February 18, 2009 • 22 mins
With the advent of LCD and plasma televisions, the reign of the cathode ray TV may have already ended -- but which new TV is the best? Tune in as our experts take a look at TV technology in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. This podcast
is brought to you by Audible dot com, the internet
leading provider of spoken word entertainment. For a free audio
book of your choice, go to Audible podcast dot com
(00:23):
slash tech Stuff. Hi there, everybody, Welcome to tech Stuff.
My name is Chris Polette. I'm an editor at how
Stuff Works. Sitting next to me, as usual, is senior
writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, it's good to see you all,
except we can't see you and you can't see us.
But you know, there's always that other medium on which
(00:46):
we're not. But I think the public is familiar with
the This is as smooth as it. I'm just tripping.
All Okay, you know what, I'm gonna just take over
from here. Okay, all right, So we're gonna talk about
television's HDTV S fly panels. Specifically, we're gonna talk about
l C D s versus plasma displays. And if if
(01:06):
you're like me, you know, if you've ever gone into
an electronics store and you see that huge wall of televisions.
You may wonder, like, all right, well, I see there's
some of them are plasma, some of them are l
c D. What's the difference, doesn't doesn't make a difference, Um,
And what's the best choice for me? And which one
can I afford and can have installed in my house
later this afternoon. Which one's gonna allow me to have
(01:27):
the largest possible TV for the least amount of money.
That's usually the way I go. That's I don't think, no, no,
I think that's pretty common. But of course there are
other things to take into consideration, like bigger is not
always better. For one thing, you want to make sure
you have the best picture quality and you want to
you know, there it also depends on what kind of
stuff you like to watch on television, because some displays
(01:50):
are better at showing certain kinds of action than others. Well, um,
I guess then it comes down to what kind of
technology will do that for you. And you know, most
of us grew up with crt s, the cathode ray tube. Um,
those are the bigger TVs that certainly not flat panel,
but you know they had a pretty good picture because
(02:11):
they were using an electron gun to illuminate phosphors in
the back of the TV screen and that produced a
really clear picture. And and in fact, there's some techno
files who would argue that they still provide the best picture,
that the picture from one of those sets, like an
HD TV set that's uses that that technology is actually
superior to plasma or l c D, but they don't
(02:33):
really make a whole lot of HD cathode ray tube sets,
and that they're giants there. Yeah, there's a lot of
space exactly, And and that's that's part of the issue here,
is that once people started seeing these flat panel displays,
you know, they're really sexy and sleek, and you know,
you can just imagine having this really kind of high
tech looking entertainment center with this as the centerpiece. Um
(02:54):
that's got a very you know, enticing appeal to it.
And yeah, you might be able to get a better
picture on a larger machine, but you know you kind
of balance it all out, like, well, what's more important
to me? Is it more important to have the really
sleek machine that still looks amazing or to have the
absolute best, uh, visual performance. And I think a lot
(03:16):
of people, you know, they you know, they tend to
go to the flat panel for one, thing has been
marketed as like the top of the line in uh
in displays. So now it's part of that has to
do with marketing, But I mean you can't underestimate the
the appeal of that that thin wall mounted you know display.
That's true, that's true. Well, Um, there have been a
(03:38):
lot of different technologies that people have used to create
the thinner or even flat panel displays. I mean they're um,
you know, oh LED's the organic light emitting diodes. There
are you know, the DLP l c os, you know,
a bunch of stuff. But it really comes down to, well,
at least for the most part, plasma versus c D Right. Yeah,
(04:01):
I think oh LEDs will probably be something we'll see
more of in the future, but right now, um, the
technology is still pretty new. So the sets that are
out there are very small, like around eleven inches pretty
much it, and they're very very expensive. Um, but they're
also wafer thin, and they're super do wafer thin, and
(04:22):
there are beautiful latin I tell you, and um, you
can even you can even make them so that they're flexible. Yeah,
you could bend them around things if you I mean
granted you have to build that into it. It's not
like every set's gonna bend around everything. But um, it's
really cool technology, but it's still brand new, comparatively speaking,
and so it's uh for most of us, prohibitively expensive.
(04:43):
So l C D S and plasma, let's get down
to the brass tacks, as it were. So let's talk
a little bit about the technologies behind these. Um, I'm
just gonna do kind of a quick high level thing here, uh,
hime in whenever you like. Alright, So, liquid crystal displays
uses this stuff called liquid crystals. It's it acts kind
(05:03):
of like a liquid, kind of like a solid um,
and it's a it's essentially two glass plates with a
layer of these liquid crystals in between. And by applying
electricity to this layer, that's what you allow light through,
uh to create the pictures. And so these televisions are
back lit. There's a light source behind this layer of
liquid crystals that provides all the light you see on
(05:26):
the television. Plasma displays use an ionized gas. That's what
plasma is. It's a gas that can conduct electricity and
it lights up only when there are when there's something
to show. On the screens. There's no backlight there. It's
just uh, electricity activating this gas to create light, So
you don't you don't have a constant backlight like like
(05:48):
you do with l c ds, And that becomes important
in a minute. Yeah. The neat thing about the plasma
is that when you introduce some free um atomic particles
into the plasma uh atoms, they basically excite the different
atoms by replacing electrons and it makes them bounce around
and when they do that, they give off light um.
(06:10):
So it's, uh, it's sort of an atomic reaction. You're
talking about actually subatomic really, because you're talking about electrons
and photons here. This is quantum stuff. You're watching quantum TV.
It's pretty awesome. I I really want to make a
quantum leap joke, but okay, well I'm not gonna Yeah,
I think that's a been dated anyway. So anyway, so
(06:31):
we mentioned the back light for l c D s.
Now that that's one of the big differences between the
l c D displays and the plasma displays. This can
affect something that is called contrast ratio. If you ever
start shopping for TVs, especially flat panels and h d
t V s, you'll you'll likely run into a lot
of talk about contrast ratios, and well, what is a
contrast ratio? It's the difference between the essentially the whitest
(06:56):
whites and the blackest blacks that that display can show.
So the bigger that number, like say say you say
it's one thousand to one, the bigger that number is,
the more colors that can show, the better the blacks
are going to be, the better the contrast is. So
a fifty thousand to one is a much better contrast ratio.
And in general, plasma screens show blacks better than l
(07:19):
c ds. And that's because, like we said, there's no
backlight on a plasma. So if you want to watch
a lot of movies, for example, a lot of really
like kind of you know, dark, grim movie type things.
They say, you want to watch The Dark Night, there
are a lot of blacks in that movie. You know,
you get like the black of the night, you get
the black of the Batman costume, you get the black
(07:39):
of the car, all of these things, um degrees of
black exactly. Yeah, it goes from you're going to see
the difference between them the pastel black from Yeah, for
your spinal tap fans out there's a paste black. But
they the if you have a screen that can show
a very good contrast ratio, a very wide contrast ratio,
(08:01):
you'll be able to see all that clearly. They're not
going to blend into one another. It's not gonna look
blocky or anything like that. Um So, plasma screens are
really good at that. L c D s are are
getting better, but traditionally they were seen as not being
very good as far as the contrast ratio goes. But
that's changing. Yeah, that's changing. There. There are a lot
of improvements in that field right there, and and there
(08:24):
are other change things that traditionally were different between plasma
and l c D that are increasingly becoming non factors
because the improvements in the technology have reached a point
where it's it's getting hard and hard to tell the difference. Now,
if you look at a lot of people's top you know,
top television lists, I think you'll probably see more plasmas
(08:48):
than l c D s even now, because that's the
general consistent consensus is that they show more vibrant colors
and the contrast is better. You can have larger sets,
larger sets they don't. There's there's not really a problem
with blurring with fast action. Some of the older l
c d s had a problem with that where if
something was moving across the screen very very quickly, you
(09:10):
can get a blurring effect. So if you were watching
something that had a lot of fast action in it,
like you know, most sports, then you would get this
kind of blurring effect, especially at high definitions. UM plasma
didn't have that problem. But now again with l c
d s, they know, you're just starting to see l
c d s with like incredible refresh rates, which is
how many times uh the television refreshes the picture that's
(09:33):
on your screen. Um, you know they're a hundred twenty
hurts is not unheard of, and that's that means it's
refreshing at a rate about like a hundred twenty times
a second. It's really really fast. And there are even
faster ones coming out that I saw at c S,
which were two hurts, so four times a second. Then yeah,
so when well two hundred forty times a second, yeah,
(09:54):
not four times a second, you're thinking you're you're dividing
by minutes um two of a second. So that's so fast.
I mean we can kind of detect around like like
film I think is what like twenty four frames per
second something like that, So this is ten times that. Um.
The idea here being that that it makes smoother transitions.
You don't see the blurring effect with with really fast motions.
(10:18):
But still plasma kind of holds the advantage there, but
it's not a not a really discernible one unless you're
paying incredibly close attention. And then there's the power consumption issue. Yes,
because l c D s are traditionally considered to be
the more energy efficient technology. Yes, in general they are,
but not as much anymore, not as much anymore, um.
(10:40):
I mean even I remember a few years ago that, uh,
some communities were starting to ban the sale of new
plasma televisions because they used so much energy, right, And
I can talk a little bit about why that is.
The main reason is that, uh, you're having to essentially
shoot electricity to excite these these atoms, you know, to
(11:02):
in order to give off light. Well, even when you
turn that television off, the electricity is still is still draining,
you know. Vampire power is what a lot of people
call it, um, because it has to stay ready, you know,
for the next time you turn it on. People don't
want to wait for it to warm up there and
sucks down electricity and and so you get a lot
(11:23):
more draining uh when the even when the device is
turned off than you would with an l c D
screen screen and l c D s also have to
warm up. They just don't have as long a warm
up time as plasma. And we're talking when we're talking
about long warm up times, we're talking about a matter
of seconds. But we've become so impatient as consumers that
we expect when we put hit that power button, we
expect that screen to come on pretty darn quick. So um,
(11:47):
but your I can give you one example of a
time when a plasma screen will pull less electricity than
an l c D. If you're watching something that's perfectly black,
because the l c D has a backlight and it
will always be lit. Good point. If you watch nothing
but the black, are sorry. If you watch nothing but
the dark, Knight or spinal tap, yeah, something like that,
(12:10):
then yeah, you're gonna you're gonna pull less power with
your plasma display. But in general, yes, it's gonna it's
gonna consume more power. Now, a lot of companies have
developed UM power saving techniques to reduce that. In fact,
it's become more and more important. I saw a lot
of that C yes as well. They had a lot
of different companies hooking up televisions too, UM electronic meters
(12:31):
telling you how much energy it was pulling at any
particular time, and they would line up previous models like
here's the set we released in two thousand five and
two thousand six, you know, all the way up to
two thousand nine, and then maybe even like prototype models
for for future ones. And you could see that the
energy consumption peaked sometime around two thousand seven or so
(12:52):
and then dramatically began to drop because that's when everyone
started getting more environmentally conscious and also just an idea
of serving power to save money. Right, So yeah, so
that is also changing. UM. So it seems like the
battle between plasma and l c D is almost becoming
(13:12):
a moot point. It's sort of a pick the set
that's best for you, because in general, they're all going
to be about the same level of energy efficient, they're
all going to show pretty much the same colors. Of course,
it's always good to have a professional calibrate the TV
because looking at it in the showroom. Well, it may
or may not be the kind of thing it's it's
not going to look the same in your house when
(13:33):
you actually get at home. It's been calibrated specifically for
that store exactly. Yeah, so it's important to calibrated either
by a professional or if you know what you're doing,
you can do it yourself. Yeah, there's some televisions that
actually have calibrations software installed, so that uses UH uses
light sensors to detect how much light is in your room,
and then we'll calibrate the contrast and brightness and everything
(13:55):
on its own, so that way you get the what
presumably would be the best picture for your such a oation.
I can talk about a couple of other minor things.
UM plasma screens. They tend to have a glassy UH display,
so there's very reflective. So in general it's better to
use a plasma display in a room that has, you know,
(14:17):
low lighting. So if you have a lot of bright lights.
UH plasmas tend to be really reflective, you may not
be able to see what's on the screen very well.
UM l c D might be better in that case,
because most of those have a non reflective or Matt
style finish on their on the front display. So better
for your man cave is plasma, right, which is exactly
what I have. I mean, I turn all the lights off.
(14:39):
I got the I mean I don't have a plasma
display that I've got a man cave. Um. Yeah, I
turn off all the lights when I when I watch.
I've actually got a rear projection TV, so I've got
one of those monsters. Um. But uh, the yeah that
if you're if you're gonna watch in a dark room,
plasma is a good choice. I mean you're going to
get a great picture. Uh and uh and actually the
(15:01):
funny thing is plasma is still a little less expensive
than a comparable l c D. If you're looking at
the the big, big screens, you know, the on the
smaller end price is pretty much negligible. But if I'm
talking about like, if you're looking at sixty three inches
like a monster TV, plasma tends to be a little
(15:22):
less expensive than l c D. Right, And also they
do get bigger. You can get the really big monster
TVs in in plasma. Actually, I don't even know if
you can find an l c D in sixty three
in you might have to drop down to fifty five.
But well, uh, you know, if you're done talking about
plasma and l c D. Wow, I do have a
(15:43):
trump card, Yes, hit me with it. I want to
uh remind you of your pet favorite TV. Are you
talking about the Mitsubishi Laser View, Yes, I am, and
you know that the manufacturer says that it takes one
third the power of a plasma TV and has twice
the color. So uh, but it does it with lasers,
which means doesn't tell you that it just has twice
(16:05):
the yellow, twice the yellow. That's just a joke. That's
only only twice one color exactly. Yeah, yeah, we have
half the blues, but three times the yeah, I'm just kidding. However,
it's also eight times more expensive, you know, because it's
brand new technology uses lasers instead of vel C D
S or plasma or and it's it's gorgeous and it
(16:27):
also is three D ready Yeah, but you've actually seen, yes,
I have, and it's it's pretty capful. It's you know,
when I first read about I thought I wanted one,
and then I saw one and I knew I wanted one,
So I still want one. I'm not gonna buy one
any type soon don't don't have seven grand laying around
to spend on it, but it does. It is very,
(16:48):
very impressive television. It's not a flat panel um so
it's not gonna you're not gonna mount that on your
wall unless you have a you know, a real load
bearing wall right there. But it's it's definitely an impressive television. Yeah, well,
I guess that I don't have any more TV. The
only thing I could talk about is burning, but that's
not even an issue anymore. So, Yeah, there used to
(17:11):
be a big issue used to if you had let's
say that's your video gamer, and you would put a
game on pause for eight hours where you go sleep
and then you come back and play some more with
with plasma, if those colors were we're sitting there on
the screen for that long, you would see like when
you'd start the game, you'd see that there was a
ghost image of whatever it was that was paused for
(17:31):
those eight hours, and sometimes the ghost imaged wouldn't go away,
it was burnt into the screen for pretty much ever
and ever, um LCD didn't really have that problem as
much as almost almost uh didn't exist. But that's pretty
much been solved too. That so you don't get too
many issues with plasma burning unless unless you're just being
(17:52):
really extreme, like you pause your video game and then
you go on vacation for a couple of weeks, then
you might have a problem. But you know that's that's again,
that's an extra beream case, and that would be a
certainly not a good way to conserve electricity. No, that
would not be very eco conscious of you. I mean
I would never do that, but Poulette wouldn't put it
past him. So anyway, well, you know what, I've got
(18:13):
something else we can talk about, but before we get
to it, I think we need to thank your sponsors. Yes,
audible dot com. If you go to www dot audible
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(18:34):
products as well. And if you're like me and you
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(18:55):
and I mean a TV news junkie. I you know,
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(19:16):
got excellent reviews everywhere. So I would definitely check that out. Wonderful. Yeah.
My uh suggestion also comes from something that I had
a huge passion end when I was a kid and
I was watching TV. Um, actually one of my heroes,
I would say, uh, and the book is It's Not
Easy Being Green and other Things to Consider by Jim Henson,
(19:36):
The Muppets and Friends, And uh, yeah, I was a
huge Jim Henson fan as a kid. Um, you're still
still I am a Joe huge Jim Henson fan. Also
come from a family of storytellers and puppeteers, so that
kind of helps too. But anyway, this book is is
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(19:58):
one that's a that would be a and I mean
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tech stuff. Okay, so let's get back to my favorite segment.
I'm sure it's yours as well. Listener mail. Oh that's loud. Yeah, well,
(20:24):
you know it's we have to alert them. It's really
so it's early yet. This is true. So this listener
mail comes from our listener, Jamie McCarty. Jamie actually has
a correction for us, which we appreciate. Jamie was very
polite and um and was also praising us quite a
bit in this email. But I'm gonna skip right to
the the correction. This is about our our podcast where
(20:47):
we talked about games with GPS receivers. UM. GPS receivers
do not transmit any information back to the satellites. The
power required to transmit back to the satellites would be
way too much for such small devices. Actually, the device
is simply receiving and coded time stamps and up to
date satellite constellation coordinates that provide enough information for the
receiver to calculate its position. While it's possible to send
(21:09):
out positional information, it requires a cellular radio waves or
satellite modems and I guess now WiFi, which is which
only the most sophisticated devices have. Thanks Jamie. That actually,
that's that's true. Unless it has one of those devices,
it's not going to send out any signals. It's just
acting as a receiver, otherwise it would be a GPS
transceiver yep, yep. So it's basically coordinating, uh, the signals
(21:33):
it receives and figuring out where you are based on
that information. So yeah, just getting bombarded by signals all
the time as long as you're someplace where there's an
open area to the sky. Yes, yes, So thanks very much, Jamie.
We greatly appreciate that. And if you would like to
write to us, you can do so at tech stuff
(21:53):
at how stuff works dot com. And uh, if you
want to learn more about l c d S and plasmas,
we have any of information on the website. That's how
stuff works dot com. And we will talk to you
again really soon for moralness and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works? Dot com brought to you
(22:17):
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are
you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. This podcast
is brought to you by Audible dot com, the internet
leading provider of spoken word entertainment. For a free audio
book of your choice, go to Audible podcast dot com
(00:23):
slash tech Stuff. Hi there, everybody, Welcome to tech Stuff.
My name is Chris Polette. I'm an editor at how
Stuff Works. Sitting next to me, as usual, is senior
writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, it's good to see you all,
except we can't see you and you can't see us.
But you know, there's always that other medium on which
(00:46):
we're not. But I think the public is familiar with
the This is as smooth as it. I'm just tripping.
All Okay, you know what, I'm gonna just take over
from here. Okay, all right, So we're gonna talk about
television's HDTV S fly panels. Specifically, we're gonna talk about
l C D s versus plasma displays. And if if
(01:06):
you're like me, you know, if you've ever gone into
an electronics store and you see that huge wall of televisions.
You may wonder, like, all right, well, I see there's
some of them are plasma, some of them are l
c D. What's the difference, doesn't doesn't make a difference, Um,
And what's the best choice for me? And which one
can I afford and can have installed in my house
later this afternoon. Which one's gonna allow me to have
(01:27):
the largest possible TV for the least amount of money.
That's usually the way I go. That's I don't think, no, no,
I think that's pretty common. But of course there are
other things to take into consideration, like bigger is not
always better. For one thing, you want to make sure
you have the best picture quality and you want to
you know, there it also depends on what kind of
stuff you like to watch on television, because some displays
(01:50):
are better at showing certain kinds of action than others. Well, um,
I guess then it comes down to what kind of
technology will do that for you. And you know, most
of us grew up with crt s, the cathode ray tube. Um,
those are the bigger TVs that certainly not flat panel,
but you know they had a pretty good picture because
(02:11):
they were using an electron gun to illuminate phosphors in
the back of the TV screen and that produced a
really clear picture. And and in fact, there's some techno
files who would argue that they still provide the best picture,
that the picture from one of those sets, like an
HD TV set that's uses that that technology is actually
superior to plasma or l c D, but they don't
(02:33):
really make a whole lot of HD cathode ray tube sets,
and that they're giants there. Yeah, there's a lot of
space exactly, And and that's that's part of the issue here,
is that once people started seeing these flat panel displays,
you know, they're really sexy and sleek, and you know,
you can just imagine having this really kind of high
tech looking entertainment center with this as the centerpiece. Um
(02:54):
that's got a very you know, enticing appeal to it.
And yeah, you might be able to get a better
picture on a larger machine, but you know you kind
of balance it all out, like, well, what's more important
to me? Is it more important to have the really
sleek machine that still looks amazing or to have the
absolute best, uh, visual performance. And I think a lot
(03:16):
of people, you know, they you know, they tend to
go to the flat panel for one, thing has been
marketed as like the top of the line in uh
in displays. So now it's part of that has to
do with marketing, But I mean you can't underestimate the
the appeal of that that thin wall mounted you know display.
That's true, that's true. Well, Um, there have been a
(03:38):
lot of different technologies that people have used to create
the thinner or even flat panel displays. I mean they're um,
you know, oh LED's the organic light emitting diodes. There
are you know, the DLP l c os, you know,
a bunch of stuff. But it really comes down to, well,
at least for the most part, plasma versus c D Right. Yeah,
(04:01):
I think oh LEDs will probably be something we'll see
more of in the future, but right now, um, the
technology is still pretty new. So the sets that are
out there are very small, like around eleven inches pretty
much it, and they're very very expensive. Um, but they're
also wafer thin, and they're super do wafer thin, and
(04:22):
there are beautiful latin I tell you, and um, you
can even you can even make them so that they're flexible. Yeah,
you could bend them around things if you I mean
granted you have to build that into it. It's not
like every set's gonna bend around everything. But um, it's
really cool technology, but it's still brand new, comparatively speaking,
and so it's uh for most of us, prohibitively expensive.
(04:43):
So l C D S and plasma, let's get down
to the brass tacks, as it were. So let's talk
a little bit about the technologies behind these. Um, I'm
just gonna do kind of a quick high level thing here, uh,
hime in whenever you like. Alright, So, liquid crystal displays
uses this stuff called liquid crystals. It's it acts kind
(05:03):
of like a liquid, kind of like a solid um,
and it's a it's essentially two glass plates with a
layer of these liquid crystals in between. And by applying
electricity to this layer, that's what you allow light through,
uh to create the pictures. And so these televisions are
back lit. There's a light source behind this layer of
liquid crystals that provides all the light you see on
(05:26):
the television. Plasma displays use an ionized gas. That's what
plasma is. It's a gas that can conduct electricity and
it lights up only when there are when there's something
to show. On the screens. There's no backlight there. It's
just uh, electricity activating this gas to create light, So
you don't you don't have a constant backlight like like
(05:48):
you do with l c ds, And that becomes important
in a minute. Yeah. The neat thing about the plasma
is that when you introduce some free um atomic particles
into the plasma uh atoms, they basically excite the different
atoms by replacing electrons and it makes them bounce around
and when they do that, they give off light um.
(06:10):
So it's, uh, it's sort of an atomic reaction. You're
talking about actually subatomic really, because you're talking about electrons
and photons here. This is quantum stuff. You're watching quantum TV.
It's pretty awesome. I I really want to make a
quantum leap joke, but okay, well I'm not gonna Yeah,
I think that's a been dated anyway. So anyway, so
(06:31):
we mentioned the back light for l c D s.
Now that that's one of the big differences between the
l c D displays and the plasma displays. This can
affect something that is called contrast ratio. If you ever
start shopping for TVs, especially flat panels and h d
t V s, you'll you'll likely run into a lot
of talk about contrast ratios, and well, what is a
contrast ratio? It's the difference between the essentially the whitest
(06:56):
whites and the blackest blacks that that display can show.
So the bigger that number, like say say you say
it's one thousand to one, the bigger that number is,
the more colors that can show, the better the blacks
are going to be, the better the contrast is. So
a fifty thousand to one is a much better contrast ratio.
And in general, plasma screens show blacks better than l
(07:19):
c ds. And that's because, like we said, there's no
backlight on a plasma. So if you want to watch
a lot of movies, for example, a lot of really
like kind of you know, dark, grim movie type things.
They say, you want to watch The Dark Night, there
are a lot of blacks in that movie. You know,
you get like the black of the night, you get
the black of the Batman costume, you get the black
(07:39):
of the car, all of these things, um degrees of
black exactly. Yeah, it goes from you're going to see
the difference between them the pastel black from Yeah, for
your spinal tap fans out there's a paste black. But
they the if you have a screen that can show
a very good contrast ratio, a very wide contrast ratio,
(08:01):
you'll be able to see all that clearly. They're not
going to blend into one another. It's not gonna look
blocky or anything like that. Um So, plasma screens are
really good at that. L c D s are are
getting better, but traditionally they were seen as not being
very good as far as the contrast ratio goes. But
that's changing. Yeah, that's changing. There. There are a lot
of improvements in that field right there, and and there
(08:24):
are other change things that traditionally were different between plasma
and l c D that are increasingly becoming non factors
because the improvements in the technology have reached a point
where it's it's getting hard and hard to tell the difference. Now,
if you look at a lot of people's top you know,
top television lists, I think you'll probably see more plasmas
(08:48):
than l c D s even now, because that's the
general consistent consensus is that they show more vibrant colors
and the contrast is better. You can have larger sets,
larger sets they don't. There's there's not really a problem
with blurring with fast action. Some of the older l
c d s had a problem with that where if
something was moving across the screen very very quickly, you
(09:10):
can get a blurring effect. So if you were watching
something that had a lot of fast action in it,
like you know, most sports, then you would get this
kind of blurring effect, especially at high definitions. UM plasma
didn't have that problem. But now again with l c
d s, they know, you're just starting to see l
c d s with like incredible refresh rates, which is
how many times uh the television refreshes the picture that's
(09:33):
on your screen. Um, you know they're a hundred twenty
hurts is not unheard of, and that's that means it's
refreshing at a rate about like a hundred twenty times
a second. It's really really fast. And there are even
faster ones coming out that I saw at c S,
which were two hurts, so four times a second. Then yeah,
so when well two hundred forty times a second, yeah,
(09:54):
not four times a second, you're thinking you're you're dividing
by minutes um two of a second. So that's so fast.
I mean we can kind of detect around like like
film I think is what like twenty four frames per
second something like that, So this is ten times that. Um.
The idea here being that that it makes smoother transitions.
You don't see the blurring effect with with really fast motions.
(10:18):
But still plasma kind of holds the advantage there, but
it's not a not a really discernible one unless you're
paying incredibly close attention. And then there's the power consumption issue. Yes,
because l c D s are traditionally considered to be
the more energy efficient technology. Yes, in general they are,
but not as much anymore, not as much anymore, um.
(10:40):
I mean even I remember a few years ago that, uh,
some communities were starting to ban the sale of new
plasma televisions because they used so much energy, right, And
I can talk a little bit about why that is.
The main reason is that, uh, you're having to essentially
shoot electricity to excite these these atoms, you know, to
(11:02):
in order to give off light. Well, even when you
turn that television off, the electricity is still is still draining,
you know. Vampire power is what a lot of people
call it, um, because it has to stay ready, you know,
for the next time you turn it on. People don't
want to wait for it to warm up there and
sucks down electricity and and so you get a lot
(11:23):
more draining uh when the even when the device is
turned off than you would with an l c D
screen screen and l c D s also have to
warm up. They just don't have as long a warm
up time as plasma. And we're talking when we're talking
about long warm up times, we're talking about a matter
of seconds. But we've become so impatient as consumers that
we expect when we put hit that power button, we
expect that screen to come on pretty darn quick. So um,
(11:47):
but your I can give you one example of a
time when a plasma screen will pull less electricity than
an l c D. If you're watching something that's perfectly black,
because the l c D has a backlight and it
will always be lit. Good point. If you watch nothing
but the black, are sorry. If you watch nothing but
the dark, Knight or spinal tap, yeah, something like that,
(12:10):
then yeah, you're gonna you're gonna pull less power with
your plasma display. But in general, yes, it's gonna it's
gonna consume more power. Now, a lot of companies have
developed UM power saving techniques to reduce that. In fact,
it's become more and more important. I saw a lot
of that C yes as well. They had a lot
of different companies hooking up televisions too, UM electronic meters
(12:31):
telling you how much energy it was pulling at any
particular time, and they would line up previous models like
here's the set we released in two thousand five and
two thousand six, you know, all the way up to
two thousand nine, and then maybe even like prototype models
for for future ones. And you could see that the
energy consumption peaked sometime around two thousand seven or so
(12:52):
and then dramatically began to drop because that's when everyone
started getting more environmentally conscious and also just an idea
of serving power to save money. Right, So yeah, so
that is also changing. UM. So it seems like the
battle between plasma and l c D is almost becoming
(13:12):
a moot point. It's sort of a pick the set
that's best for you, because in general, they're all going
to be about the same level of energy efficient, they're
all going to show pretty much the same colors. Of course,
it's always good to have a professional calibrate the TV
because looking at it in the showroom. Well, it may
or may not be the kind of thing it's it's
not going to look the same in your house when
(13:33):
you actually get at home. It's been calibrated specifically for
that store exactly. Yeah, so it's important to calibrated either
by a professional or if you know what you're doing,
you can do it yourself. Yeah, there's some televisions that
actually have calibrations software installed, so that uses UH uses
light sensors to detect how much light is in your room,
and then we'll calibrate the contrast and brightness and everything
(13:55):
on its own, so that way you get the what
presumably would be the best picture for your such a oation.
I can talk about a couple of other minor things.
UM plasma screens. They tend to have a glassy UH display,
so there's very reflective. So in general it's better to
use a plasma display in a room that has, you know,
(14:17):
low lighting. So if you have a lot of bright lights.
UH plasmas tend to be really reflective, you may not
be able to see what's on the screen very well.
UM l c D might be better in that case,
because most of those have a non reflective or Matt
style finish on their on the front display. So better
for your man cave is plasma, right, which is exactly
what I have. I mean, I turn all the lights off.
(14:39):
I got the I mean I don't have a plasma
display that I've got a man cave. Um. Yeah, I
turn off all the lights when I when I watch.
I've actually got a rear projection TV, so I've got
one of those monsters. Um. But uh, the yeah that
if you're if you're gonna watch in a dark room,
plasma is a good choice. I mean you're going to
get a great picture. Uh and uh and actually the
(15:01):
funny thing is plasma is still a little less expensive
than a comparable l c D. If you're looking at
the the big, big screens, you know, the on the
smaller end price is pretty much negligible. But if I'm
talking about like, if you're looking at sixty three inches
like a monster TV, plasma tends to be a little
(15:22):
less expensive than l c D. Right, And also they
do get bigger. You can get the really big monster
TVs in in plasma. Actually, I don't even know if
you can find an l c D in sixty three
in you might have to drop down to fifty five.
But well, uh, you know, if you're done talking about
plasma and l c D. Wow, I do have a
(15:43):
trump card, Yes, hit me with it. I want to
uh remind you of your pet favorite TV. Are you
talking about the Mitsubishi Laser View, Yes, I am, and
you know that the manufacturer says that it takes one
third the power of a plasma TV and has twice
the color. So uh, but it does it with lasers,
which means doesn't tell you that it just has twice
(16:05):
the yellow, twice the yellow. That's just a joke. That's
only only twice one color exactly. Yeah, yeah, we have
half the blues, but three times the yeah, I'm just kidding. However,
it's also eight times more expensive, you know, because it's
brand new technology uses lasers instead of vel C D
S or plasma or and it's it's gorgeous and it
(16:27):
also is three D ready Yeah, but you've actually seen, yes,
I have, and it's it's pretty capful. It's you know,
when I first read about I thought I wanted one,
and then I saw one and I knew I wanted one,
So I still want one. I'm not gonna buy one
any type soon don't don't have seven grand laying around
to spend on it, but it does. It is very,
(16:48):
very impressive television. It's not a flat panel um so
it's not gonna you're not gonna mount that on your
wall unless you have a you know, a real load
bearing wall right there. But it's it's definitely an impressive television. Yeah, well,
I guess that I don't have any more TV. The
only thing I could talk about is burning, but that's
not even an issue anymore. So, Yeah, there used to
(17:11):
be a big issue used to if you had let's
say that's your video gamer, and you would put a
game on pause for eight hours where you go sleep
and then you come back and play some more with
with plasma, if those colors were we're sitting there on
the screen for that long, you would see like when
you'd start the game, you'd see that there was a
ghost image of whatever it was that was paused for
(17:31):
those eight hours, and sometimes the ghost imaged wouldn't go away,
it was burnt into the screen for pretty much ever
and ever, um LCD didn't really have that problem as
much as almost almost uh didn't exist. But that's pretty
much been solved too. That so you don't get too
many issues with plasma burning unless unless you're just being
(17:52):
really extreme, like you pause your video game and then
you go on vacation for a couple of weeks, then
you might have a problem. But you know that's that's again,
that's an extra beream case, and that would be a
certainly not a good way to conserve electricity. No, that
would not be very eco conscious of you. I mean
I would never do that, but Poulette wouldn't put it
past him. So anyway, well, you know what, I've got
(18:13):
something else we can talk about, but before we get
to it, I think we need to thank your sponsors. Yes,
audible dot com. If you go to www dot audible
podcast dot com slash tech stuff and sign up, you'll
get a free download. And they've got fifty thousand books
on audio as well as podcasts and and other other
(18:34):
products as well. And if you're like me and you
listen to lots of stuff on the train, it's a great,
great resource. And we have a couple of picks that
we'd like to talk to talk about something that we
could recommend as potentially your first free download. My choice
would be stuck in the box of life in local
TV news. Um, if you're like me or a TV junkie. Um,
(18:55):
and I mean a TV news junkie. I you know,
actually did an internship in a TV news room when
I were in college. And this is by Donna McNeely,
who is a former anchor, reporter, producer, and writer. She
even narrates it herself, and it's gotten. It's got an
excellent reviews. Um, you know, only only one five star
review on Audible, but I looked up the book just
to see how everybody else feels about it, and it's
(19:16):
got excellent reviews everywhere. So I would definitely check that out. Wonderful. Yeah.
My uh suggestion also comes from something that I had
a huge passion end when I was a kid and
I was watching TV. Um, actually one of my heroes,
I would say, uh, and the book is It's Not
Easy Being Green and other Things to Consider by Jim Henson,
(19:36):
The Muppets and Friends, And uh, yeah, I was a
huge Jim Henson fan as a kid. Um, you're still
still I am a Joe huge Jim Henson fan. Also
come from a family of storytellers and puppeteers, so that
kind of helps too. But anyway, this book is is
about the man Jim Henson. It's kind of about his
philosophy and his views and um, and I recommend that
(19:58):
one that's a that would be a and I mean
I want it. Either of those or any of fifty
thousand others could be your first free download if you
sign up at www dot audible podcast dot com slash
tech stuff. Okay, so let's get back to my favorite segment.
I'm sure it's yours as well. Listener mail. Oh that's loud. Yeah, well,
(20:24):
you know it's we have to alert them. It's really
so it's early yet. This is true. So this listener
mail comes from our listener, Jamie McCarty. Jamie actually has
a correction for us, which we appreciate. Jamie was very
polite and um and was also praising us quite a
bit in this email. But I'm gonna skip right to
the the correction. This is about our our podcast where
(20:47):
we talked about games with GPS receivers. UM. GPS receivers
do not transmit any information back to the satellites. The
power required to transmit back to the satellites would be
way too much for such small devices. Actually, the device
is simply receiving and coded time stamps and up to
date satellite constellation coordinates that provide enough information for the
receiver to calculate its position. While it's possible to send
(21:09):
out positional information, it requires a cellular radio waves or
satellite modems and I guess now WiFi, which is which
only the most sophisticated devices have. Thanks Jamie. That actually,
that's that's true. Unless it has one of those devices,
it's not going to send out any signals. It's just
acting as a receiver, otherwise it would be a GPS
transceiver yep, yep. So it's basically coordinating, uh, the signals
(21:33):
it receives and figuring out where you are based on
that information. So yeah, just getting bombarded by signals all
the time as long as you're someplace where there's an
open area to the sky. Yes, yes, So thanks very much, Jamie.
We greatly appreciate that. And if you would like to
write to us, you can do so at tech stuff
(21:53):
at how stuff works dot com. And uh, if you
want to learn more about l c d S and plasmas,
we have any of information on the website. That's how
stuff works dot com. And we will talk to you
again really soon for moralness and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works? Dot com brought to you
(22:17):
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are
you
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
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Karah Preiss
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