The Future is Flat

Plummeting prices and ultra cool design of new flat-panel TVs are spelling the end of the conventional TV.

The panels are flat but the sales most certainly aren't. The television market, long dominated by the conventional TV, is undergoing a revolution.

The tube' or the box' as it is often known, sits heavily in the comer of most living rooms across the planet. Beautiful, it isn't. But that's about to change if sales forecasts are realised. Already millions of families are opting for thin-screen wall-mountable plasmas and LCD TVs as the latest consumer product of choice.

Statistics show that Americans watch TV on average for four hours a day, whilst Europeans watch three hours, so it's not surprising that consumers are saying that as they spend so much time watching TV, that they might as well look at something that looks good! But it's not just viewing statistics that are impressive; the economic statistics are also looking good, with the market for thin-screen TVs worth $21 billion in 2004. Plasmas are taking the biggest slice of this market, especially for screens of 40 inches or more where they have an 88% slice of the market. LCDs are also selling fast, but relative to plasmas the growth rate is slower.

The end looks to be in sight for the conventional CRT TV, although for now, cathode-ray-tube (CRT) televisions still account for 72% of US sales. This is perhaps not surprising if you think that they have been around for over fifty years. With bargain prices starting from $100 and having an extremely long life expectancy, CRTs are not going to disappear overnight The downside of course is that they are big and bulky and are unlikely to win any design awards. The technology though, is tried and tested - all colour televisions create images using red, green and blue light but conventional televisions use an electron gun to generate these images. The cathode element within the gun emits beams of electrons which are fired at a phosphor-coated screen which is covered with blue, green and red phosphors. The larger the screen, the longer the tube needed and the bigger the box.

At present, demand for plasma TVs is overtaking that of LCDs, as prices are 10% to 20% cheaper for similar-sized screens, although this price differential is narrowing. Plasmas also beat LCDs in terms of maximum screen size, offering consumers an almost cinema-like experience with screen sizes ranging up to a massive 55 inches (137.5cm) with models such as Hitachi's PD5200. Plasmas also don't suffer from the problem of trailing edge blur with fast-moving images, which is the problem with even the best LCDs on the market. Having said that they have had some problems with image bum-in that leaves static images on the screen, like permanent ghost images. This is not so much of an issue as you might think as this is only likely to occur when the same image, such as a sign, is continuously displayed on screen. Since TV images are constantly in motion, bum-in isn't likely to be a problem so long as the screen isn't hooked up to your computer and used as a PC monitor.

LCDs, on the other hand, win hands down in terms of weight, slimness and flexibility - they can be as little as 4cm thick (Toshiba 20VL56) compared to 8-15cm for plasmas, they are more durable and weigh considerably less than their plasma equivalent, and can also be easily wall-mounted. Over the life of the product, a strong case can be made for the cost efficiency of LCDs, as they have a life expectancy of 25 years (that's at least 10 years more than plasmas) and will cost you far less for extended warranties -three-year warranties on plasmas typically start at $400 whilst for LCDs the equivalent screen size model would cost you around $150.

So, how does the technology work? Plasma screens are made up of a mesh of tiny light bulbs with each bulb filled with electrically ionised gas which glows red, green or blue. LCDs, on the other hand, are transmissive devices with screens consisting of white fluorescent light which is shone through up to a million pixels depending on the resolution of the screen. Each pixel contains liquid crystal cells with tiny micro-transistors behind them, which are turned on and off by a signal from a computer to vary the intensity of the light. This light is in turn sent through RGB filters to create the correctly coloured pixel image on the front glass screen.

The big picture then for consumers and retailers alike is that plasma and LCD TVs are today's high-tech tubes and as new players enter the market so quality and value for money will rise further. Plasmas look the better buy for the present but LCDs are likely to seize market share in the future when screen sizes get bigger and prices come down. This trend will be further accelerated with the expected entry into the market of the big PC manufacturers, offering even lower prices together with technological innovation.