Why plasmas are cheaper

And as the sagging prices suggest, business for plasma display panels hasn't been good. Not bad if you're in the hunt for a large-screen HDTV. Not so long ago, no other technology could match plasma for image quality. But in the past two years, LCD has caught up. Though Joe Kane of Digital Video Essentials believes that high-end plasmas produce a superior image, he says that the quality advantage vanishes in the budget category.

LCDs have other advantages in the marketplace, though in some instances those advantages are more a matter of perception than of reality. Since LCDs can display a brighter picture, they look better than plasmas in a showroom's bright ambient lighting.

This has nothing to do with how suitable the set will be for home use, but it's a huge sales advantage. Meanwhile, plasma displays continue to battle consumer misconceptions. Today you can get 3,x2, pixels, plus more color, contrast, brightness, and way more screen, for less than 5 percent of the cost of this TV when new. Scratch that. The only TVs of the day. Rear-projection TVs were capable of a bigger picture, but for the best image, direct-view CRTs ruled.

Sony owned this category for most of the last half of the 20th century. How about them S-video inputs? Plus, it only weighs pounds! Let's go way back, to the earliest days of color television. It all seems like ancient history now, but color TV hit the market only a decade or so after black-and-white TV really started to take off though Farnsworth himself had been working on TV since the '20s.

Much like the early days of HD and 4K, there wasn't much content, so adoption was slow. Prices quickly dropped, however, mostly because people weren't buying.

By the mid-'60s, when color programming really took off, color TVs were even cheaper. And those numbers are even a bit optimistic. The Westinghouse may have had a inch tube, but the viewable area was far less. It's easy to say that TVs get cheaper every year. And as you can see, to an extent, that's absolutely true.

More accurately, though, it's that they get cheaper per inch. More than cheaper, TVs get bigger. The biggest disruptions come at the lower end of the market, something far harder to track. In the '50s, Westinghouse and RCA were some of the only manufacturers of this new technology. Now there are dozens of companies making TVs. That's an old trend, too. As new manufacturing powerhouses come in, they aim for the bottom of the market.

They first offer something inexpensive, then later, something inexpensive and good, then eventually something good and expensive. Lake Minnetonka mansion, nearly completed, could be forced to relocate. Gophers head to Iowa with Morgan still at QB, but a very different offense.

In Minneapolis, Brothers Osborne show country is inclusive but not for everyone. The hail-proof house? These Minnesotans are working on it.

Yuen: A Minnesota Teacher of the Year on seeing his nonbinary kid for who they are. October 5, — pm. More from Star Tribune. Local Lake Minnetonka mansion, nearly completed, could be forced to relocate November Business Are people really moving out of the Twin Cities?

Gophers Gophers ride Battle's hot shooting early, hang on to beat W. Kentucky November Local Minnesota family that lost the road to its home will get it back November Coronavirus Minnesota virus breakthrough cases rise amid 'perfect storm' November More From Star Tribune. More From Variety. Taste November 27, Whether you're kicking off a meal, hosting a happy hour or contributing to a holiday potluck, here are three cheese-centric hors d'oeuvres to serve and savor.

Variety October 22,