Plasma vs. LCD TV History

In 1964, University of Illinois professors Donald Bitzer and Gene Slottow, along with then-graduate student Gene Slottow, invented the very first plasma television. The plasma vs.LCD TV race had just begun. These gentlemen used regular televisions as computer monitors for their in-house computer network. They knew that a cathode-ray display has to constantly refresh, which is not optimal for displaying computer graphics. After countless hours of research, they built the first plasma display panel with one cell. Today’s plasmas use millions of cells.

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We have all heard certain plasma displays described as “enhanced” definition displays. “Enhanced” certainly makes these plasma TVs sound good … desirable even. Lucky for us there’s more to this than just clever marketing. Enhanced-definition (or ED) plasma TVs are actually better than conventional, tube-type TVs—not just slimmer and wider.

Resolution is the main reason why HDTV looks so much better than standard television. On a high-def TV displaying a high-def source, a million or more pixels combine to create images that appear sharper and more realistic than TV ever has before. Resolution isn’t the be-all and end-all of picture quality, however, and its numerous, well, numbers, can be incredibly intimidating at first. In this article we’ll try to demystify HDTV resolution and help you cut through the hype that surrounds all of those numbers.

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