What makes you buy a plasma over other technologies?

I have purchased two PDPs so far because plasma TVs provide the best in-home, big screen HD viewing experience of any display technology currently available.

No you should not be concerned with plasma reliability.

What makes one buy a plasma over other technologies is superior contrast ratio, color saturation, and over PQ. No questions lcds have exploded in popularity and PQ advancements, but plasmas are still superior :-). That's my opinion but many others will agree.

Plus the word Plasma is really cool.

PQ pure and simple, I have two plasma's now and another shipping hopefully today (all Pioneer's).

PQ is simply amazing for the money. I have a 9uk panny and am not careful about what I watch or how I game. If I turn the TV off in a completely dark room, I can sometimes see some IR... But never once have I seen it while actually watching something.

Until I do, or the elite LCD's come down in price, I love me some plasma.

Black level, lack of motion blurring, shadow detail, viewing angle, price.

That would be my main reason as well. Bring your friends over and tell them that your TV runs on super-heated gases.

dlp need a lamp/bulb on avg 4-8000 hours, plasma half life is 60,000.
and dlp have mirrors that can get dirty like this one.
and yup plasmas are cool

Most natural and realistic picture out there today, not to mention color reproduction and black levels (Kuro's specifically). Oh BTW they are cool too

Picture quality.

LCD is nice and all...but phosphors FTW!

PQ pure and simple. I like the look of Plasma better and If I were the last plasma supporter I wouldn't care. I will only buy a LCD when and if they ever get better than Plasma. And still they are not. It's too bad because plasma can be a PITA sometimes.

Oh and I almost forgot.

I bought plasma because it came with a built in TV tuner with QAM. HUGE decision maker for me.

It all comes down to picture quality. Plasmas offer the most natural PQ. LCDs look artificial. I have both and the use of each is application dependent. But, for true picture excellence (Contrast, lack of motion blur, natural color reproduction), plasma IS better than LCD. For me, I still see some motion blur on the new LCD TVs. I have a Mitsubishi 46" LCD, which was probably the best LCD on the market in early 2007. Even as good as that 1080P LCD is, it is not as natural as the Pioneer 5070, which is a 768p display.

With that being said, not all Plasmas are created equal. I am partial to Pioneer due to their superior processing of SD content relative to other brands. Panasonic is second for me. I am glad to see that Panasonic is finally changing the look of their cabinets.

Virtually all the new LCDs have QAM tuners as well. It's pretty much a standard feature at this point.

I tried 2 LCD televisions before getting the plasma. To me the LCDs were very bright and colorful, but my eyes got sore, and I thought that most people's face looked like they were wearing too much make up or something. It just didn't look realistic for people, although outdoor scenes looked fantabulous.

I also watch television in all types of lighting. Sometimes I have direct sunlight, normal lighting, and sometimes I'm in the dark or in the dark with bias lighting. The LCD did great for sunlight and daytime viewing, but then dimming the screen (switching from Vivid mode to Standard or Cinema) meant that I lost the quality of the colors and the details - not phenominally mind you, but it wasn't just right for me. As I watch TV mostly at night in "Cinema" or "Standard" modes on my Panny, the LCD just wasn't the better technology for me.

Plus I wanted a bigger screen size. Ha!

As do many comparison threads.

That is not dirt on those DLP mirrors. It is a flock of micro blondes!.

That isn't even IR, it is just residual charging.

He might mean IR - it is easiest to see in in the dark with a black screen.

contrast and smooth motion #1 and 2, color reproduction #3, shadow detail #4.

I love plasma except for the glare. I bought a panny 50" two years ago and have not regret it. However, I just pick up a Mits 65833 DLP this weekend to replace my panny. My room has too many windows. The Pioneer 6010 looks awesome too but no plasma for a brightly lit room for me again.

The DLP is better with glare than the plasma? That's very surprising.

PQ... better contrast and black level. Also, when you can buy a 50" X75U Panny for less than 11 bones... you can't beat that for not only a plasma's PQ but its size, thinness, and viewing angles.

Nah, like I said, that isn't image retention, it is just a residual charging of the pixels. Unlike IR, charging goes away even while the plasma is off and is also is visible while the TV is off as DCDeac mentioned.

Image retention on the other hand is uneven wear in of the phosphors. It only shows up while the display is on and most notably so on bright screens, and it doesn't go away until the TV is left on and displaying content long enough to even out the wear in the phosphors.

Oh yeah, I didn't realize he said the TV was off.