Plasma vs LCD
Which is better, LCD TV or Plasma? A much debated topic and when choosing between plasma and LCD TVs, you're actually selecting between two competing technologies. Both of have similar features (i.e., ,bright crystal-clear pictures, super color-filled images) They also are similar in that they come in flat screen packages that are very thin. So to further complicate the Plasma vs LCD decision-making process, price and size were the two detrmining factors but are now rapidly becoming non-issues as LCD TVs are now being made in much larger sizes and comparable prices with plasma.
Despite their similarities, Plasma and LCD are very different in the way they produce their pictures.
Plasma technology consists hundreds of thousands of individual pixel cells, in which electric pulses excite natural gases-usually xenon and neon-causing them to glow and produce light. This light illuminates the proper balance of red, green, or blue phosphors in each cell to display the proper color sequence from the light. Each pixel cell is basically an individual microscopic florescent light bulb, that is programmed to turn of and on at the correct time. If you look very closely at a plasma TV and you can actually see the individual pixel cell coloration of red, green, and blue bars. You can also see the black ribs which separate each.
No matter if it’s a flat panel monitor or a LCD projector, all LCD displays come from the same technological background. A matrix of thin-film transistors (TFTs) supplies voltage to liquid-crystal-filled cells sandwiched between two sheets of glass. When hit with an electrical charge, the crystals untwist to an exact degree to filter white light generated by a lamp behind the screen (for flat-panel TVs) or one projecting through a small LCD chip (for projection TVs). It's the intensity of light permitted to pass through this liquid-crystal matrix that enables LCD televisions to display images chock-full of colors-or gradations of them.
LED TVs are a new form of LCD Television. The panel on an LED TV is still an LCD TV panel. The backlight is different though - changing from flourescent to LED based backlighting.