Plasma Dithering. Inherent of the technology?

The way I understand it, plasma pixels can only be on or off, so they have to be strobed at different rates to create different brightness levels. (pulse width modualtion) Different manufacturers handle this in different ways, which is why the dithering is different on various plasmas, but it seems to be inherent to the technology.

looks that way for now...apparently there are not enough bits for the number of pixels. see this thread...may give you some insight

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1046426

I have a samsung and I believe it may be significantly worse on the samsung than on the panasonic. So you may want to check a panny out.

In that thread there was a pic of a 1920 x 1080 image to test dithering and color banding (not too sure if I'm using the correct terminology).

http://web.comhem.se/zacabeb/reposit...ectrum_rgb.png

I put the image on my panasonic LCD and got no banding on all 3 colors. Pending replies on my results I belive that is good news. Whenever my 65" plasma gets delivered (within the next couple of days hopefully) I will report on how this image is displayed on it.

I would expect to see some degree of posterisation (banding) with any digital display, I've still not found anything that can produce gradations as smooth as a good CRT. The better flat panels are good enough for most people to be happy with though.

I don't think you'll see any dithering on most of the newer LCDs, but there's a chance you'll see posterisation with that image. The 10-bit panels should be quite good though. (note: many manufacturers list the processing bit-depth rather than the panel)


You should definitely check out plasmas from other manufacturers if you would still prefer one over an LCD. (better viewing angles, colour reproduction etc.) I've heard that Panasonic is better than Samsung, and Pioneer is better than either in my opinion. PWM noise is noticeable even in bright scenes if you're looking for it with them, but the way they handle it is generally a lot less noticeable/annoying than what I've seen on other plasmas. (Panasonic has terrible dithering in dark areas, for example)

it looks like my Samsung LCD handle it extremely well, no visible banding.

LCD panels typically convert sub-pixel (RGB) drive signals to analog, so pulse width modulation is mostly a plasma and DLP (all-digital) technique. Some microdisplay LC displays (for RPTVs) do use PWM; for example the eLCoS , a type of LC display, and a JVC LCOS. LCD panels have issues, too, such as sluggish switching times causing smearing, color accuracy, and inadequate viewing angles. -- John

How does it handle motion?


Pioneer and panasonic are the best at reducing banding,false contouring, posterization. Totaly eliminate it? Maybe not.

Do you mean like dancing pixels on a all black screen with the brightness turned up? All plasmas will do that, like dlp, but it's probably a calibration issue if you see this time to time. Source, elevated blacks from different content,display settings, how deep the set's black levels are.

Calibration can not get rid of that. It's simply how it displays dark imagery. I believe Pioneer handles this significantly better than most (all?) other plasmas as it doesn't use the same type of dithering.

actually very good, I can't perceive any motion blur.

Wow did you just say the lcd route? god good luck with the motion blurr clouds not uniformly off axis viewing angles motion resolution (its another thing not motion blurr) Super Inacurate Whites that will make you tear and an acurate picture.

by your previous post i thought you wanted "would buy any brand that produces a better picture"

for those $3,500+ you spent i would get the pioneer any day over the xbr lol......

i dont want to bash or start a war but Better PQ is the pioneer in that price range regardless of the 8th generation or the current 9th generation.

good luck and i do recommend going with a panasonic or a pioneer

Without boring you with too many technical details; Dithering is not present due to PWM or analog vs digital. It is present because Plasma displays have have limited number of gray levels per sub-pixel thanks to them moving away from binary combinations. It used to be that a panel with 10 subfields would have the binary weights per subfield:

1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024

and using combinations of these weights the number of gray levels would be 1024 unique levels.

Not anymore. Today panel manufacturers are turning to continous/contiguous where combinations other that adjacent ones are not allowed. This is done to eliminate false contour noise and reduce black level. In the above example the number of unique gray levels would be only 10.

You can see that halftoning (dithering, error diffusion) is needed.



I'll post a more technical explanation in the 8-bit depth thread tomorrow

Cheers

I always thought the reason that made one of the pros of plasma was that it had better blacks than LCD. That's why I'm replacing my 60" lcd with a plasma.

well that projector sums everything up but for a flat panel its not just the blacks that plasma wins over lcd, its the accurate color the processing the off axis viewing angle the uniformly its even motion resolution sucks and motion blurr is noticeable and alot more ... you can get a 8th generation if you can find one PDP-5080 under 2gs shouldnt be an issue.

bro i hate to disapoint you but the only claims samsung has is that additional frame trick of 120hz which makes it un realistic. that goes as far as motion blurr, motion resolution has not been fixed even on plasma the kuro can only do 900 lines this is where crt still wins. uniformly? cloud? those are still issues even with the 71/81 series so its not fixed far from it ... hopefully you wont notice motion blurr on or off with amp or 120hz or any other issues but once you find it im sure you will go back to plasma. not all plasmas are the same by all means another sammy plasma could of had diffrent dithering heck no two identical panels will exisit side by side.

I like my plasma, but don't listen to these guys about the lcd. That samsung is easily one of the highest rated this year so far. It has awesome motion processing. Yes the off angle viewing is not so hot, but the colors are very accurate and blacks are good. Overall it is a good set and not one to be disappointed in. Also you can turn amp off if you don't like the 3d effect.