominant display technology. LCD is outselling plasma by an estimated margin of 8 to 1 and that gap will continue to increase. Some plasma buyers are sure to be lured away by the next wave of LED based LCD’s. LED backlighting (and particularly RGB LED) has the clock ticking on two of the 3 big advantages that plasma still holds on LCD. LCDs that implement RGB LED as the backlighting system have the ability to outperform Plasma on color depth, and as LED technology continues to improve (the brightness and energy efficiency level of LED has been doubling about every 18-24 months), LCDs based on LED backlighting will eventually eradicate plasma’s advantage in static contrast ratio. There is also the Mitsubishi Laser TV which alleges the ability to produce 200% of the color scale, supports 36 bit color, and has 3D viewing capabilities. All of these factors point to lower unit sales and thus reduced or no profitability for plasma manufacturers. The end result may be the extinction of the technology for consumer use.

For lovers of plasma HDTV perhaps the more disturbing predicament is what has happened to Pioneer. No plasma vendor is held in higher esteem than Pioneer, yet they are unable to make money from their plasma program. To add insult to injury, LCD giant Sharp has purchased a 13% stake in Pioneer, making Sharp the biggest single shareholder. Sharp, who has been demonstrating a solar powered LED backlit LCD at trade shows around the world for some time, has finally announced their LED backlit LCD models. Is it possible that Pioneer will enter the LCD market with an HDTV model based on Sharp’s LED backlighting technology? Surely we are in for some interesting times ahead!