OLED vs Plasma (HDTVtest 2020)

[mnewsham]

Vincent from HDTVtest decided to put up a 2013 Panasonic ZT65 Plasma, against the 2020 Panasonic HZ2000 OLED.

If any of you are still using a plasma, this might be the final push you need to upgrade, or you might decide that plasma is still good enough for your needs. In either case, it's nice to see the progression from the last top of the line plasmas to the current top OLED.

 

[killster1]

i still use a plasma for my babies to watch tv on i dont know what i would do with it otherwise since i enjoy 4k hdr, it just sat on the wall for many years unused, in the winter it doubles as a nice heater as well.

 

[Muadib]

i still use a plasma for my babies to watch tv on i dont know what i would do with it otherwise since i enjoy 4k hdr, it just sat on the wall for many years unused, in the winter it doubles as a nice heater as well.

So you are burning your babies? Where did you live again?

 

[killster1]

So you are burning your babies? Where did you live again?

the tv is mounted on the wall 6' up. in California its hot during the summer and colllld in the winter so electronics heating the house is a good thing. my only dislike for plasma is having zero light sources in front of it so it doesnt have a reflection from the glass. (blacked out curtains and a lamp behind the tv solved this issue.

 

[MadScientist]

Good article. Got my eye on this TV. LG OLED My 8 year old Panasonic 55" TC-P55ST60 plasma TV still puts out a decent picture. So far no burn in. It's a beast, weighs ~70 lbs. with the stand and doubles as a space heater. It's in a north facing room, my Man Cave, in front of a window with dark blinds, and a light behind it. The room is long and narrow so my seating is ~7' from the TV, 55" is big enough. For anyone that still has one of these here are the calibration settings I am using. Cal Settings

 

[BarkingGhostar]

There are two main reasons why plasma went away. The majority of buyers are not necessarily looking for high PQ nor are they doing critical viewing on a TV. But this isn't one of the reasons why plasma went away. The first reason, but not the most important reason was that the price wars between plasma and LCD went to the LCD camp. The second, and most important reason had nothing to do with sales, pricing, etc., but it was revealed around 2008 that a by-product of the plasma panel manufacturing process was a power carcinogenic waste product with a long half-life. This was a waste product at the factory, not the actual plasma TV's in the landfill. C&EN journal documented the problem and how the half-life of the carcinogenic waste product was way beyond what the manufacturers were willing to handle in long terms.

To this day that carcinogenic waste product is still around and will be so beyond your grand children's lifetimes. Those plasma panel makers will have that burden of stowing the carcinogenic waste product for a very long and costly time. And with that said, even to this day only Organic LED panels beat plasma. Nothing that Samsung hopes to market can exceed the contrast and black levels of plasma, and certainly not OLED. And while I am looking to buy an OLED, I still have two working plasma TVs in my home that I bought in 2008 and 2009. Only the unit from 2008 has issues and it is squarely on the video input board (3 of 4 HDMI ports are dead).

Long Live The Plasmas!

 

[Hans Gruber]

There are two main reasons why plasma went away. The majority of buyers are not necessarily looking for high PQ nor are they doing critical viewing on a TV. But this isn't one of the reasons why plasma went away. The first reason, but not the most important reason was that the price wars between plasma and LCD went to the LCD camp. The second, and most important reason had nothing to do with sales, pricing, etc., but it was revealed around 2008 that a by-product of the plasma panel manufacturing process was a power carcinogenic waste product with a long half-life. This was a waste product at the factory, not the actual plasma TV's in the landfill. C&EN journal documented the problem and how the half-life of the carcinogenic waste product was way beyond what the manufacturers were willing to handle in long terms.

To this day that carcinogenic waste product is still around and will be so beyond your grand children's lifetimes. Those plasma panel makers will have that burden of stowing the carcinogenic waste product for a very long and costly time. And with that said, even to this day only Organic LED panels beat plasma. Nothing that Samsung hopes to market can exceed the contrast and black levels of plasma, and certainly not OLED. And while I am looking to buy an OLED, I still have two working plasma TVs in my home that I bought in 2008 and 2009. Only the unit from 2008 has issues and it is squarely on the video input board (3 of 4 HDMI ports are dead).

Long Live The Plasmas!

A VA panel on an LED has deeper blacks than a Plasma. What kills plasma is the power consumption and the lack of 4K screens as well as not having a built in OS for streaming. Now you can get an external Roku player but who needs the extra clutter. Blu-Ray players doubled as Netflix streaming devices in the past. Plus the weight of the new TV's is significantly less than plasma TV's. For it's time it was the best.

 

[Fallen Kell]

There are two main reasons why plasma went away. The majority of buyers are not necessarily looking for high PQ nor are they doing critical viewing on a TV. But this isn't one of the reasons why plasma went away. The first reason, but not the most important reason was that the price wars between plasma and LCD went to the LCD camp. The second, and most important reason had nothing to do with sales, pricing, etc., but it was revealed around 2008 that a by-product of the plasma panel manufacturing process was a power carcinogenic waste product with a long half-life. This was a waste product at the factory, not the actual plasma TV's in the landfill. C&EN journal documented the problem and how the half-life of the carcinogenic waste product was way beyond what the manufacturers were willing to handle in long terms.

The cacinogenic waste had nothing to do with it at all. If it did, we wouldn't have Li ion batteries everywhere which contain plenty of cacinogenic materials and produce toxic gases when rupture/ignite on fire.

The reason was that the new fad was for thinner displays, and plasma simply could not be made much thinner (it was also the reason we saw the death of most full array backlights in LCDs only to finally come full circle on them in the last few years because they are simply better allowing for local dimming).

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Do not tell me, tell the Chemistry & Engineering News that reported it as being the prime factor reported by the manufacturers back in 2007-8. If you think the tech journal was lying, tell them, bud. I'm only passing it along.

 

[nOOky]

I have a 2011 Panasonic TC-P60ST30 60" in my living room. I bought it just about 9 years ago. I look at it and still think the picture is great, especially watching football and action movies. I'm not sure how long it will live on yet, maybe a day, maybe 3 years. It cost about $1,300, or about $144 a year.

The problem is that the LG CX 65" is on sale for about $1,900 right now. I was checking it out at best Buy, and it is simply beautiful. 4K is desirable to me, but it's just a want.

I wonder if they are clearing them out for the next model year? If so, will next year's be better, better enough to wait? Decisions...

 

[BarkingGhostar]

That CX also has HDMI2.1 on it. The Costco sale is the same and runs through the 22nd. I want it, hell I am willing to buy the 77" version, but the thought of my wife turning on the POSt DirecTV and watching ch!t shows with channel logos that will retain an imagine would make me think twice about not hitting her over the head with a hammer. Just kidding, honey! Just kidding.

 

[Fallen Kell]

That is my problem with OLED. If all the news networks and cable channel logos could be configured to change the location of the scrolls/logos, OLED would be a no brainer, but we don't get customization like that of the feeds.

As such I am still holding out hope for mini/micro-LED and a manufacturer that spends the money on the electronics behind the panel to fully support the panel they use (i.e. use all full bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports with all ports supporting all features). Have the configuration menu allow for turning on/off any setting, overriding the automatic detected settings, and preferably have the TV pass Gsync Ultimate certification and/or Freesync Premium Pro (what is the point of a 4K+ screen that has HDR if you can't use HDR when in game mode?).

 

[CP5670]

The problem is that the LG CX 65" is on sale for about $1,900 right now. I was checking it out at best Buy, and it is simply beautiful. 4K is desirable to me, but it's just a want.

I wonder if they are clearing them out for the next model year? If so, will next year's be better, better enough to wait? Decisions...

The panels have not changed much in the last 4-5 years. I went from a 55" E8 to a 77" CX and can't tell any difference at all on a still image, but the latter supports 4K at 120hz (and VRR/Gsync, once they fix it) and is a huge improvement in games. The burn-in is less of an issue every year as they keep adding various mitigations for it. On the PC side, OLED is the first true successor I have seen to CRT and the first display that didn't make me miss some aspect of my old CRT, unlike every LCD monitor I've used.

 

[AdamK47]

Gaming has driven feature pushes for TVs recently. In 2013 it was an afterthought. Input lag across all major brands was horrendous. My 65" LG C9 has incredibly low input lag and GSync. I'd take it over a desktop monitor for PC gaming in any scenario.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Here is something funny. I posted an OLED question on what I believed to be a more appropriate discussion forum than Anandtech. Thirteen hours passed and not a single response. Some might say give it a chance as 13 hours was in the middle of the night and this may be the case but 145 people have read the damn posting and not one person replied. So much for describing an observation I made yesterday and wondering therein if I was about to make the right, or wrong, choice. Anyway, here is the posting.

 

[CP5670]

I don't see any blooming on that handle, even at the maximum brightness setting. These artifacts can be caused by running at 4:2:2/4:2:0 instead of 4:4:4/RGB or by Youtube compression. There is also a "sharpness" setting in the TV that may cause this behavior.

I was trying to decide between the 65 and 77 too and got the latter. It's much more expensive, but still cheaper than it used to be (a few years ago the 77" size was only available in the W models and cost $20000). I expect to use it for a while and wanted a clear step-up over my earlier 55" model.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I doubt that Costco was sourcing this LG Demo from YouTube. The demo video is on YouTube so I referenced it for the sake of letting you know what the video looked like, not how it showed up in the store. I guess I can try this weekend to take a cell phone video of it. I'll try again to find a store employee and see if I can figure out what is feeding the display.

 

[nOOky]

I could technically go for the 77" LG except for two problems. 1. The wife would kill me, she wants a new kitchen table and chairs. 2. I have two good sized shelves mounted on either side of my current tv to hold the front right and left speakers along with some picture frames etc. and I'd have to move them somewhere else to allow for the larger monitor. That would be a pain as I'd have to cover the mounting holes or repair them, along with mounting the speakers on the wall anyway. Too much work right now lol

I plan to visit Best Buy just to look at the OLED again, I should stay away.

 

[Motostu]

I doubt that Costco was sourcing this LG Demo from YouTube. The demo video is on YouTube so I referenced it for the sake of letting you know what the video looked like, not how it showed up in the store. I guess I can try this weekend to take a cell phone video of it. I'll try again to find a store employee and see if I can figure out what is feeding the display.

Yeah, I'm thinking it's something with their source. I'll try to pull up the video on my B7 and check, but I've never had anything like that happen.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I don't see any blooming on that handle, even at the maximum brightness setting. These artifacts can be caused by running at 4:2:2/4:2:0 instead of 4:4:4/RGB or by Youtube compression. There is also a "sharpness" setting in the TV that may cause this behavior.

I was trying to decide between the 65 and 77 too and got the latter. It's much more expensive, but still cheaper than it used to be (a few years ago the 77" size was only available in the W models and cost $20000). I expect to use it for a while and wanted a clear step-up over my earlier 55" model.

LOL, I told my wife that the 77" was only four years old since launch and that like you said it was $20K. I actually found an industry journal that published its impending release dated 6/13/2016 and the price of $19,995. So, four years later and down to $3400-3500 and she, my wife, thinks I'm making it all up. LOL

I'm ordering the damn thing!

 

[Motostu]

LOL, I told my wife that the 77" was only four years old since launch and that like you said it was $20K. I actually found an industry journal that published its impending release dated 6/13/2016 and the price of $19,995. So, four years later and down to $3400-3500 and she, my wife, thinks I'm making it all up. LOL

I'm ordering the damn thing!

Yeah, it's amazing how fast the price of the 77 has come down. You will love it. For the first few weeks with our OLED, I watched a lot of 4k HDR demos on YouTube because the picture was just that amazing to me.

I just checked the video you referenced earlier, and didn't see the issue you noted. I tried different picture modes and settings to try and make it happen, but nothing.

 

[CP5670]

I use it as a PC monitor (see here) and it's definitely big, but after getting used to it I can't imagine going to anything smaller. It's especially well suited for dark FPSs and space sims.

 

[BarkingGhostar]