irix wrote:Chief Blur Buster wrote:Most 60" LED-backlit LCD HDTVs can consume less than 100 watts now.
Replacing a plasma with a LED actually more than pays for the cost of the TV within its lifetime -- in electricity bills -- especially if you live in an expensive-electricity country/state.
Just saw this.
Now, firstly, re-read.
expensive-electricity country. California(USA, 16c), Alaska(USA, 19c), Germany(
30c), Ontario(Canada, 18c). You know, those expensive-electricity states/provinces/countries. You know where you have to literally pay 25 cents per kilowatt hour during peak (when all taxes, transmission, etc are included). At peak, mine's about 18 cents, plus all the extra fees which makes it almost a quarter coin per hour consuming a kilowatt. Granted, offpeak is lower.
Now, an older plasma consumes closer to 400 watts from a Kill-a-Watt meter measurements. The Kuro is slightly better than some of the older models mind you, but there were a huge number of very old "average" plasmas (not as good as Kuro) that can easily be beat by an average edgelit LCD with good BFI algorithm.
You do gain some and lose some (brightness metric, contrast ratio metric, contouring artifact metric, temporal resolutiom metric, etc) but on average, there are some cheaper FALD HDTVs that will be more than satisfactory against many non-Kuro plasmas for many average Joe users (i.e. non-videophiles).
Those good cheap Vizio and TCL brand FALD HDTVs can spray FALD goodness to your eyeballs for less than $1000 now with a Kill-a-Watt average measurment less than 100 watt -- more than a ~50% power savings. (As much as 75% power savings for similar plasma brightness). Though not as big zonecount as the expensive videophile TVs.
And the cheap $1000 local dimmed HDTV can have better blacks nowadays than the average cheap plasma that emitted a greyish black too because of faint phosphorglow -- they weren't as good as OLED today in blacks. A 10 year old plasma generally starts having brighter blacks due to wear and tear -- it's an issue that old plasmas sometimes exhibits. And yes, perhaps you're doing a trade-in of the plasma christmas tree noise for the blooming of an only-100-zone or 200-zone FALD and whatnot.
But maybe you're picky about it (like one may be about tearing or stutters or whatnot) but others are not quite as picky and consider it a totally fair trade of artifact-vs-artifact. The point being, buddy.... There are definitely $1000 LCD outperformers of aged version of average plasmas of yesteryear.
DEPENDING on what artifact tradeins you want to make. The Kuro was the King, but if you have a lesser plasma mortal that's starting to dim and have more glowy-looking blacks while still pigging out at >300 watt... Then it's probably time to trade in anyway. Even sub-$1000 has FALD options are now available today.
If you're picky about temporals, then you may want to hold out a bit longer -- Kuro did a shockingly good job erasing a lot of plasma motion artifacts. But older cheap plasmas outputted horrendous noise artifacts (contouring, christmas tree dot noise, pixel textures, etc) which sometimes look worse than the bigger but fully noise-free motion blur of a modern 4-5ms VA-panel HDTV.
Now, a frequent TV watcher or streaming binger at 3 hours per day, plus 2 hours per day of unattended "background" activity (e.g. displaying news during morning, fireplace, aquarium, music station, etc) -- At average $0.20 per hour (half at peak, half offpeak, add taxes and transmission fees, to average 20 cents) -- that's well over $350 per year. Now, most don't drive the TV as hard and pictures are not always bright -- so round that down to $200-$250 per year -- $2000-$2500 electricity costs for that TV over the lifetime of 10 years.
So, a "superior-than-cheap+worn-plasma" $1000-$1500 FALD HDTV easily saving over $1000-$1500 in electricity in its lifetime. At least in my country.
Now if you live in Germany or other expensive-electricity country where it's 30 eurocents (~33 cents USD) peak, not yet including taxes/fees/transmission, the savings are much bigger.
Most people keep their televisions -- even flat panels -- for at least 10 years. Even one of my TVs still in the home is pushing that too -- my own 2010-era Sony LED-backlit LCD HDTV still uses only 50-70 watts Kill-a-Watt meter measurement at the power outlet and looks really good-looking; vastly superior colors to a 2019-era 165Hz IPS gaming monitor. The chief problem is its crappy refresh rate (60Hz) and its non-FALDness, but it's perfectly fine for movies (rather than sports where less blur in video matters more, like on a CRT or Kuro). That's a ten year old TV using less than 100 watts, so I bet efficiency has gone up slightly since then, and FALD can be had for sub-100W-average now; many TVs RTINGs measure show average FALD levels at the ballparks of 50 watts for the typical sizes (e.g. 55 inch or so) only briefly peaking at >100W for fully bright scenes, measured using equipment by RTINGs, not manufacturer specs. So, your power drop of a ~400W plasma (~200W average) falls to a ~100W FALD (~50W average), the power savings is more than 50% relative to very old plasmas.
FALD isn't power hungry anymore, that's actual sub-100-watter average Kill-A-Watt meter mesurement readings for quite big sizes, 55 inchers, 65 inchers. Sure, during an ultra bright fully-luminous-white-background scene, measurements may briefly surge to >100W just like an old plasma can surge to >400W, but bright scene-for-bright scene, trade for trade. It's those situations where plasmas are sipping less like 200-wattish, are the same moments the same FALD (at a bigger screen size, with brighter image, to boot!) are sipping 50-to-70-wattish nowadays. Both FALD and non-FALD HDTVs can sometimes fall dramatically all the way down to almost standby-league power when the scene goes completely black (e.g. fade black, screen saver, etc) while a plasma TV has to keep running the screen hot even for a black screen, to be ready to display the next bright refresh cycle.
So you see the math I'm getting at, eh?
Yes, if you have a REALLY good plasma (Kuro!) then your trade-in options are much more limited. Holding out a smidgen longer could be warranted if you've got specific pickiness, and your panel is still in great shape (not wearing dim + not getting glowy blacks).