Rich Fiscus
20 Aug 2007 22:02
Panasonic announced that they are able to extend the phosphor half life of consumer plasma displays to 100,000 hours, an improvement of around 2/3 over older technology.
The two-thirds gain in "life to half brightness" appears in the company's current 2007 model lineup, already available in stores, a spokesman said. If a household watches six hours of TV per day, it would take almost 46 years for the display to dim to half it original brightness.
The company is studying other improvements to 1080p plasma displays, including native 24p playback. This would enable playback of film content at the correct framerate without 2:3 pulldown.
Although improvements intended for relatively expensive displays are nice, it seems like the next 2-5 years will see more of an increase in low end displays to accomodate the transition to digital-only television.
Arguably, unlike improved plasma life, accepting a 24P signal should improve the viewing experience when most material originates on 24fps film.
Source: TWICE