Birds-Eye.Net Choosing Best Digital TV: LCD vs DLP vs Plasma

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Choosing Best Digital TV: DLP vs LCD vs Plasma
Guidance in choosing the best digital television

By: Bruce Bahlmann - Contributing Author (your feedback is important to us!)

Created: December 21, 2006

Selecting the right digital television for your home has become increasingly difficult. There are many acronyms to learn and many variables to consider which result in many choices. The purpose of this article is to shed some light on this topic and provide essential information required to make informed decisions to those seeking to find the best digital television at the best value available. Also included in this article is some general guidelines around these various technologies and their respective benefits and limitations.

Basic Guide to Digital Television Screen Technologies:

Which display is best? Digital screen technologies are divided into three major categories: DLP, LCD, and plasma. These technologies are broken down in Table 1.0 by their relative positive and negative aspects.

Technology:	Basis:	Positives:	Negatives:
DLP - Digital Light Projection	An improvement on older projection televisions that uses tiny mirrors to project different colored light to a light transparent screen.	Light weight, moderate power consumption, supports many large screen sizes, good to poor picture quality (good picture resolutions, good color accuracy, fair picture brightness, poor to fair blackness, fair to good contrast), best value for for the money for larger screen formats. Watching television on DLP can be better than LCD in terms of general entertainment (movies, sports, etc.) because screen size makes up for lower picture quality. Handles bight and dark scenes much better than LCD.	Enclosures are large (deep), paying less means you give up something in picture and compactness, overall picture quality is least desirable of the three (color accuracy, brightness, contrast, and blackness reproduction) - all are below par (average) for for the digital sets. Technologically inferior to LCD and plasma in terms of picture quality, definition, and resolution. Picture is often sharp near the center and becomes somewhat blurry towards the edges. Some people are susceptible to noticing a "rainbow effect" while watching DLPs that use a color wheel to reproduce colors on the screen.
LCD - Liquid Crystal Display	A larger version of the screens used on laptops with tuner and input processing technology added to enable digital television reception.	Relatively light weight and compact, picture quality is fair to good (good color on medium lighting conditions but poor on bright or dark scenes, contrast and and blackness reproduction are fair to poor, brightness is good but often excessive. Dark scenes look fake and may be unwatchable unless brightness is turned up which washes out color in non dark scenes. Watching television on LCD is like watching on your computer - in other words its acceptable but not quite an "entertainment quality" experience. Very power efficient 10 Watts for smaller screens but average about 1/4th of similar sized plasma and 1/3rd the that of DLP.	Surprisingly heavy (but less than plasma), picture quality is good to poor depending on the source and manufacturer. Smaller screens are somewhat inexpensive, but larger screens are comparable in cost to plasma but far inferior in picture quality. Screen sizes top out at 47 inches.
Plasma	Similar to CRTs in many ways except uses plasma instead of phosphor and compact electronic circuitry rather than an electron beam which yields a very thin chassis depth.	Exceptional picture quality in all aspects (color, contrast, brightness, and blackness) over any other technology including CRT for any source, plasma replaced CRT as the new reference standard for televisions. Pioneer and Panasonic plasma displays are a notch above other competing manufacturers.	Generally quite heavy, consume large amounts of power 450 Watts or more, only available in larger sizes (40+ inches), most expensive of all displays but in the case of Pioneer and Panasonic its worth every penny.

Table 1.0 Digital Television Screen Technologies

The major points of this comparison are the following: DLP is a great value for very large screens, however in buying cheaper DLP you give up a high quality picture and compact enclosure. LCD can be a great value for smaller screens (30" or less which can double as computer screens) especially in the case of 2007 models and beyond where features such as 1080p support and 5000/1 contrast ratio allow LCD to approach the picture quality of plasma. LCD screen sizes top out around 47 inches for top of the line models at a significant premium price. Plasma still retains the best picture in large screen format digital televisions easily out performing both DLP and LCD in overall picture quality, and noticeably better in color accuracy, blackness, and contrast. While not all displays are created equally, there is consistently quality among certain manufacturers which we will discuss later in this article. Just buying a good name like Phillips or Sony which served the public well in the case of traditional CRT televisions doesn't work when choosing the best DLP vs LCD vs Plasma.

Digital Television Screen Size Guide:

How big of a screen do I need? Which type of display should I buy? Selecting a screen size has numerous implications as to which product you will ultimately buy. While generally larger is better, this doesn't often address the needs of every individual. For example, some people don't have available wall space or their preferred viewing room has other factors that restrict where the screen is best placed - such as which wall (or part of the room) sees the least amount of sunlight. Such factors will limit your choices as you really don't want direct sunlight striking your big screen. Table 2.0 suggests the size of screen you should consider based ONLY on the average distance between the desired display location and the seats around it.

Screen Size:	Use:	Ideal Viewing Distance:	Available Technology:
26-27"	Small living room, larger kitchens	5-7 feet	LCD Only
30-37"	Family room, or smaller living rooms (great for hiding in cabinets)	7-9 feet	LCD Only, Plasma (37")
42-47"	Living room or home theater, bedroom	9-10 feet	DLP, LCD, Plasma
50"	Living room, home theater, bedroom, or gaming room	10-12 feet	DLP, Plasma
60+"	Home theater	12+ feet	DLP, Plasma

Table 2.0 Digital Television Screen Size Guide

For larger screen needs, the 42" screen the most often size purchased by first time buyers (mainly to save money). Second time digital television buyers opt for the 50" screen which is the best all around size for digital television applications because of its flexible viewing distance and physical size which isn't much larger than 42" screens. Previously, one common complaint of bigger flat screen televisions was that they had limited viewing angles. In the case of LCD and Plasma these concerns have never applied, but in the case of DLP the optimum viewing angle is always from the front. and level with the screen While DLP has improved its screen optics to permit viewing from the side, this viewing position is not optimal and slightly degraded. For the rest of this story of choosing the best digital television (click [2] below).

Article Continues... [1] - [2]

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