Plasma televisions have that crystalline, liquid image that stops you in your tracks when you walk by one at the store. The way plasma displays work is there are hundreds of thousands of tiny cells sandwiched between two glass plates. The gases contained in the cells are electrically excited, producing the desired color per cell. Plasma displays are thin and can be wall mounted, and since they take up less space, may be better suited to smaller rooms.

One of the drawbacks of plasma is burn-in. Burn-in is when a static image onscreen leaves a ghost of itself if it's been onscreen for a long time. Old fashioned rear projection televisions had this problem, and in that case, the damage was permanent. While plasma is still prone to burn-in, according to the manufacturers, on newer sets the effect is temporary and can be remedied by watching content with no static images for an extended period of time. They'll have to convince me. Plasma has had burn-in problems so far.

Another drawback is life span. Plasmas have traditionally had a shorter span til they reach half brightness than other display technologies. Panasonic now claims their current plasma televisions have a life of 100,000 hours til half brightness. If true, that would pretty much erase that deficiency.

Lastly, plasmas are expensive relative to the competing display technologies. On the plus side, nothing looks as good as plasma, and prices are coming down.

Plasma Verdict: Plasma technology is much improved, but while the cost is decreasing, they still don't combine the best in price and performance.

DLP stands for digital light processor, and is a proprietary technology of Texas Instruments. DLP produces an image with hundreds of thousands of tiny mirrors. Each mirror is actuated, and over the range of movement possible, 1024 shades of gray can be reproduced. All DLP televisions use a single chip, and color is achieved via cpu and a mechanical color wheel. At any given time all colors are being displayed in a given pixel, even though the human eye perceives the assigned color. Because of this, a small percentage of people experience a visual artifact called the rainbow effect, where they see rainbow colored irregularities in moving images. Sensitive people are likely to also encounter eye strain and perhaps headaches. Again, the number of people who are affected by this effect is small, but if you are one of them this is definitely a deal breaker for DLP.

One of the advantages that comes from being a single chip solution is that no convergence issues are possible. Convergence is the alignment of three separate images, red, green and blue, to form the image displayed. CRT, LCD projection, and LCoS all achieve an image this way. The problem with this is that often times due to manufacturing or wear, perfect alignment of the three images isn't possible. For example, the television is displaying a grid of vertical white lines. One area of the screen has a slight ghosting effect where there is a green, blue or red line on one side of the white line, or on both sides. DLP is also available in 3 chip configurations that would eliminate rainbow effect (and perhaps introduce convergence issues), but the cost is prohibitive and at this time they are only available in commercial projectors.

DLP is not susceptible to burn-in, at all. There is no visual degradation with DLP. On the downside, every couple of years you'll need to replace the lamp.

DLP Verdict: Run away if you see rainbows. If not, it's tough to beat the near plasma-like image and blacker than black that DLP offers.

LCoS stands for liquid crystal on silicon. The way LCoS differs from LCD rear projection is that while light is transmitted through LCD rear projection, LCoS is reflective. LCoS is capable of higher resolutions than LCD rear projection and is inexpensive to produce. Because of the reflective approach, LCoS has a much longer life span until visual degradation is noticeable.

LCoS Verdict: I haven't seen an LCoS set I thought looked as good as the best DLP, but I haven't seen one I thought looked bad either. Good technology, reasonable price, great image.

Direct view LCD televisions of any size have been prohibitively expensive, until recently. LCD has made great strides in doing away with many of the issues that made it a poor choice in the past. LCD displays are fast enough now that motion blur is a thing of the past. LCD is susceptible to burn-in, but only temporarily. Cycling away from the static image for a while will eventually make the ghost go away. The one drawback is still that LCD can not do black, only very dark gray. Don't raise your eyebrow at me. It may look black to you, but it's not. Trust me. Going along with the lack of true black, dark detail is not as good as other display technologies. That is about my only big gripe with LCD. Everywhere else they are vastly improved, and in price vs. performance are beating plasma.

LCD Verdict: Even with the dark detail issue, direct view LCD draws a sexy picture. According to LCD manufacturers the prices on these displays will be going down even more in the coming months.

It's a good time for consumers when all this technology is getting cheaper across the board. It's hard to make a bad recommendation because all these technologies render a good image, and all have their pluses and minuses. With price vs. performance and image quality being our criteria, here's my pick:

DLP and LCD I cheated and picked two. Here's why:

I think DLP still offers the best image for the money if (big caveat here) you don't see the rainbows. Nothing should ever wear out, besides the lamp, and the image is wonderful. I think DLP and LCoS may not be here for the long haul however. Toshiba, a big proponent of DLP, is moving whole hog to direct view LCD. Samsung and Mitsubishi are also both heavily invested in DLP. Mitsubishi could go LCD at any time, which would leave only Samsung waving the DLP flag.

Plasma and LCD continue to decline in price, and inexpensive rear projection televisions may not be on the manufacturer's agendas for much longer. LCD isn't going anywhere soon. I wouldn't have recommended it two years ago, but it is that much better today. Between LCD and plasma I have much fewer reservations regarding LCD. Five years from now we'll be talking about display technologies that aren't available to consumers as of this writing. I firmly believe at that time LCD televisions will still be in the marketplace, and will be better than ever.