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- Plasma TVs: how do they actually work?
- Plasma TVs: the early days
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By Ali May
published 20 March 2021
The history of plasma TVs
(Image credit: Panasonic)
You don’t hear much about plasma TVs these days, and for good reason: no one’s made them for several years. But for a TV technology that was once the pinnacle of picture quality, where did plasma TVs go?
Think of a plasma TV as a neon lamp. It’s built on an emissive technology that uses plasma to excite phosphors to emit light.
“The glass is comparable to window glass, unlike LCD. There are horizontal and vertical electrode grids and a phosphor array. The connection between the two is scanned, firing the discharge at the intersection and causing the phosphor to glow,” says analyst Paul Gray, who leads TV research at Omdia, a global firm that provides analysis across the technology ecosystem. “The phosphor side is similar to CRT, while the plasma is a glow discharge like a neon lamp.”
But the genesis of the technology had nothing to do with the entertainment industry. Larry F Weber, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers wrote the following in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science:
“As with any invention, it all started with a need. In this case, it was the need for a high-quality display for computer-based education. The University of Illinois started a project in 1960 called PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) to conduct research on the use of computers for education… The plasma display panel (PDP) was invented by Prof. Donald L Bitzer, Prof. H Gene Slottow, and their graduate student Robert H Wilson in 1964 to meet the need for a full graphics display for the PLATO system.”
However, as would be the case with any technology product for the consumer market, there was a long period of low-volume but high-cost production.
The first manufacturer to take the dive into making plasma in serious numbers was Fujitsu, making a 42-inch screen in 1997. That screen was selling for $20,000 (around £15,000 / AU$26,000), according to San Francisco Business Times.
Philips and Pioneer followed suit, and other manufacturers piled in shortly afterwards.
“The starters were Fujitsu and Panasonic, but NEC, Pioneer, Samsung, LGE and Chunghwa (CPT) all made the displays,” says Gray. “Most brands had plasma in their ranges. It’s important to remember that in the early 2000s, the PDP [Plasma Display Panel] was in the lead in large-screen TVs such as 42-inch models, and there was serious concern whether 42-inch LCD was economically feasible. Sony and Sharp even worked on a hybrid technology called PALC, Plasma-addressed Liquid Crystal.”
Plasma TVs had come a long way since its first iteration. It went on to dominate the consumer market for TV screens and provided one of the best viewing experiences available.
Plasma TVs had panels that lit up small cells of gases (xenon and neon) between two plates of glass, offering very bright and crisp images even on a large screen surface, according to Samsung, which was one of the main manufacturers of plasma TVs. The screens contain phosphors that created the image on the screen light up themselves and don’t require backlighting.
The technology meant that large screens (typically from 42 inches to 63 inches) “offer high contrast ratios, gorgeously saturated colours, and allow for wide viewing angles – meaning every seat in the house is a great one,” according to Samsung, while it worked “well in dimly lit rooms, which is great for watching movies.” It could also “track fast-moving images without motion blur,” making plasma “ideal for watching action-packed sports or playing video games. The sharpness of visual detail is astonishing.”
However, there were some disadvantages. Plasma was more of an electricity guzzler than LCD (Panasonic had got the consumption pretty much to parity, and plasma’s power consumption depended heavily on the amount of light in the video content). It was heavier, with many more power electronics packed in each set. It wasn’t as bright, meaning that to enjoy it fully, you really needed to like your dimly lit, cinema-style watching experience – which wasn’t a disadvantage if you weren’t a fan of daytime telly. Burn-in was an issue, too, especially for avid gamers.
By 2005, six million units of plasma were being shipped globally per year, according to Omdia’s data. “The business peaked at 18.4 million in 2010,” says Gray.
But then other technologies started to catch up. LCD screens were lighter and brighter. They consumed far less energy and performed better in daylight.
The plasma honeymoon didn’t last, then, and there were some basic factors that had a severe impact on sales – including one of the criticisms commonly levelled at OLED, being low brightness.
“Plasma wasn’t as bright as LCD. Critically in US retailers, the TV area was brightly lit and PDP looked washed out,” says Gray. “Plasma – like all emissive displays – struggled with fine pixel densities. Only Panasonic managed to make a 1080p 42-inch, and even then it wasn’t a great product commercially. Manufacturing yield was reportedly poor. In the end, LCD had massive manufacturing capacity and the advantage of scale. PDP simply wasn’t unique enough.”
As manufacturers started making huge losses, they began to phase out plasma. Pioneer putting an end to the production of its much-loved Kuro screens was notable. When Panasonic announced that it would no longer make plasma screens, everybody knew that the end was near. LG and Samsung followed suit shortly after. And just like that, the light went out on plasma.
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