Plasma lumens vs. Projector

see the Panny plasma rated in lumens. Google really is your friend. Lumens are used to rate the total light output of the front projector. A plasma display on the other hand will probably be described by the illumination it emits, e.g. cd/m2 aka "nits". The image size of a front projector is easily varied, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to spec it in nits as you would a fixed size plasma.


Nor can you easily convert the measure because of the way that ANSI lumens are defined. But if you at least specify your intended screen size for the projector you can make an approximate comparison. I think that Panasonic claimed something like 550 nits and a CR of 4000:1 for this panel. One lumen of light falling over a square foot is defined as one footcandle. If the screen gain is one, this would equal one footlambert of brightness reflected from the screen. Multiply the footlamberts by 3.43 to obtain nits. The screen brightness will be inversely proportional to screen size. Something like a 80" screen would be equal to the claimed Panny brightness @ unity gain. Of course the Panny spec probably refers to full torch mode.. so that figure may be academic anyway. If you do some searching, you should be able to find a more meaningful nits figure measured from a calibrated Panny.