I am currently pricing televisions and would like everyone opinion on Plasma vs. LCD

i dunno what is the dfference and i dont care but chris reali raves about the LCD we have now

we have a plasma Lg 42" and it is ok. When we get a new one it is going to be an LCD in Samsung. Samsung is about the best brand out there with the best quality that we have found over sony and any other. LCD is good in light and plasma is good in darker room. It is said LCD has a better life than plasma. It is up to and what you want in a tv and are looking for. You have to count the fact of what kind of inputs/outputs you need such as HDMI and surround sound hookup as well.

Ew samsung.
I remember when I worked at Geek Squad we got more Samsung TVs in than any other =/

Totally makes me wary of them.

what is it exactly that you want to use the tv for. watching shows, dvds, video games, movies or what all? Maybe that would help you out a little bit more as to what type to get. You can go to like Best Buy and try and see the difference between tvs there as well to find one that you like a lot too.

lcd is the better.
a plasma is cheaper but can mess up easier than an lcd. we just bought a 37 in lcd not too long ago and love it. plus to me the picture looks better

Plasma is better for larger screens, like 50" and above at the moment. LCD screens really dominate the 30" market and below, however that's rapidly changing with how much LCD technology is catching up. LCD's have a thing when dealing with color, specifically blacks. It's extremely hard to get a "true" black on a LCD. I don't know if it's much easier on a Plasma, IMO, but the colors on my Vizio look brighter and richer than the colors on my mother's LCD.

Plasma works better for darker rooms, although my 52" is in an extremely brightly lit room where the sun often shines right through on the screen from time to time, and it honestly doesn't affect the picture all that much, IMHO. I know when it comes to LCD monitors for computers, ghosting is an issue for gamers, where the crystals don't update or refresh as fast enough rate and the image leaves trails in places. I'm assuming the same goes for LCD TV's as well, however with High-Def resolutions and action movies and the like, I think it's safe to assume that most LCD's have extremely minimal ghosting, if any. At least the top of the line ones shouldn't.

Honestly though, the quality of the TV picture depends on the TV itself, the quality of the signal and what you're watching. If you try to watch "normal" TV on a high-def TV, the picture is going to look like utter and complete shit unless you have an upconverter box, and even then the image can still turn out distorted, blurred and grainy. If you have cable or satellite (I have DirecTV and it's fucking amazing) and you have a cable box or satellite receiver, if it's got an HDMI connector, using that for your TV input as opposed to a coax cable or S-Video or The colored cables (Yellow,White,Red or Blue,Green,Yellow or whatever) will give the BEST picture.

TV brand is extremely important, as is cost. Cheaper doesn't mean the same quality at all, nor will the picture be the same across all TV's because of a cable provider. My aunt and uncle have a 42" Panasonic LCD screen, and they've got Comcast, and they've got the HD sports package. On their TV, watching football makes me cringe. The image is bright and crisp and vibrant during low-movement scenes, but once players start running the image becomes very grainy and gritty (one sign of ghosting).

Basically, when you go to buy your TV, look at the display models. You'll be able to visibly tell the difference in brightness, picture clarity and quality, vibrancy, contrast...etc. etc. LCD/Plasma....either or. Both of them will loose 1/2 their brightness over the course of their product life (Unless you have a very expensive LCD with LED back lighting as opposed to fluorescent back lighting, but LED-LCD's are still fairly new and rare from what I can tell. They will become commonplace faily quickly though, thus making LCD the far superior in terms of product life and durability.)

LCD is the superior technology, but plasma is generally cheaper... but good luck getting tech support if you buy a plasma.

my brother & grandpa just bought tv within the last week. right now, samsung is the top tv on the market. lcd still has problems, they are projection and the lights go out faster, due to the high volume they are producing. plasma has a better picture, it IS cheaper to make, but there is NO projection required and you can sit at any angle and watch it. my suggestion, samsung 1080p.

Yeah. What Mamma Cynthia said. Plasma is cheaper to make because it's been out longer too. Viewing angles are a bit better, and for extremely large format screens (50" and above) Plasma is better.

Def LCD, we have a plasma, and I hate it. We are getting an LCD soon!

I think it really depends on the TV. Go to cnet.com and go through some of the reviews they have for televisions.

Plasmas are okay, except for two main downfalls: 1. They use up way more energy than LCD's, thus costing more in your utility bills. 2. If your TV faces any windows, you will get a horrible picture. LCD's are much better when it comes to that. We bought a 52" Samsung 1080p LCD, and it is marvelous! I am utterly picky about picture quality and grainy images, and I love this TV. If you can afford to, be sure to get it professionally calibrated after you buy it.

Glare is not a problem with my Panasonic with anti reflective coating.

Erin you have the tv I would so love to have which is great I am glad you and Mike love it so much.

we have the same style tv as urs just the 37 in lol i love the no glare feature it has

Thanks for everyones help, I can now make a wise decison. I want a LCD.

I prefer our plasma, as you can get ghosting on LCDs if you're not in the correct place watching it!
We have a Panasonic Viera, it's sexy. I don't know who our LCD is by. I don't like it. Our plasma has much stronger colours.

Ghosting is really an issue with older technology... the newer (and thus much more pricey) LCD TVs have very little ghosting effect (better refresh rate), the angle at which picture gets cut is now changed (to be only relevant at very strange locations, like if you tried to watch television sitting on your ceiling), and their lifetimes have also improved. Plasma initially has stronger colors, but plasma TVs fade over time -- LCDs don't. LCDs also aren't subject to "burn in."

But isn't 'burn in' only for the first so many hours? Like I think ours said the first 200 hours. Since then, I have paused things for hours (I know I shouldn't have, oops haha) and thankfully have had no problems.

Burn in shouldn't happen on most newer plasmas with the new technology of pixel shifting and turn off features.

Yeah. My Vizio is a plasma and it detects still images. If you leave it on when the Tivo paused, after like 10 minutes it cuts off.

I have a Panasonic Viera 42 and absolutely love it...Oh yeah it is plasma which to me is much better, more realistic colors, flesh tones are more natural and as you stated motion is still a problem with some of the lower to mid lcds.

Yah ours is the 42 also. It's teh sex ;)

LCD is also better if you are into gaming.