Why did they stop producing plasma TVs?

Plasma TV.Until recently, plasma TVs were very expensive because of their uniqueness and novelty. They were produced by all the leading companies involved in the production of household appliances, and especially televisions. The picture and sound quality was simply a breakthrough, which amazed those who had previously only used old “analog” devices. But lately there are practically no plasma models left in stores. Why did this happen? What made manufacturers refuse to produce such TV receivers?

History and features of plasma TV receivers

First, let's remember the history of the appearance of these televisions and what distinguished them from the rest. This will help to understand the reasons why their popularity has now waned.

Oddly enough, the first plasma technologies appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1911, the first patent for a special neon tube was issued to engineer Georges Claude. Later, almost half a century later, they first started talking about using the technology in the production of TV receivers - image translators. Already in the Soviet Union there were several special panels that were used to display various data, but of course they were not widely sold.

This was due to the fact that the technologies that existed at that time did not provide the opportunity to create a cheap device.

Plasma TV has high-quality images.

REFERENCE! The peculiarity of such devices is a high-quality and bright picture that pleases the eye.That is why a large number of users still remain fans of watching movies or other content on plasma TVs. They are no longer on sale, but many families still have such TV receivers and they are not going to change them.

Why plasma TVs stopped being produced

So, why has plasma disappeared from the modern home appliance market?

The answer is simple: it has been replaced by a new, more advanced technology called OLED. At first, although very short, they existed together, but in this case, few people were going to spend significantly more money on purchasing an incomprehensible new technology instead of purchasing the usual plasma. That is why the manufacturers decided that this situation was unprofitable for them. They preferred to leave exclusively OLED in production.

This is not to say that this is dishonest. The new technology is undoubtedly better than the old one. It provides the opportunity to view images in the highest quality and with excellent sound. But still, plasma was its only competitor, closest to the OLED level. The remaining alternative, LCD TVs, which are much cheaper, lose significantly in quality.

Plasma or OLED.

IMPORTANT! Plasma has already “outlived” its useful life - it cannot be significantly improved in any way. The maximum level that manufacturers could achieve in using plasma technology has already been reached.

Therefore, we have to give way to the new opportunities that OLED provides. Despite the fact that this is not yet the most popular type of TV. The price of such devices does not allow them to become leaders in this part of the market. But very soon this will happen.

Thus, plasma TVs were withdrawn from sale for the reason that they had to “clear” store shelves for more advanced units that would not be as successful as plasma. The quality of such devices allows their owners to use the TV comfortably for a long time and not even think about buying a new one for now, so there is no need to worry. For those who did not have time to purchase plasma, it makes sense to pay attention to newer models.

Comments and feedback:

Complicated comments are usually false. The elementary reason here is that the cost of plasma is higher.

author
Vladimir Ananyev

Occam's razor

author
mrshapinessmurphy@gmail.com

Plasma has been working for decades, and is as trouble-free as a Kalashnikov assault rifle. It turns on without any problems at minus temperatures at the dacha. It's scary to think about turning on QLED in the cold. What are you trying to see in 4k eyes in a heap after 5 minutes from sharpness and a bunch of details is harmful to the eyes. I found a used one at the dacha, it’s a shame that I can’t buy a new one. And 4K plasma costs as much as a car. It's a pity.

author
Sasha

There is still no answer, ball ***.

author
Oisoall

I have a plasma from 2000. and OLED 4k... Preference to plasma... for 19 years there has been no loss in the brightness or contrast of the picture + the eyes don’t get as tired from it as from OLED...

author
Alexei

The article about plasma TVs is complete nonsense!
Plasma TVs have given way not to OLED TVs, but to LCD liquid crystal TVs.This is because plasma TVs have HUGE energy consumption. In Europe, plasma TVs, for example, were simply banned from sale! So the manufacturers curtailed their production.
Now about the breakthrough OLED technology - there is only ONE manufacturer of such panels for TVs in the world - the Korean company LG. And OLED TVs have problems with pixel burnout, although the situation is slowly improving. Therefore, to say that Panasonic and Pioneer have curtailed production for the sake of competitors is complete nonsense.
Apart from energy consumption, plasma is better in EVERYTHING, STILL!!!

author
Glory

just don’t buy the worst thing from Samsung, but plasma is the best and doesn’t damage your eyes

author
Adam

1. Plasma was abandoned due to energy saving. 65″ consumed an average of 300 W. Since the market of the bottom country was never a priority - they looked up to Europa and AsaShay
2. 4K format. How else can hamsters push the dying segment of TV as a whole on credit? Plasma could, but the cost is even higher and the energy consumption is even greater.
3. The market has long been ruled by marketers, not engineers. Dancing around a $1000 plasma with competition from an LED with a $100 gognomatrix in the same diagonal - who needs that?
4. For those who think that the margin in the TV segment is 100500% - if 10% is made - this is great happiness, in the mass market, otherwise - 5-7%. The manufacturer squeezes out the pockets of customers in the premium segment - here 100% margin is not uncommon, but these are piece sales.

author
1

I’m very pleased with my Pioneer, (2007) everything is good, except the 345W consumption is crazy

author
Alexei

“The technology allows you to watch TV in the highest quality and with excellent sound.” How can plasma panel production technology affect sound?

author
Igor

That's right. Plasma provides the highest quality picture, but not so high quality that you pay an extra 2-3 thousand rubles for monthly TV viewing. In terms of capacious energy consumption, this TV is equivalent to a washing machine, which also consumes a lot of kilowatts. But you watch TV much more often than you wash clothes. Conclusion: plasma is for special applications where quality is required, for example, in television center studios. Energy consumption doesn't matter there. And at home, in an apartment, a Samsung with an LCD screen will do just fine, but it weighs a little and also consumes. All these newfangled OLEDs, curved screens, stereo images, glasses, etc. are a scam designed to fraudulently take money out of the wallets of Russian fools zombified by advertising.

author
Misha

    what 2-3 thousand?). We watch plasma 24 hours/day = 300*24=7.2 kW*4r=28.8r. Total 900 rubles per month if you do not unplug it)

    author
    Vasvasya

Plasma, in addition to energy consumption (my 65-inch Panasonic consumes 700 watts), has another drawback - it is a problem with transmitting absolutely black color (here LED technologies win). I have both plasma and OLED TV, I prefer to watch plasma, but it works like a radiator.

author
Valery

Igor, that's right. What does sound have to do with it? About the plasma panels themselves.The mentioned disadvantages: it “eats” a lot, they wrote above 65″ 345W - at least three times more, 1kW; resolution - basically 1360 x 768 pixels were offered (even 50″), of course, after 640 x 480 with a handset this was progress, and even the latest models went with 1920 x 1080, but the price was immediately three times higher. But regarding brightness and other “delights” - put a plasma and LCD next to each other (for example, Sony models from 10 years ago) and you will not see this brightness, saturation and contrast. Due to the nature of their service, I had to see a lot of both of them - and so I was faced with the fact that most were simply not configured (they were brought from a store with the “shop” mode, and have been plowing for years). Another thing is the weight, just average between CRT and LCD. And lastly, the surface of the screen - glass, like all glossy screens, has a lot of glare.

author
Andrey

“Therefore, to say that Panasonic and Pioneer have curtailed production for the sake of competitors is complete nonsense.” No, this is not nonsense. Find me that idiot who will produce goods at a loss. Sony at one time refused to produce monitors and plasma precisely because of the higher cost compared to Korea. And LCDs were and are produced on SAMSUNG and LG matrices, but they supply their own electronics, so the picture is better than that of the “owners” of the matrices. Pioneer and Panasonic Matsushita did not want to transfer something to LCD. Apparently the Japanese military-industrial complex is now busy with other more profitable products.

author
Andrey

Misha, what 2-3 thousand rubles to pay for the electricity consumed by the plasma?! Can you count? How old are you? Even if we assume that the TV consumes 1 kW/h and assume that you watch it for 8 hours a day, then in a month we get 240 kW/h.At today's tariff 2.56 rubles. for 1 kWh we get a little more than 600 rubles. But this, I took 1 kW/h; in fact, plasma consumes, on average, no more than 500 W/h, so you made a 10-fold mistake in your calculations!!!

Andrey, once again, I criticized the position of the author of the article that they stopped producing plasma because other manufacturers began producing LCDs. I remember 2013, when 40″ plasma was cheaper than 40″ LCD, and plasma showed better. So why did they stop producing Plasma - once again due to the fact that in Europe (possibly in America) they simply FORBIDDED the sale of plasma. And the European and American markets are the main markets. And I am sure that a sufficient number of Europeans, Japanese and Americans could now afford to buy a plasma TV and maintain (pay pennies for electricity) it, but they were simply FORBIDDEN from selling them, like incandescent lamps.
In addition, around 2010, Sony mastered a breakthrough Plasma-type technology (instead of a plasma discharge, each pixel had its own separate cathode from which electrons excited the phosphor glow), only much more economical, and even produced test TVs for the exhibition. But then some American company appeared that had the rights to this technology and Sony canceled the project.
Japanese firms organized a joint project, Japan Display, but could no longer withstand the competition with the Koreans. At one time, Sharp fought and released its own LCD panels for TV, they even had a feature - there was an additional Yellow color for the RGB pixels. But she couldn’t stand the competition either.
By the way, Sony was the first to release a small OLED TV, but still lost to LG.
Andrey, from your text I still don’t understand what type of TV has problems with brightness. Plasma definitely had no problems with brightness. As for the black of plasma, it is worse in daylight due to illumination by an external source, but when illuminated by incandescent lamps, and even more so in semi-darkness and especially in the dark, Plasma has no competition.

author
Glory

Who praises plasma - in addition to very high power consumption and, as a consequence, strong heating and high cost, they have burnout of screen pixels.
The only advantage of plasma is a higher color gamut and dynamic range

author
Leonid

For some reason, no one remembers another significant lack of plasma. This is dynamic contrast. Unlike LCD technology, where energy consumption does not depend on the plot, in plasma, the brighter the picture, the more the panel consumes. And so much so that in the control circuit of the screen parameters in any plasma there is a system for automatically reducing the brightness level. Otherwise, consumption when playing bright scenes would exceed 400-600 watts. This ultimately leads to the fact that the contrast in plasma always (!) “plays” - the brighter the scene, the more intensely it decreases. The most difficult signal for plasma is the “white field”. In tests, when a white field signal was applied, I observed a decrease in its brightness by 25-30 percent compared to the white squares in the “chessboard” signal (there were still enough power supply resources there). We even nicknamed this signal the “pale field.” So be careful about the “naturalness” of the plasma image, gentlemen, zombies.
And one more technical feature - plasmas always used switching of half the screen, in other words, only one half of the image (upper or lower) was shown at each moment in time. The switching frequency reached 600 Hz for some models. And the eye was already putting together a whole picture. And this is all to combat energy consumption, and as a result, overheating of screens. Someone here cited consumption values ​​of 345 watts - this is an average value. In fact, plasma consumption varies greatly depending on the plot and can reach at its peak the same 600 watts for screens of 40 inches, and for 50-inch screens and more.
The age of plasma is long over, so don’t drool over it :)

author
Alexei

I’ve had a Panasonik HD plasma for 10 years now, I don’t even want to take it to the dacha, I like it at home, I also have a Sony 3D LCD. Plasma has nicer and more vibrant colors, you just have to see it and not judge it. I regret that I didn’t have time to buy the pioneer full HD plasma.

author
Andrey

Leonid
The most IMPORTANT advantage of plasma is maximum clarity in dynamic scenes; LCD cannot even come close to this. OLED seems to be supposed to display without blur, since the pixel switching time is 1ms, but what I saw in the store is significantly inferior to plasma.

Alexey, dynamic contrast is practically unnoticeable and cannot be compared with the image blur that is present on LCD TVs.

author
Glory

If plasma has a huge power consumption, which is why it was banned in Europe, how should it heat up during operation!
I have a regular CRT TV, not quite flat yet. I don’t notice it burning or getting hot (it’s a pity to throw it away, it works fine)
but it does need backlighting - the Samsung I bought for my mother has been working unevenly lately, but now the lower half is not illuminated at all, it only worked for 5 years, so why such progress?

author
Denis

I’m sitting looking at an old Samsung with a CRT, I don’t need anything more. when I bought it in 1995, the seller told me that it was an excellent choice, and he didn’t deceive me :)

author
mrshapinessmurphy@gmail.com

I recently changed my Panasonic plasma and not because it was broken, but it really began to lose in the image, my 4k now shows so that it seems better and impossible. I bought a plasma in 2006, some dust spots appeared on the screen as if there was no way to remove them from the inside. Plasma TV is really very heavy, although it is made quite reliably; by the way, when you turn it on, the spots are not visible. But especially the contrast of LCD TV is much better and the color is reproduced perfectly. The only thing superior in my opinion is the more natural image of plasma. And I tried to sell my plasma, no one wants it, it’s too outdated, even the connectors on new TVs are different.

author
Vyacheslav

Denis,
Plasma TVs heat up so much that they have up to 4 fans built into them! Therefore, plasma can be considered a heating device)))) Although, seriously, imagine that you have a 500W heater constantly on in your room. But plasma (the best models) shows excellently.

mrshapinessmurphy@gmail com
Yes, CRT TVs still work for many people, for me too. But unfortunately they flicker, since the vast majority have a scanning frequency of 50Hz.
In the latest 29″-32″ models, even REAL FullHD resolution appeared (but at that time they were incredibly expensive) and 100Hz scan. But, unfortunately, I was not able to buy one.

author
Glory

a significant drawback of plasma panels is the memory from static images, for example from the logo of channel one, it’s infuriating to see the logo on a switched off TV, this drawback outweighs all its advantages, this iron hung, a coffin on the wall, a pioneer, threw it in the closet, hung the LCD, happy.

author
Sergey

I liked the article, but it is advertising, of course. OLED screens are produced only by LG. Other manufacturers use LG screens.
The main advantages of plasma:
Infinitely deep black color is the basis for a three-dimensional and natural perception.
Direct image demonstration without films or filters. Everything except OLED plasma is shown through cloudy films of various types.
Possibility of insane frame rates. This is the ability to recalculate and emulate many clear, complete intermediate frames. The image becomes incredibly realistic.
The ability to maintain high resolution in scenes with any dynamics.
Disadvantages of plasma:
Low brightness
The inability to increase resolution to 4K and higher, which is the most important trend.

Electricity consumption is ridiculous. Especially considering the reduction to almost zero in dark scenes.

OLED combines almost all the advantages of plasma, but the frame rate is 20 times slower.

author
Alexei

Vyacheslav,
Your Plasma is ancient, in 2006 plasma technologies were at the initial stage, only by 2013-2014 PLASMA technologies flourished - they began to consume less, almost did not burn out, FullHD appeared.Of course, your ancient low-resolution plasma is inferior (but only in resolution) to modern LCD TVs, but in terms of black depth (compare in the dark) and blur (compare on a fast ticker, for example, the bottom one on the RBC channel) plasma is still out of competition. For example, looking at a separate letter on a running line on Plasma TV, you see it differently, as if it were not moving, but static. But on an LCD, a letter in motion will be smeared and the faster the movement, the greater the blur and loss of resolution, which you seem to have switched to on an LCD TV. You will say that I don’t look at the letters, but you lose sharpness in all dynamic moments - in football, instead of a flying ball, a smeared ball flies (almost like in rugby)))), in hockey, instead of a puck, there is a smeared line (provided that the puck is fast crosses the screen, and the camera does not keep it in the center of the frame. In short, the difference is significant and in a direct comparison you will spit on the LCD TV. Of course, plasma should be considered the latest generations with FullHD resolution.

Sergey,
What year is your Pioneer plasma TV?

author
Glory

What's good about it? Black - NO. Dirty - gray. White - NO. Light grey. Well, in winter it’s good - instead of a heater. And in the summer it’s already annoying. As for the blurred image of the LCD - utter nonsense. Everyone (rogues with CRTs don’t count) has an LCD monitor. Where is the grease on it??? A properly assembled and configured LCD TV system from the right (not necessarily expensive) components will give plasma a 1000% advantage.

author
Yuri

The brightness of LCD is the only advantage over plasma. But this brightness is not needed when watching movies.But the lack of black color, poor color rendering, blurred object boundaries, blurry dynamic scenes, sharp artifacts instead of blurry scenes, for example, 10 balls in football and pucks in hockey, the absence of stars in a gray sky or spots of gray on gray... Because of this, I jump over the wretched crap of LCD, LED, QLED and other muddy filtering with polyethylene colors. OLED is the right choice.

author
Alexei

Yuri,
Don’t write nonsense if you don’t know about lubricants, you just haven’t personally seen how plasma TV CAN be shown.
Find a video on YouTube with the title “Japanese woman on a rope.” View it either on a smartphone with an LCD screen or on an LCD TV. So, this Japanese woman has a striped blouse, and when the Japanese woman moves from one side of the screen to the other, these stripes merge into a mess. To understand how much the LCD degrades the image, it is best to take a screenshot on your smartphone - look at the screenshot - this is the clear image of the blouse (every stripe on it is perfectly visible) that the video card sends to the LCD matrix, but in dynamics the LCD matrix CANNOT convey the real thing without loss of sharpness the picture contained in the video. And during the screenshot, a frame is recorded from the video card and you see a clear picture (with clarity in static pictures, LCD is of course not inferior to plasma)))). And plasma TV and an ancient kinescope monitor CAN clearly show the picture in dynamics!!!

author
Glory

    You are right.

    author
    Zuhrab

What does plasma or OLED and sound have to do with it? Author, don’t mix everything in one pan. The image is separate, the sound is separate. Moreover, you can only get normal sound with a good home theater.And I completely agree about plasma - at my dacha I have a 51-inch plasma TV - I couldn’t be happier!

author
Max

I have a Samsung plasma 2008 50 inches. The contrast is stated to be 1,000,000 to 1 million! and don’t think that it was a lie. Very bright and contrasting image. No residential complex can compare with this. OLED is an excellent technology and LCD is a waste of any price and category

author
NameSergey

I have a plasma Pioneer Kuro 2013 and an OLED LG 2018, visually the plasma is in no way inferior, and the energy consumption is noticeably higher, but this does not bother me, it’s even funny to read about complaints about high energy consumption... it’s like buying an expensive supercar and crying out of it for fuel consumption

author
Vesker

Sound is, of course, a separate issue, but I remember that plasma panels came with quite serious acoustic systems, not built-in, but fastened to the sides of the screen. The speakers built into today's flat-panel TVs can hardly compete with those speakers that could be moved apart. So the author has formed a strong association between plasma and high-quality sound.

author
Alexander

And I threw out my TV three years ago, and I don’t regret it at all, I don’t want to be zombied by Gebel # TV

author
Petrovich

Plasma panels initially showed better than LCD, there, already structurally, the black level was always much better, but the main drawback was the increased level of energy consumption, and besides this, if you leave a static (motionless) image for a long time, the matrix could print and burn out. But I am sure that all the shortcomings could be corrected over time.I don’t agree with the author that plasma could no longer be improved, it’s just that the production and improvement of LCD panels turned out to be much cheaper and more profitable, which is why manufacturers switched to them. But no matter how hard they tried, the main drawback of LCD panels remained - it is not a real (as it should be!) black level. Now they hope to correct this by switching to purely LED panels, and not only for backlighting (organic LEDs), but even here serious problems have arisen, besides the fact that such TVs are much more expensive, with a much shorter service life (compared to plasma and LCD) and also and the LEDs of different colors necessary for this do not wear out at the same time - for example, blue ones last less than red and green ones. Of course, such panels also have big advantages - they are very thin, can be flexible, excellent black level, very low power consumption, but still the main disadvantages still greatly outweigh,

author
Anton

I read an article about the principle of plasma operation and how a plasma panel works. Here is the result: ETERNAL plasma panel - this is the reason why PLASMA was removed from production. every year it became cheaper to produce. Every year its energy consumption fell. Technologies do not stand still; when there is production, there is money for their modernization. Ask any scientist and technologist in this area and they will definitely tell you that the plasma panel itself is ETERNAL. If TVs and monitors were deliberately divided into separate modules - Panel, receiver, power supply, interface unit with other devices. Then the Plasma panel was bought once and for life.hung it on the wall and forgot about the problems, you change the receivers with their different codecs and always remain at the level of modern technology. Liquid crystal and OLED panels will never be able to compare with a Plasma panel. Of course, their production and sales have now been suspended. And there are no sales, which means there will be no modernization. Capitalists want to earn money and sell and sell, and at first they even wanted to keep the Plasma panel in production and sales, but to do a little trick, all this in one case, so that when you change the encoding or frequencies of the receiver, you have to buy a new TV. They made the receiver and the plasma panel itself non-separable on one board. But then we realized that it wouldn’t last long. craftsmen will quickly find a way to cut it out. and still there is no way for other technologies to get ahead of Plasma. Don’t even try to argue and compare all the pros and cons... everything breaks down against the INFINITY sign of plasma operation. And energy consumption in development would be reduced to a minimum. We are deceived and led down the path of constant shopping and spending money. ))

author
Evgeny

Nothing but plasma and perhaps a projector show a live picture. Both the liquid and ice are in the utility room. Not natural. Naked number. It's not pleasing to the eye. Recently the inputs on the plasma failed. I baked the board in the oven and everything works. Today, there is nothing better than plasma, IMHO. I don’t consider the exorbitant cost of high-quality ice to be an advantage. Cheap ones under 100,000, in my opinion, are definitely inferior to plasma.

author
Boris

You're just frozen in 2008. Wake up

author
Fart Destroyer

Borya, exchange your digital foreign car for an analog Zaporozhets. All high-quality content has long been digital. So you are watching digitally, on supposedly analog plasma.

author
countryman

The article is not very good.
The best image quality is provided by CRT monitors. Disadvantages - the inability to create ultra-large screens, wide screens, expensive customization of mixing, weight and dimensions.
Plasma. Pros: Good, although not entirely natural, color rendition, high brightness. Disadvantages: price, energy consumption, fear of static images.
LCD. advantages: price, efficiency. Disadvantages: inherent in the very principle of image formation on these monitors.
ICE/ICE. Advantages: “almost like plasma” with low power consumption. There are many shortcomings, the technology is still raw. So far they are expensive and short-lived.

author
d-97

Countryman, what you say is correct. But the processing algorithm... When you watch a movie shot on film and see a bare digital image, as if it was shot yesterday on a digital camera, with a loop, a strobe light, etc., then any desire to watch further disappears. And another thing is, when you see a film that is almost indistinguishable from the original of what you saw on a CRT, then yes, this is more important to me. I see a similar picture on modern devices costing 100 and above. I have a plasma one of the latest Skis. And I'm very pleased. ZhK and Oled are also Skis, but up to 100. And there is no desire to take them out while the plasma is working. Perhaps this is my purely subjective perception.

author
Boris

Boris, you forgot to clarify that a projector that displays a live picture must be DLP, since projectors on LCD matrices and their clones have the same problems as LCD TVs - poor contrast and smears on dynamic images.

author
Glory

I don’t know what hairy plasma times commentators have, my 2012 consumption is 185 watts, I looked at the LCD model - 175 watts (51 and 55 inches, respectively).Yes, LCDs are a little more economical, but to write that because of this they stopped assembling them... well, this is strong, of course. The board does not consume anything much more.

author
12

The cool 50″ Panasonic plasma of 2013 consumes 350W, and we must not forget that in order to limit electricity consumption in plasmas, the BRIGHTNESS of the image is ARTIFICIALLY LIMITED, and without this limitation the plasma at this moment could have reached 1000W!!! consume. At the same time, the quality of the image naturally drops, that is, the brightness of the image, which actually exists, is not conveyed and, accordingly, the idea of ​​the film director is spoiled.
I have a modern LCD 49″ LED TV that consumes 60W maximum!!! Thus, the difference in energy consumption with the same diagonals is at least 5-6 times!!!

author
Glory

Washing machines

Vacuum cleaners

Coffee makers