Here’s Why TV Manufacturers Stop Using Plasma Panels

In the early 2000s, if someone had a big budget for a TV, they mainly had two types of technology to choose from: flat screen TVs (with large displays) and plasma TVs (known for their amazing picture quality). These TVs catered to different, but equally demanding audiences. While projection TV buffs bought themselves the big screen experience, the plasma TV enthusiast had bragging rights for having the most advanced TVs money could buy. Plasma TVs were compact and among the first TVs that could be easily mounted on a wall, giving them a huge aesthetic advantage over large screen TVs (RPTVs).

In the mid-2000s, plasma TVs became more advanced and became available in much larger sizes and higher resolutions. Although the 150-inch plasma TV prototype from Panasonic was unusual, it showed how far things can go. This was the era when theatergoers began to migrate to plasma screens en masse, which led to major manufacturers abandoning RPTVs altogether. Although the old LCD TVs also made their presence felt gradually, they were considered as the cheapest products in the market due to the inherent flaws of the original models. They had slow response times and refresh rates, and the backlight delivered poor picture quality and washed out colors. In other words, things looked really good on the plasma display. It was loved by enthusiasts, its main competitors (RPTVs) were outdated, and the new LCD TVs couldn’t compete in picture quality.

However, less than two decades after they arrived on the scene, plasma TVs would become extinct. And, as strange as it sounds, the army of death was brought by the humble LCD TV, which quickly graduated to LED technology and finally solved many of the problems that led people to choose plasma TVs over LCDs.

While plasma TVs looked uncannily similar to modern LED or OLED displays, their DNA was completely different. In fact, according to the underlying chemistry, the plasma screen was actually a microscopic grid of inert-gas neon lights. The “pixels” in plasma TVs were very small cells filled with gases such as xenon or neon. When an electrical signal is passed through them, the gases are ionized into a plasma state, causing them to glow and emit invisible UV light. To make this light visible to humans, manufacturers added a layer of red, blue, and green phosphors, which “glow” when hit by UV light. This is how plasma TVs create the RGB layer underneath that creates images on the screen.

Although this process produced the highest quality images at the time, creating an image using this process required a lot of energy and produced a significant amount of heat. To cool things down, some manufacturers have added an internal fan to the mix, which makes some plasma TVs sound annoying. Then there were other issues: Given that plasma TVs use gas-filled pixels, they had to be housed inside a thick glass shell, making these TVs much heavier than LCD TVs. Plasma TVs also suffer from another problem called image retention or burn-in, which will later affect OLED displays.

The use of gas-filled “pixels” also meant that companies had to go to extreme lengths to shrink them in order to deliver high resolution. By the time these technological limitations began, LCD/LED technology had advanced significantly, and the new OLED technology brought almost all the advantages of plasma displays, while eliminating most of their shortcomings.

The rapid maturation of LCD/LED technology and the arrival of OLED technology on the horizon will eventually lead companies to abandon plasma TV research, eventually halting production altogether. Fujitsu and Pioneer were among the first major brands to abandon the technology, after they stopped making plasma TVs around 2007-2008. In the US, Vizio followed suit in 2009.

The second and final wave of production stoppages began around 2013, when one of the biggest players in the plasma TV space – Panasonic – went out of business. The very next year, two South Korean majors – Samsung and LG – also discontinued plasma TVs. The release of these heavyweight models was the final blow to plasma TVs. Although some smaller brands continue to produce them in limited quantities in China, this too will stop within a few years, with some reports indicating that these brands stopped producing plasma TVs in 2016.

It’s been more than a decade since the last plasma TVs were released, and now they’re considered TVs you might want to avoid buying used. However, the technology is still respected by serious videophiles as one of the best options for home theater enthusiasts, thanks to its excellent contrast ratios and wide viewing angles. In fact, it’s not uncommon for plasma TV enthusiasts to reminisce about their experiences with plasma TVs on online message boards and forums. Some even carefully preserve their old plasma TVs, which are still working perfectly despite being over a decade old.