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Comment by Aaargh20318 | Hacker News Reader

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Aaargh20318·

Yes, that’s basically what a plasma TV is.

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Also there was going to be field emitter (FED and SED) flat screen TVs, basically an array of electron guns.

But they were killed by the low cost of LCDs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-emission_display

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-conduction_electron-em...

Oh neat, I didn't realize that. I guess it didn't work out very well.

I have a plasma TV that I use for gaming (Panasonic Viera). It's a great display with none of the contrast or ghosting disadvantages of an LCD, but it's heavy, delicate, and most importantly, it puts out a ton of heat. A plasma TV is basically a grid of tiny neon lights.

Like any active display (CRT, plasma, or OLED) it can suffer from burn-in, but I haven't found that to be a problem for my usage.

Between a very old Panasonic Viera 42" upon which a buttload of Halo was played over many years, and the current Samsung Not-Smart Plasma which gets a bit less game play, I've yet to see the slightest hint of burn-in. I did get some ghosting on the Panny before I sold it, but I otherwise take plasma burn-in to be an artifact from TVs made twenty years ago.

It's a problem with every plasma TV ever made. I've got one of the last Panasonic Viera's which, after almost 10 years, has a slight dark patch around the place where subtitles tend to appear (I'm from the Netherlands where almost all non-dutch content is subtitled) It's only really noticeable when looking at a uniform gray screen which is not my content of choice, but it's there.

Plasma TVs are out there and have advantages and disadvantages to LCDs.

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