What is Plasma TV?

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Wikipedia puts that clear:

A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display now commonly used for large TV displays (typically above 37-inch or 940 mm). Many tiny cells located between two panels of glass hold an inert mixture of noble gases (neon and xenon). The gas in the cells is electrically turned into a plasma which then excites phosphors to emit light.

Features:

Plasma displays are bright (1000 lux or higher for the module), have a wide color gamut, and can be produced in fairly large sizes, up to 381 cm (150 inches) diagonally. They have a very low-luminance "dark-room" black level, creating a black some find more desirable for watching movies. The display panel is only about 6 cm (2½ inches) thick, while the total thickness, including electronics, is less than 10 cm (4 inches). Plasma displays use as much power per square meter as a CRT or an AMLCD television. Power consumption will vary greatly depending on what is watched on it. Bright scenes (say a football game) will draw significantly more power than darker scenes (say a movie scene at night). Nominal measurements indicate 400 watts for a 50-inch screen. Recent models, post 2006, consume between 220 and 310 watts for a 50-inch display when set to cinema mode. Most screens are set to 'shop' mode by default and this draws at least twice the power (around 500-700 watts) compared to a more comfortable 'home' setting.[citation needed]

The lifetime of the latest generation of plasma displays is estimated at 60,000 hours (or 27 years at 6 hours of use per day) of actual display time. More precisely, this is the estimated half life of the display, the point where the picture has degraded to half of its original brightness. It is watchable after this point, but is generally considered the end of the functional life of the display.

Competing displays include the CRT, OLED, AMLCD, DLP, SED-tv and field emission flat panel displays. The main advantage of plasma display technology is that a very wide screen can be produced using extremely thin materials. Since each pixel is lit individually, the image is very bright and has a wide viewing angle.

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