Getting to Know your Plasma Television
If you have been shopping for televisions or just keep up with technology, then you have heard about the plasma television, but do you truly know anything about it? The concept of a plasma screen has been around since the mid-1960s with scientists in a college computer lab creating a very rudimentary model for the display of computer information.
However, the technology was expensive at the time and not really suitable for commercial purposes which are why the CRT screens became popular. The plasma television that you know of today was introduced around 1999 and featured one of the most clear pictures around for the time. Of course, technology has come a long way in just a few years and now you can get digital processing at high speeds.
Basic Physical Characteristics
The plasma television is not bulky and unwieldy like the CRT's tube-like screens of yesteryear and they can be as big as 103 inches, measured from corner to corner. You will see that this TV is two panels of glass which hold a mixture of neon and xenon gases in a static state. Using electricity, the gases turn into a plasma-like mixture which reacts with a glowing substance to beam out light which then turns into a picture.
Without a big and bulky tube inside of it, the plasma television is typically less than 50 pounds, depending on the size that you purchase. Because it is so light, you can even mount it on the wall which frees up shelf or floor space. However, you must make sure that you mount the plasma television on a wall stud for the strongest anchor.
Advantages
The plasma television offers cinema-like quality with its widescreen ratio, an aspect of 16-9, but it is also adept at displaying smaller ratios too. In facts, many of the plasma televisions have an automatic picture resizer which will zoom in and out depending on the aspect ratio of the picture quality.
The flat screen of a plasma television is great in that it greatly reduces distortion of the image displayed, something that was a problem with CRT screens. You have a wide viewing angle without the picture becoming distorted and the screen has a remarkable, even brightness in the picture quality.
The only drawback is that the plasma television is still somewhat cost prohibitive to some people. However, that trend is changing and you may be one of the lucky ones to score a plasma television during a price decrease.
