whats the difference between lcd and plasma TV's - plasma are way cheaper

There are a few differences to note.

Let's start with how they create an image.  Plasma's create an image by illumination of phosphors on a glass screen in much the same way a standard cathode ray TV does.  This gives very good colour and contrast but the large glass screen tends to reflect light.  LCD's work completely differently.  Basically a thin liquid crystal display panel is backlit with large fluorescent lights. The panel works as a filter and filters the white fluorescent light with a matrix of translucent coloured dots to create an image.  The downside of this is that they cannot reproduce black properly - some light always gets through the filter.  So the contrast suffers as a result.

The main upshot of this is that plasma screens work far better in a darkened room, eg a home cinema setup, whereas LCD's work better in bright lighting conditions as the failings are less noticeable and screen is les reflective.

Then comes resolution.  Budget plasma's tend only to be 852x480 pixels - that's low! As HDTV comes in increasing the resolution of broadcast images, these screens will have to downsize the received signals to fit a lower res screen.

Plasma's are heavier and run hotter, often requiring cooling fans (=noise like a PC in operation) but are, as you say much, much cheaper.  Part of this is that now LCD is catching up in terms of screen size, plasma sales are falling.  The developers (Sony etc) have abandoned development of plasma technology so their shelf life is going to be short.

Both have short life expectancy compared with CRT's but in the case of LCD's the backlight bulb is usually the first thing to fail and easy to replace.  Plasma's suffer screen burn (eg a channel logo in the corner of a frequently watched channel eventually etches itself in the phosphors and is visible even when watching a different channel) and are likely to fail in 7-10 years.

I would go LCD for what my opinion is worth.

 

I'm not sure if it is STILL the case, but plasma screens didn't always come with a tuner & speakers - as they were intended to be part of a home-cinema system.

You can now purchase LCD screen with a built in Freeview receiver (if you don't like the clutter or inconvenience of having a separate set-top box). Beware though, Freeview doesn't look all that great through these sets for some reason - it looks fine on my CRT though.

Make sure you test them out thoroughly in-store before buying - and don't be fooled by those HDTV pictures they feed through the demo sets in Currys.

If you are just going to be watching terrestrial broadcasts, make sure they show you the reproduction via freeview or sky.

HTH
Stephen

 

Agreed

For now. Current broadcasting and signal processing systems were designed with the CRT in mind. When HDTV comes in, HD-ready sets have a digital video connector as an alternative to the standard SCARTs and video fed through this will look much nicer.

But until that day, ordinary telly looks worse on an LCD than a CRT and there is variation in quality from set to set, despite the fact most LCD sets use either LG or Samsung panels.

 

I'd agree with the "don't be fooled by the pictures they feed at Currys"

For starters - they invariably have the widescreen set up incorrectly, also when I went into Dixons and asked to see Sky on a particular TV they told me "oh, Sky is on those 2 over there", so I said "yes but I'm interested in this particular TV" and they said that they could not put Sky onto that one as "it was too much hassle"!

Hmmm....seven hundred quid of TV and I want to see it showing what I'll watch on it most but it was too much hassle....suffice to say it was too much hassle for me to buy from them!

 

Don't forget the World Cup....

QVC were promoting a widescreen lcd set a few weeks ago on the basis of watching the World Cup in HDTV.

My understanding was that this is far from certain to happen. The BBC have the rights but have no facility for broadcasting to the masses in this format.

 

RE: Don't forget the World Cup....

I thought the beeb had broadcast is Hd already

 

RE: Don't forget the World Cup....

Unlikely the world cup will be in HD....not sure when Sky are launching HD but I believe they will be the first to offer it.

I'd just settle for it being broadcast in widescreen which I believe it will be - looks hopeful as the winter olympics are in widescreen.