Digital Signage Portal

Discussion on LCD vs Plasma Screens.

Some of the advantages of LCD over Plasma screens are:

No screen burn in's or ghosting - in the long term saving your business maintenance and replacement costs

Generally consume less power than plasma's

Higher number of pixels per square inch and better resolution

Plasma screens are generally cheaper than LCDs and most businesses look at this factor when purchasing a screen. One thing to note is that since Plasma screens are prone to burn in's and ghosting, businesses will eventually need to replace these units (including maintenance and installation cost) and this total cost will outweigh the inital cost of purchasing an LCD screen.

Also, it is important to note that there are different grades of Plasma or LCD screens. They can either be Home grade or Commercial grade screens. The main difference is that the Commercial screens are designed to operate on a 24/7 environment whilst the Home grade are generally designed to operate for approximately 4 continous hours. Some businesses generally purchase home grade screens to cut down the initial cost of implementing a digital signage solution but later down the track they end up spending more money replacing or fixing the screen. Therefore, it is best to determine screen usage and purchase the most suitable grade of screens based on that requirement.

Useful resources:

http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdtv-plasmavslcd.shtml
http://www.flattvpeople.com/tutorials/lcd-vs-plasma.asp

Hi,

I think that the choice between LCDs and Plasmas for use in digital signage is clear. With images tending to remain on the screen for a few seconds (or minutes even), this increases the risk of ghosting.

The cost is a considerable factor too and with the added cost of installing the screen, LCDs continue to look a better option.

My last opinion (although I've not got any statistics here), is that your average audience will start to see the ghosting long before the owner of the screen admits that it's a problem. How much poor opinion is going to be generated in the time it takes for the screen to get replaced?

Also to mention, the range of choice with LCDs - monitor or TV.

However, with a lot of businesses wanting to go for size, only plasma is available. I've seen some very good commercial grade plasmas, not to say they are "ghost proof" - its an inevitable downside to the technology, but its advantages over the standard consumer grade are evident. If plasma is your choice for whatever reason, it is worth investing in a commercial grade as it would be better off in the long run.

"Burn in" or "ghosting" is becoming more recognised as a concern amongst consumers. Surely manufacturers are well aware of it since day one, and are constantly improving the technology over time, but little can be done now. The question is should we base our digital signage on technology alone, or consider the methods of how it is displayed.

Going away from screen technology, one thing that I tell my clients to get in the habit of is to create playlists and alternate between them constantly, and not have anything static running on its own. Having said this, not only is there a variety of content, but the risk of ghosting is reduced.

Of course when you put together the overall picture of installing digital signage as mentioned by Robin, as a whole solution LCD is the better option. But if you have to go for size and choose plasma, consider how you are going to display your content.

Just to add that there are other LCD technologies out in the market like LCD touchscreens and All-in-one digital signage players that consumers should consider when thinking of purchasing LCD or plasma screens.

Does anyone else know what other unique screen technologies are out in the market?

It's quite interesting to note that NEC has decided to cease production of commercial plasma display screens and instead focus on LCD technology.

According to this article: NEC Ending Production Of Commercial Plasma Display Screens only 5 percent of Plasma screens were accounted for screen sales whereas 95 percent was for LCD.

I guess this is definitely a smart move for NEC and I'm sure other screen manufactures will soon follow the same path.

Do you know which is better between these two. Both are looking same but under the bonnet the technology driving LCD TVs is very different from that driving Plasma TVs. These are the different between these two model. just look below.

Plasma

A plasma display consists of two plates of glass, sandwiched between which are hundreds of thousands of tiny, gas filled cells. These cells are rather like tiny flourescent tubes as they are filled with neon gas and coated with phosphor.
Each plasma cell can be individually energised with an electric current. This causes the gas to release ultraviolet photons. These photons cause the phosphor coating of the cell to radiate visible light. If the cells are switched on and off in the correct sequence, the picture is formed. This switching happens 1000s of times a second.
These gas filled cells form the pixels of the display. In fact, each pixel consists of 3 cells, giving off red, green or blue light. By varying the relative intensities of red, green and blue, different colours are formed.

LCD

The pixels of an LCD TV dislay, unlike those of a Plasma display, do not give off any light themselves. A liquid crystal solution is trapped between two sheets of glass and the whole display is illuninated with a back light. The voltages applied to the various pixels is varied and this controls how much light from the back light reaches the screen. In turn, the pattern of light reaching the screen forms the picture.

To more information about visit Digital Signage

Does anyone else know what shining Ltd's Lcd ad screen display technologies are out in the market?