From CRT to Plasma

If you are watching the flat plasma TV’s at your local appliance store with your tongue hanging out but aren’t sure what in the world they are, here’s a bit of background to straighten it out…because this isn’t your father’s oldsmobile.

The TV’s of Howdy Doody and Bonanza use a cathode ray tube (hence the term boob tube) or CRT. CRT technology had a beam of electrons project onto a glass tube (your TV screen), illuminating parts of the phosphor coating. So the bigger the screen, the longer the tube.

With plasma TV there are pixels instead of phosphor. These pixels have three fluorescent lights in them…red, green and blue. They light up with electrons and can produce sixteen million colors each. That’s a ton of colors.

Plasma TVs also give you the wonderful theater inducing widescreen in a 16 to 9 ration. You don’t miss the scan lines of the CRT and there is a pleasing absence of skewed viewing when you are at an extreme angle. And these Plasma screens are positively anorexic, some measuring in at just over three inches in depth. Just hang it on the wall. The technology keeps improving and each year brings new advances, so keep your TV tuned…