After decades of making use of cathode ray tube televisions, several manufacturers began to launch televisions on the market that were considerably thinner and with a novel panel technology. We are talking about plasma televisions, which ended up revolutionizing the industry. It must also be said that there was such a powerful marketing campaign around this new technology that even today you can find people thinking that they are still the ones that offer the best image quality.

And it is that the manufacturers of televisions made sure that when someone spoke of plasma televisions, they were talking about a product synonymous with quality and high-end. For a while it was like that because the evolution compared to the old CRT was considerable. In this article we wanted to pay tribute to this type of television, mentioning its origins, what its technology consisted of, and its successors.

It took decades to see the first plasma television

Although the plasma display was developed in the 1960s for the PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) computer system by a group of researchers from the University of Illinois, it was not until the late 1990s that to commercialize televisions with this technology. During all that time there were monochrome screens (orange, green or yellow), very popular for their hardness and because they broke away from elements such as memory or circuits to update the image.

Image: Wikipedia

In 1973, IBM developed an 11-inch monochrome display with this technology, accompanying the IBM 3270 computer and making it capable of displaying up to four terminal sessions at once.

The Plasmaco company, founded in 1983, also played an essential role in the development of this technology. In fact, it was acquired in 1996 by Matsushita Electric Industrial, who in 1983 launched the Executive Partner, its first computer with plasma screen. The latter is known today as Panasonic, one of the companies that has most promoted plasma technology.

When Pioneer launched the first plasma television to the public in 1997, the technology began to catch on in a big way, promising larger screens and better image quality and brightness.

Much larger panels with higher image quality

The plasma television has a set of small cells located between two glass panels. These contain a mixture of noble gases (neon, argon and xenon) which, after charging the electrodes, creates a voltage difference between the front and rear parts, causing the gas to become ionized and change its state to plasma. After this process, the ions of the gas move towards the electrodes, where they collide and generate photons, thus causing the emission of light.

Image: LCD Repair

This technology allowed to manufacture televisions with much more brightness than tube TVs. In addition, they were popular given their larger size, since in the market we could find plasma televisions larger than 70 inches.

In terms of image quality, it was an incredibly noticeable leap, with a greater color gamut and deeper blacks than LCDs, given its low luminescence. However, they were televisions that got too hot, being unpleasant for the user in the case of spending long hours with the television on. In fact, as with OLEDs, in plasma televisions there was also the fear of burning the panel.

In the market we could find all kinds of plasma models of different sizes. Manufacturers such as Pioneer, Panasonic, LG, or Samsung, among many others, showed the world the capabilities of this technology in televisions, which became very popular, although yes, significantly more expensive than CRT TVs.

The price and its stagnation buried this technology

The price disadvantage, and the need for the panel to have a large diagonal for its manufacture, meant that the plasma television became part of a highly concentrated market. Secondly, LCD technology kept growing. And it is that although the first LCD televisions were notably inferior to plasma, little by little they were conquering the public, eventually tackling the problems of dead pixels or ghosting of the first generations.

During the last years of life, the plasma barely reached 5% of the market sharein a context in which brands such as Samsung or LG dominated the market for flat screens with LCD technology.

In 2014, most plasma TV manufacturers finally abandoned the technology, although it ceased to be relevant several years earlier. However, it will always be remembered as one of the technologies that most helped advance the image quality of televisions.