RANDY MOGLE
Homer City, Indiana County
A: The year 2010 is only two and a half years away. It's too early to say what will happen in the world of televisions.
It is true that plasmas do have high costs of repairs. LCDs also have high costs of repairs and so do CRT TVs. In short, all TVs are expensive to repair! Plasmas do seem to be more repair-prone than other technologies, and there is always the specter of burn-in, where a logo or image can become burned into the screen if you are not careful. Believe me, this can happen to you, and I can say it with some authority because besides being the columnist here, burn-in happened to me!
It was one of those things you never thought would happen to you, but then it does, and you feel dumbfounded by it. I have a high-end CRT projection TV and recently discovered a faint burn-in image of the "pause" icon from my DVR, obviously from all the times I paused playback to take a phone call or take a snack. It took a couple of years, but now it's there and to replace the tubes would cost several thousand dollars. The burn-in isn't very obvious during most viewing, but when one of the Apple "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads comes on with the white background, the burn-in is apparent and it makes me feel queasy. I really love that TV, and you can't buy premium performance CRTs anymore. If you are going to pause your DVR with your CRT or plasma TV, turn it off after you pause it, then turn it on before you resume playback.
Plasma is even more susceptible to burn-in than CRT sets are, though some manufacturers have announced technology that is burn-in proof or can reverse the effects of burn-in. I haven't seen these in action so I cannot comment on them. In the final equation, plasma usually beats LCD handily in picture quality and until that changes, plasma will be around. Major players, such as Panasonic, are heavily invested in plasma, and they aren't about to let their investment go to waste.
As for the wave of the future, the more I see of DLP the more I like it. I recently saw Disney-Pixar's "Ratatouille" (Great movie -- go see it!) at a theater featuring DLP Cinema projection. I was pretty much blown away by the sharpness as well as the depth and palette of color. If you are going to see "Ratatouille," be sure to find a cinema that has DLP. When I go to the big-box stores to compare sets, it is the DLP models that always seem to stick out with their beautiful colors and sharpness. The prices are very reasonable, and thinner and thinner DLP TVs are being introduced and may one day rival flat panel plasma and LCD.
First Published: July 14, 2007, 1:30 a.m.
