What is Plasma TV? Understanding the Features and Benefits
What is LED TV? Understanding the Features and Benefits
Why LED TV is Better Than Plasma for Commercial Use
When it Makes Sense to Choose Plasma TV
When it comes to the commercial environment, LED TVs are generally considered a better choice than plasma displays due to their superior energy efficiency, higher brightness, better handling of glare and longer lifespan, ultimately making them more suitable for extended display periods and well-illuminated environments. Plasma TVs, although boasting great contrast and color, are better suited for darker rooms – in commercial settings – and can succumb to burn-in issues when displaying static images for long periods.
In a proverbial nutshell, that’s what this blog is going to focus on, and we’ll break it up into multiple sections to make it easier to digest – from discussing the differences between plasma and LED from a features and benefits standpoint to analyzing some future trends of TV technology.
A plasma screen is a type of “flat-panel” display technology that utilizes small cells filled with electrically-charged ionized gases to produce images; these tiny cells are referred to as “pixels” that emit ultraviolet light when electrically-charged, which then illuminate the phosphors to create the desired colors. Further, there are two glass panels inside a plasma screen that are separated by a narrow gap filled with gas, and this is important because each pixel on the screen consists of three sub-pixels – one for red, green and blue. The gas becomes ionized and emits ultraviolet light when an electrical current passes through it in the pixel, this light striking the phosphors on the inside glass panel to cause them to emit light (thus creating the aforementioned desired colors).
Exceptional Color
Up to 16.77 million colors – more than the human eye can register – can be provided by plasma screens, yielding a highly accurate, lifelike picture.
Slim, Lightweight Design
Plasma’s thin, flat-panel design, while not completely unlike LED, renders screens that are often only inches thick, making them very light (especially compared to old technology such as rear-projection TV).
Wide Viewing Angle
Plasma TVs offer the best viewing angles, making them noticeably superior to LCD TVs in this regard.
Magnetic Field Immunity
Since plasma TVs use different technology compared to traditional displays, they do not suffer “distortion” when placed in proximity to a magnetic field, making them excellent for commercial use (and why they’re often utilized to display promotional content, information and advertisements).
Potential Burn-In
During extended commercial use, plasma TVs may experience traces of an image being “burned in” to the display; this issue has also plagued cutting-edge display tech like OLED, as well.
Lower Brightness
Direct view and LCD TVs often are able to provide a brighter picture than plasma, but this is generally only readily noticeable if watching in a bright room.
Shorter Life
It is possible for plasma TVs to experience a shorter life span compared to other display technologies, with most lasting in the range of 20,000 to 30,000 hours based on application and manufacturer estimates.
Most people assume “LED TVs” replaced LCDs, but this is only partly true; LED TVs are just a new type of LCD display, based on LCD technology consisting of a liquid crystal solution sandwiched between two polarizing material sheets. When an electric current is passed through these liquid crystals, they align to pass or block light, yielding the image we see on the screen. In reality, the difference between the two technology types begins from their backlighting solutions.
The most common LED solutions available today range from edge-lit and full-array (also known as full-array local dimming, or FALD) to QLED, which encompasses a Quantum Dot filter that typically results in more accurate colors and brightness.
Energy Efficiency
LED TVs consume significantly less power compared to traditional displays, yielding lower operating costs.
High Brightness and Color Accuracy
To ensure clear visuals even in well-lit environments, LED technology produces vibrant colors and high brightness levels.
Customization Possibilities
LED displays can be customized to a myriad of shapes and sizes to fit specific spaces and branding needs.
Easy Content Management
Digital signage capabilities allow for quick and convenient updates to content being shown on the display.
Additional LED TV benefits in the commercial space:
Contrast
LED TVs generally boast lower contrast ratios than, for example, OLED or QLED TVs due to the backlighting used to illuminate the display.
Viewing Angles
The color and contrast of an LED TV can degrade when viewed from the side.
Black Levels
LED TVs often struggle to produce deep blacks.
Light Leakage
A phenomenon known as “blooming” creates halo-like distortions around bright objects on dark backgrounds in, specifically, edge-lit LED displays.
As we alluded to in the beginning of this article, LED TVs are generally better than plasma TVs for commercial use due to their brighter, more energy efficient and better glare handling characteristics. Let’s now take a closer look at these elements.
In the end, it must be understood that plasma-based displays are known for producing deeper black levels, but this is best appreciated in dark environments/rooms.
Plasma TVs can be a good choice for commercial use when displaying information, advertisements or promotional content – but while they offer good contrast ratios, they also bring drawbacks that may make them undesirable for certain applications, such as for menu boards.
Still, plasma screens have been commonly used for digital signage in commercial settings, due to their ability to produce rich colors, wide viewing angles and high contrast.
The digital signage landscape has seen countless trends come and go over the years, from transparent LED screens placed in store windows to the “3D” signage craze, many having fizzled out sans delivering a significant shakeup. Regardless, business entities must keep an eye on the future, as most companies can simply not afford to be blindsided by changes capable of totally shifting the paradigm and changing operational efforts.
It’s difficult to believe that we find ourselves entrenched in what was once considered “the future” by Disney’s EPCOT Center – moving into 2025 and beyond – but here we are…and it’s important to note some signage trends that are predicted to come down the pike, possibly for the long haul.
According to research Unilumin representatives have completed, the three most important digital signage trends a business should monitor in the years ahead include:
Interactivity
Imagine telling a screen what to do using remote-controlled or voice-activated pointers, beacons or sensors? This isn’t as deep into the future as you think.
Personalization
Tailoring on-screen content based on customer preferences and real-time data in the coming years will become the norm, as will AI and its impending integration into signage management.
Sustainability and Eco-Friendly Signage
A shift to more energy-efficient digital signage hardware should be expected in the coming years; micro-level optimizations such as this, as minute as they may seem, add up to support a business that's profitable in the long run.
When choosing a television display for commercial use, consider such factors as picture quality, brightness, energy efficiency and price.
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