DLP vs Plasma/LCD

This is a very complex issue, that couldn't possibly be covered to any depth in a single post. There are many trade offs between cost, performance, reliability, energy efficiency AND features. The big trade off is how and where the set will be used; either daylight football parties with people milling about, or one person in the sweet spot in a dark room. This last trade-off, "use", is the biggest factor with every display technology, because (today anyway) they all have some sort of major limitation that restricts their use to one of the above watching scenarios.

Todays plasma display technology has many issues and some virtues. Plasma sets are displaying serious color and luminosity issues within three years of purchase, yup THREE. They run very hot due to all the elctricity they consume. They are sensitive to power feed. Yet, they are slim, and provide very wide viewing angles. Depending on the mfg, scaling, molting, color temp and contrast ratio will vary in relation to price. Long term, plasma will not play out, just because it is too expensive, eats too much juice, short service life, and will always be catastrophically susceptible to pixel loss. Other fixed pixel display devices that employ "light engines" will eventually reach a point where the "light engine" itself can be replaced. Not so with a plasma screen. Plasma will also not make it, because the size of the panels can not be scaled. The panel is the display device, so large panels will be impossible to build. With RPTV tecnology, the light engine is independent from the display surface, so display size becomes a factor of contrast ratio, refresh rate, and the resolution of the display chips. Plasma will probably always occupy some niche, but that's it biggest possible role.

Todays LCD RPTV have a ways to go, but they are improving. Sony's line up for 2005 is head and shoulders above its 2004 lineup. LCD RPTV's suffer primarily from poor contrast ratio. This limits their ability to be used in dark rooms, aka movie watching. They typically use three chips, which allows for excellent color temp, good brightness, and good geometry. At this moment they are limited to a native display rate of 720p, but this should change in 2006 to 1080p. Not bad for daylight viewing, but as all RPTV's they suffer from vertical viewing arpeture limitations.

LCOS, which is really reflective LCD technology will eventually (within a year or three, see Intels forthcoming products) displace transmissive LCD completely. LCOS (basically same as DILA) has many technical advantages over LCD and DLP. LCOS is one of the few (only?)technologies which can scale the substrate and pixel size down much further (LCD and DLP can not do this for many technical reasons). This will allow for much smaller and cheaper LCOS chips within 2-4 years.

DLP will be the undisputed king of the hill in two months when the first xHD3 based products begin to roll out. It is close to that reign now with the HD2+ chips. That leadership will quickly be challenged within 12 months by the first generation of high tech LCOS displays. In the mean time, DLP xHD3 sporting contrast rations of 3000:1, 7 segment color wheels, and 1080p native resolution will be tough to beat. Ultimately DLP will face stiff competition from LCOS, but that is really 5 years out atleast, as both technologies will continue to improve in the near term. Next thing up for DLP are the coming improvements in the design of the color wheel, expected mid 2005. The newest 7 segment color wheels already bring any rainbow effect to vanishing low levels, while at the same time improving contrast ratio (thanks to the new dark green 7th segment).

CRT RPTV still has the best pure picture quality in a dark room, bar none. There is limited vertical dispersion and limited horizantal dispersion. Not to mention weight, setup hassles, size, ambient light issues, and CRT performance fade over time. But the picture, oh my. Oh yeah, and it happens to be the cheapest to boot. But that huge bottom cabinet and the ambient light issues keep in the yesterdays technology arena.

Sony SXRD is still a myth from what I can tell. Even if this can be brought to market, its limitations and costs are unknown. And it appears that contrast ratio might be an issue right out the chute. The Qualia three chip front projector is not a price/performance leader at $25K, but it does showcase where SXRD could go.

Front projection is another ball game.

If all this wasn't enough, there are the issues with STILL evolving HDMI, DVI, HDCP, and CardAccess technologies.

All that said, I am very much looking forward to viewing the Samsung xHD3 61" display in January. Part of their upcoming "90" series. It might be worthy, maybe.

Today, you still can't beat a direct view CRT monitor. But, and big BUT's here, they are heavy, very deep, and not energy efficent. Color temp, veiwing dispersion and flexibilty are unbeaten. But the biggest 16:9 set is 34". Yes, there is the 38" Aconda from Lowe, and a 40" XBR from Sony (300lbs), but those are specialty sets due to their depth, weight, and power requirements. The 38" RCA offering looks, well, not great.

Happy viewing.

The current generation of HD2, HD3, and HD2+ DLP chips are all 720p native resolution. The xHD3 is 1080p native resolution. The xHD3 includes all of the performance enhancements that went into the prior three generations. I would expect good contrast ratio, little to no rainbow effect, etc.

But, the proof is in the pudding. Few people have had the chance to see the 90 series, mostly at trade shows. We'll know in a couple months. The 6190 is rumoured to be "in production" now. I can't believe that other mfg's are too far behind samsung with rolling out xHD3 products, but I haven't heard anything juicy yet.

Center channels: Another advantage of "table top" digital sets over CRT RPTV is that even large center channels can be accomadated in the cabinet beneath them. Maybe not the matching cabinet from the mfg, but certainly in your own custom rack. The Dunlavy HRCC being the epitome of "placement concerns". Many CRT sets didn't have a flat top, and they certainly weren't going to hold up the likes of the Dunlavy center. To make it worse, the lower cabinet sections of CRT RPTV's are generally smaller than the HRCC, which would require elevating the set.

The Sony Wega 42" LCD is the largest LCD panel i am aware of. It is not cheap. Like all LCD panels it suffers from response time issues, but this set does have very fast response times compared to previous generations.

Plasma panels, 50" and over (though I am not yet aware of any products over 50") are not light. The weight of the panel increases in proportion to the SQUARE Area of the panel. The weight increase is actually MUCH worse than that, because the thickness of the optically clear glass must be increased as well to provide the necessary structural integrity. Costs climb amazingly quick after 50" for large thick panels of optical glass.

The 50" LCD displays being bantered about for around $3k are RPTV's.

There are two reasons why plasma will remain a niche player. These are scalability and reliability.

Scalability by itself will relegate plasma to a niche market. The first scalability issues is that there is a finite limit to which plasma cells can be shrunk. This directly limits the resolution of any given panel size produced. The second scalability issue is that the display substrate is the display screen. Thus larger display screens, require larger plasma panels. The manufacturing ability and yields drop off dramitically beyond the panel sizes that are produced today. To make matters worse for plasma, neither of these scalability issues apply to reflective LCD technology (LCOS, DILA) and apply only marginally to transmisive LCD and DLP. Plasma will contine to do well for small panels, and may compete with LCD panels for handheld panel displays. In order for handheld plasma screens to compete with LCD, the power consumption issues in plasma must be addressed, and that is unlikely to happen with an ionized gas that must be excited.

The reliability of large glass panels, incorporating ionized gas cells that consume large quantities of power (relative to other displays), is far lower than a small reflective LCD panel that consumes almost no power. Plasma panels are susceptible to shock, aging and atmospheric pressure (or lack of it).

The scalability and reliability reasons is why LCOS will eventually pervail. Reflective LCD panles place the control electronics behind the actual pixel cells, thus the cells can contine to be shrunk without regard for the controls for each cell. Where as transmissive LCD panels must incorporate some of the control circuitry into the light path. This limits the ability to shrink and scale each pixel, and thus the transmissive LCD panels themselves. DLP will also suffer from scalability and reliability issues once a certain pixel density and size is reached.

None of the above is new news. Some basic reading on display technologies will yield all that and a lot more.

Where it gets real interesting, is who can produce what, and when, at what cost, and with what features. Today 50" plasma panels, despite their obvious performance issues, have a market with their light output and wide viewing angle. Tomorrow that performance gap will be reversed, and the price will end its use for panels of any real size.

Light engines that will enable very narrow LCOS, LCD and DLP display devices are already on design tables. Plasma needs to be credited for highlighting the consumers need/desire for unobtrusive display devices. We can love plasma for what it represents in product features, but it would be a mistake to assume that it is the technology that will continue to deliver on the consumers needs/requirements/desires.

Obrown, The current new Samsung DLP RPTV's are based on the HD2+ chips. In a month or three, the HL-P6190 (aka 90 series) will be out, based on the xHD3 chips (around $6000+). Unfortuneately, Samsung is charging more money for these sets (as is their right, and I respect that).

Bruce, you are correct, viewing preferences, viewing realities and other criteria make DLP (and others) an excellent choice for many people. However, under the correct conditions (dark room, narrow viewing angle, proper calibration, good source) no current television based display technology (note that front projection is not included here) comes close to the performance of the CRT based systems. I agree that CRT systems have many issues, restrictions and limitations. But given the limited circumstances for which they are intended, they are unrivaled in peformance, and cost. True, few people are willing to tolerate their size, weight (190 lbs for a 34" 16:9), narrow viewing angle (RPTV), low light output (RPTV), calibration requirements (and cost), convergence issues ("don't bump the rptv"), and slow performance fade.

Hence the wonderful world of DLP and LCD which we are all buying at a price/performance premium. I agree with all you say, except to say that CRT displays, based purely on performance, are still the best. But they come with a whole list of gotcha's.