Plasma Television Screens

Plasma televisions offer a lot of advantages, but they have a few disadvantages as well. They are not as durable as LCD or other types of televisions. Plasma televisions still have a reputation of being fragile. Although their durability is improving, they tend to start to lose some of their picture quality and brightness after a few years. In addition, if a static image is left on the screen (for example from a DVD or video game), plasma TVs have a susceptibility to burned in mages which can produce a ghost like after image when viewing other programs or dvds.

Almost every TV looks good when looking at it straight-on from the front. If you are viewing it from an angle, however, you'll notice that with the old CRT screens, you could view it comfortably from almost any angle. With the newer plasma and LCD screens, however, as you move your viewing angle more and more away from straight-on, the image gets harder to view. More difficult than it would be from the same angle of a CRT screen which still looks good from any angle. However, between a plasma TV and an LCD TV, the plasma television has the higher viewing angle (the angle that you can view it from without suffering image degradation).

"Black level" is the capability of a TV or monitor to produce the color black. It is the level of brightness at the darkest part of the visual image. On monitors and televisions, the "black level" control is usually labeled as "brightness". Black level is important in that it determines the quality of the image. It's presence  means that the TV will produce a sharper image.

If you're not getting a clear picture on your TV, it may be because the black level is incorrectly set. It's normal for a TV to need calibration when it's taken out of the box. Many people don't bother with this, thinking that because the television  is new, it is automatically set up correctly. But, if you want the highest quality picture your screen can deliver, you're going to have to calibrate your TV screen first. A TV will normally have both a brightness and contrast control. The brightness control adjusts the black level. The contrast control adjusts the white level. When you calibrate the black level, adjust it so that the "black" parts of the screen actually show as black, and not grey.

When compared to CRT screens, the drawbacks of plasma televisions are that they have a harder time producing the "black level" than CRT screens. In addition, while the picture quality of a CRT screen will last for years and years, you'll notice a distinct difference in quality for a plasma television after a few years. Likewise, the picture quality of a  Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) televisions declines after a time, but usually, all things being equal, the CRT screen will last longer.

White level is somewhat the opposite of black level. It is the brightest part of the television screen and should be pure white or as close to white as it can get. Use the "contrast" control to adjust the white level. While always important, white level is especially important on very large screens - but only because on large screens it's more apparent in the visual quality.

The half life of plasma televisions are increasing every year. A plasma TV's half life is the number of hours it will take it's lamp to fade to 50 percent of its original brightness. Early plasma televisions had a half life of less than 20,000 hours. Today the average half life is somewhere between 40,000 to 60,000 hours depending on the brand and model. As you can see, however, the half life, in years, depends partially on how much you use your TV. The TV of a person who watches television 10 hours a day will not last as long as that of a person who watches TV 2 hours a day, even though the televisions may be the exact same brand and model.