Are Plasma TV's A Thing Of The Past

**cal87** · 06-20-2010, 06:53 PM

It seems that it had been trending towards LCDs, certainly my own personal last few purchases have been LCDs. However, recently the KUROs have been described as the best TVs ever made. Now 3D coming on, plasma seems to be the better technology for 3D - at least for now. Supposedly, next year we should see the KURO technology incorporated into the Panasonic plasmas.

**Steve Williams** · 06-20-2010, 07:42 PM

Did Pioneer sell the Kuro technology to Panasonic?

**cal87** · 06-20-2010, 09:26 PM

Originally Posted by Steve Williams

Did Pioneer sell the Kuro technology to Panasonic?

Yes.

**amirm** · 06-24-2010, 01:05 AM

Originally Posted by c1ferrari

Hi Amir,

Are there Panny plasmas which wouldn't do this, perhaps the "business" grade Premiere display

Hi Sam. I don't know if the pro grade is any different. The issue is due to Panasonic trying to increase the life of the Plasma by changing the drive voltage over time. By increasing it as the set ages, they achieve similar brightness at a cost of increased black level.

I understand the latest set though make this adjustment more slowly so the rise of the level to unacceptable points might occur few years down the road when you may be ready for a new set anyway

.

**Kal Rubinson** · 06-24-2010, 06:42 AM

I suspected that this was the underlying issue but it seems like shooting yourself in the foot. Unless one has the brightness at max to begin with (torch mode), one can always turn up as needed to compensate for aging. At least, then, it is not done unnecessarily and one is conscious of the decision.

**amirm** · 06-24-2010, 07:00 AM

As always, it is the power of marketing in play. When LCDs were a lot more expensive than Plasma, LCD companies used the lifetime of Plasma displays as a merit in their favors heavily in their advertisements. So companies like Panasonic cooked up these schemes in order to get their spec up to the magical 100,000 hours. The technique worked as few people talk about that difference anymore. And with LCD guys winning major market share, they don't seem to be focused on killing plasma anymore.

**LesAuber** · 06-24-2010, 05:05 PM

I hope the Kuro comes back in some fashion. Best picture I've seen in a flat panel so far. Not sure that LCD has quite caught up to it even with controlled LCD back lighting for blacks. I have to plan my purchases and they sold off to Panasonic to soon. Sounds like Panny is already screwing things up with increasing drive voltages automatically.

Sure don't understand the move away from matte front screens. Not having reflections if you had to have some lights on was a real plus.

**c1ferrari** · 06-27-2010, 08:24 PM

Originally Posted by amirm

Hi Sam. I don't know if the pro grade is any different. The issue is due to Panasonic trying to increase the life of the Plasma by changing the drive voltage over time. By increasing it as the set ages, they achieve similar brightness at a cost of increased black level.

I understand the latest set though make this adjustment more slowly so the rise of the level to unacceptable points might occur few years down the road when you may be ready for a new set anyway

.

Hi Amir,

Thanks for the reply...much appreciated!

**MelanieM** · 08-01-2011, 01:42 PM

I recently bought a Panasonic plasma about a year ago. I'm happy with it and liked the pictures quality over the LCDs. I wasn't interested in the 3D displays either as I'm still waiting for it to catch on and be able to be watched without 3D glasses. In shopping, I always heard that Panasonic plasmas had great blacks and a good picture compared to the many, many LCDs out there. Of course, all our smaller bedroom TVs are LCDs and they aren't bad but not as good video quality as the plasma. I'd like to get a lg led tv for the bedroom to see if the picture is good.

**Orb** · 08-02-2011, 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by amirm

Hi Sam. I don't know if the pro grade is any different. The issue is due to Panasonic trying to increase the life of the Plasma by changing the drive voltage over time. By increasing it as the set ages, they achieve similar brightness at a cost of increased black level.

I understand the latest set though make this adjustment more slowly so the rise of the level to unacceptable points might occur few years down the road when you may be ready for a new set anyway

.

Didn't Pioneer sort of sell their technology to Panasonic in reagrds to Plasma?
I understand one of the issues of the cost for Pioneer came back to the glass, which Panasonic were meant to have a good implementation on, and which the last generation of Kuro utilises 10G.

That aside,
one aspect that seems to still not be covered clearly is the processing-scaling-filtering capabilities of the TV, our older Pioneer Kuro 720p from the model9 is better than quite a lot of the 1080p LCD models to date it seems.
I appreciate in the US market possibly most always use a seperate unit such as an AVR.

Thanks
Orb