I was talking to this guy who owns a multimedia biz. He installs home theaters, projectors and create office presentation solutions.

I asked him if money were not an object, would he recommend an LCD, LED or plasma in a home theater setup. He said plasma hands down.

He said the plasma's images are much better and that even at 720P, the detail is so much better and sharper on a plasma.

Anyone co-sign with this? I saw a plasma last night and thought it looked good.

Discuss.

Plasma is great, but don't get a cheap one or you may get vicious posterisation.

I have two beefs with plasma displays:

1. Huge power consumption. I think some of the newer ones are addressing this issue, but just look at all the red in the plasma section of this chart:

http://reviews.cnet.com/green-tech/tv-consumption-chart/

2. Huge amounts of RF interference. Since I live in a house with an amateur radio nerd, plasma is completely off the menu.

Looking at the two types of displays in a store, I don't really see any more variation between LCD and plasma than I do between one kind of LCD and another kind of LCD.

for budget TVs, LCD is the way to go hands down. Also, if you are using it for primarily gaming, an LCD is the way to go. What your friend said was a fallacy, he is living in 2007 where there was a huge difference between LCD and Plasma picture quality. Now the difference is negligible. LCDs don't suffer from image burn in (although higher end plasmas don't either) and it has black levels that are close to what a plasma is pushing.

To my knowledge... Plasma + Videogames = Big trouble.

Though my knowledge is very outdated.

I do.  A relative mine has a 50" Sony LCD and a 50" Panny plasma, and I prefer the plasma.  Sadly all the gaming consoles are hooked to the LCD in his bedroom instead of the plasma in their family room.

Unless you have a tendency to leave your games on pause or the TV on one channel (with an icon) for hours and hours at a time then definitely go for the plasma.  Burn-in is a reality, but with every passing generation of plasma TVs it becomes less and less of an issue.

I thought LCD was better but I guess maybe I'm wrong. I'm not a TV guy.

Mine is a 27 inch LCD samsung and it works fine for me. But then again, I've never owned a plasma.

Thanks for the input. I was at the same store where I bought my LCD. I looked at the sole plasma and was like 'Wow, that's very sharp and crisp.' The man owns a biz where he charges $150 an hour to set stuff up or troubleshoot things.

I also found out some plasmas have an insane refresh rate.

Part of that may be because its a Sony LCD.  Being a videogame website i'm sure there will be a lot of people who will disagree... but honestly Sony has lost a lot when it comes to TVs. 

Samsung has passed them.  Sony's kinda living on brandname... at least that's the case when i look at them in the stores.

I forget, do plasma TVs lose their display (or effectiveness of projecting an image) after a few years? My parents always griped about plasma TVs by saying that.