Why aren't arcade monitor manufacturers developing plasma monitors?

Mimatt

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Why aren't arcade monitor manufacturers developing plasma monitors?

I was just curious because isn't plasma displays the closest thing to a CRT we have today? And why haven't arcade monitor manufacturers chosen this route instead of LCD? In a few years, CRT's will no longer be an option, period. And what will we do when that CRT monitor finally bites the dust, and all the remaining CRT tubes in the wild have been used up?

1st off, PDP televisions are usually cheaper, and have better black levels than an LCD or LED TV.
2nd off, couldn't PDP monitors emulate scanlines that turn most collectors off of LCD technology while still delivering a sharper picture than their CRT counterparts?

I'm just curious to hear everyones opinion.
 
Plasma's are the closest to CRT for (real -- not fake LCD measurements) contrast ratio/black levels/authentic color.

However they also bring along the bane of CRTs... phosphors and the burn they get. Any static image will burn a plasma; even brand new ones; especially with the high contrast/brightness settings normally seen on games.

The unfortunate side effect of Plasma is they have pure square pixels and a much finer dot pitch. 19" CRTs were around .82 dot pitch, any current plasma is going to be closer to old computer CRTs at around .25. That bigger dot pitch and the way the electrons illumnated "adjacent" phosphor gave great blending of colors/pixels that you can't get on a discrete pixel display--then you just use more pixels and color dithering to simulate it.

Also, Plasma's can't economically be made smaller than 42", perhaps 37" IIRC. LCD's however are almost inverse -- cheaper on low end, more expensive than plasma on high end.

Given all that, I doubt they will ever use them. The burn in is definitely the biggest consideration.(the better blacks/contrast ratio really isn't worth anything in a game) Heck, even LCD's burn in over time, but at a exponentially slower rate and in a different way so I suspect LCD will be the winner.
 
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I imagine that power consumption , burn-in (although I've heard that new plasma displays do not have a burn in problem or that plasmas have improved - not sure if that's true or not) are what's holding it back. However, plasma was used on a "killer app" kind of arcade title released by Square Enix this summer in Japan called Gunslinger Stratos:

http://arcadeheroes.com/2012/01/11/square-enix-unveils-gunslinger-stratos-in-japan/

This uses a 60" plasma 1080p display. I would like to see them try it out here in the West but who knows, Japanese games making it our way is always sporadic. But this is a light-gun game so it has a good chance, albeit an off-rails, dual pistol, thumbstick-in-the-hilt light-gun game.
 
I imagine that power consumption , burn-in (although I've heard that new plasma displays do not have a burn in problem or that plasmas have improved - not sure if that's true or not) are what's holding it back. However, plasma was used on a "killer app" kind of arcade title released by Square Enix this summer in Japan called Gunslinger Stratos:

http://arcadeheroes.com/2012/01/11/square-enix-unveils-gunslinger-stratos-in-japan/

This uses a 60" plasma 1080p display. I would like to see them try it out here in the West but who knows, Japanese games making it our way is always sporadic. But this is a light-gun game so it has a good chance, albeit an off-rails, dual pistol, thumbstick-in-the-hilt light-gun game.

I'm so glad you posted, I thought this thread was going to die with the post before yours. Scary thought in the first place, but really scary if it killed a thread!
 
I'm so glad you posted, I thought this thread was going to die with the post before yours. Scary thought in the first place, but really scary if it killed a thread!

As far as plasma burn in goes... A lot of TVs have pixel shift as well as other techniques to thwart the problem. I have seen CNN burn in on a early plasma fixed by showing a solid gray static image for a long period of time which basically erased it off the screen. But like what was said earlier... I have never seen a plasma smaller then about 40 inches either.
 
As far as plasma burn in goes... A lot of TVs have pixel shift as well as other techniques to thwart the problem. I have seen CNN burn in on a early plasma fixed by showing a solid gray static image for a long period of time which basically erased it off the screen. But like what was said earlier... I have never seen a plasma smaller then about 40 inches either.

A few years ago I sat in on a training session at my workplace at the time on plasma TVs where they said that burn-in was a real problem on earlier plasmas but that newer models were fixing the problem. But the stigma has stuck with them, if it is in fact something that has been fixed (and not just marketing department BS).

My own problem with plasmas is that the image always looks grainy. I don't care for that much. You are right that plasmas are not found in smaller sizes so that's not a real solution to the CRT problem but it would be ok for newer arcade games which are usually being released with 42" models.

The biggest shame of display technology that hasn't made it is SED TVs. Since this was using CRT tech in it, but in a modern way, they would have proved to be effective solutions to the CRT dilemma, if any sets were released in smaller sizes. I also wonder if SEDs would work with light-guns. But we'll probably never know since the tech has died before it got off the ground.
 
I would say the claims of slow burn in on lcds are dubious at best. We have a few lcds in our arcade. Less than a year in, some f them already have wicked burn. I think crts were better.
 
The biggest shame of display technology that hasn't made it is SED TVs. Since this was using CRT tech in it, but in a modern way, they would have proved to be effective solutions to the CRT dilemma, if any sets were released in smaller sizes. I also wonder if SEDs would work with light-guns. But we'll probably never know since the tech has died before it got off the ground.

Yeah, I remember alot of people in the hobby getting excited over the hopes that SED tech would become viable as arcade monitors, only to have their hopes dashed.

Myself being one of them.

But what really sucked is it really wasn't the technology that kept it from being mass produced, it was all the lawsuits that brought SED down.
 
plasma also suffers from lag input

So can LCD's, in fact early ones were horrible for PC gaming because of it. I thought lag had more to do with the way the image is processed/scaled than the display itself.
 
Plasmas are pretty great really. I just dont like that they are so dim, and at 600hz, its refresh rate is 10 times a second. Call me the bionic man, but i notice it, and i feel like it makes for softer images, and i am a sharpness junkie.

The stuff about screen burn is just the leftover crap from when it was new technology. A good, modern plasma is not going to burn, though i will say even the highest quality plasmas suffer from a bit of image retention.
 
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So can LCD's, in fact early ones were horrible for PC gaming because of it. I thought lag had more to do with the way the image is processed/scaled than the display itself.

I believe some of the lag is from LCD's being digital and having to convert analog signals , like a Nintendo NES analog signal being converted by the LCD TV to digital . But if you use a game console with a digital output HDMI , into an LCD , theres no lag .
 
Yeah, I remember alot of people in the hobby getting excited over the hopes that SED tech would become viable as arcade monitors, only to have their hopes dashed.

Myself being one of them.

But what really sucked is it really wasn't the technology that kept it from being mass produced, it was all the lawsuits that brought SED down.

Yeah, I heard the claim that LCDs improved well enough but it really was the lawsuits and that is really frustrating. I hope that it still can be sorted out some day as despite LCD/LED improvements, I think it still has great potential, especially for the arcade industry.
 
Sega released their Afterburner Climax on a 42" Plasma. We have been running it for about 5 years now and the only issue we are having is a few dead/mis-colored pixels. NO BURN IN at all. I am trying to remember what else was released on plasma.

Now, we have our Virtua Formula attraction which used to have 50" PTV's, which died and we swapped out with your generic Best Buy Insignia TV. We are experiencing, after 2 years, discoloration within the display itself. The image is starting to become distroted in certain sections under certain colors, but no "burn-in" I think the times of burn-in are long gone with pixel shift technology.


I think it's all about the brand and quality.

Also on a side note: When DDR X was released, Betson (who did a very VERY bad job) was the vendor who was contracted to build them., they used a LCD monitor and with the conversion from the inputs, it produced a slight LAG, which hardcore DDR fanboys complained, and they were right., Due to the LAG, the players were unable to hit their squares properly, hurting their top scores.

Betson soon released a patch which fixed this issue.


Biggest issue with LCD and plasmas? Even DLP? OLDER GUN GAMES WON't WORK ON THEM! Unless your using the modern gun games with the IR emitters around the screen frame. But older games like Time Crisis 2/3 House of the dead, etc.. will not work on new monitors.

CRT's are still the best in my opinion, I work in a warehouse FULL of games that the owner wants to put LCD monitors into. We also are sitting on about 100+ old game monitors that all need to be gone thru and repaired and/or taged. I am so glad we have these as I am gonna make them look great with my rejuvinator soon.
 
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