Plasma TV is one of the most sophisticated products available in the electronics market in recent times. Originally developed as a technology for big-sized televisions, plasma display has revolutionized every aspect of TV viewing with its excellent picture quality, image depth and most importantly, its exact facsimile of real world with billions of colours.

Today, we have a wide range of digital video devices like HDTV, DTV, and DVD that boast high quality image production but require excellent output devices like Plasma Display or LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). The larger Plasma Display Panels (PDP) with their excellent brightness, their faster response time, wider viewing angle and greater colour range has an edge over LCDs in terms of affordable price.
The concept of Plasma Display Panel dates back to 1964 when Donald L. Blitzer, H.Gene Slottow and a graduate student Robert Wilson designed the first single colour plasma display panel at University of Illinois for Plato Computer System.

Plasma display Panels were originally monochrome and had either green or orange display for the next two decades. Although Plasma display Panels were popular in the early 1970s for their huge screen size and sleek profile, they were generally used in multi-viewers environment like stock exchanges or big halls.

Fujitsu, a Japanese company designed the worlds first multi-colour display with 21 screen in 1992. In 1996, Panasonic, another Japanese electronics company bought Plasma co, an American based company and its technical expertise in plasma technology and started to manufacture Plasma Display Panels. However, only in 1997, the first commercial Plasma Display Panel entered the market and began to gain popularity in the subsequent years. In 1998, Plasma Display Panel was used for televising Olympic events and it turned out to be a great success. The electronic giant Panasonic built worlds largest Plasma TV in USA in 2006 with a screen size of 103 inches.

Plasma Displays have better compatibility with almost all video formats - VCR, DVD, DTV and HDTV and even digital DVI connectors. They make excellent display devices for home theatres, video presentations in schools, colleges, training centers and video conferencing in business.

The use of plasma TV in public display system is immense. Larger plasmas make excellent display systems in stadiums, highway terminals, big halls in hotels or banks, advertising panels etc. Larger Plasmas (above 42 inches) are certainly cheaper as the LCD of the similar size will cost almost thrice.

Pioneer has launched Pioneer PDP 424 MV Plasma TV with various technologies. The unique advantage of the product is the usage of plasma technology. Plasma technology is required to bring out impressive images on the television. Usually plasma technology uses 2 transparent glass panels. The layers of the glasses will be very thin. Pixels are filled in between those panels. Pixels are made with the cells filled with gas. When you switch on the unit power will pass on these cells. Then gas will emit high frequency ultra violet rays. These rays become a cause for glowing colours.

Pioneer PDP 424 MV Plasma TV has been availed with loudspeakers. Viewers can enjoy stereo format audio. You can set a maximum level of brightness up to 1000. The display format of the screen is 16:9. The frequency rate is just 50 Hertz. You can use your TV screen as a monitor by using PC interface. HDMI feature is supported by the device which is broadly known as 'High Definition Media Interface'. It also chains 'Video Graphics Array' feature. The device has the stuff to produce resolutions up to 853 pixels horizontally and 480 pixels vertically.

Pioneer PDP 424 MV Plasma TV is constructed with 42 inches screen. The maximum ability to control brightness is up to 1100 Cd/m2. Viewers can enjoy colourful pictures as the device has featured with 10.7 billion colour support. The pixel pitch of your home entertainer is 1.08 millimetres. The main advantage of the product is the acceptance of distinct type of data signals namely:
• VGA
• SVGA
• XGA
• SXGA
• UXGA

Accepted type of television signals are listed as:
• 480i
• 480p
• 720p
• 1080i

List of connectors available in the product for various functions:
• 2 RCA composite video
• 1 S- Video
• 1 component video
• 1 RGB component video
• 1 PC VGA
• 1 DVI interface

Power Requirement
The device requires power supply from 100 to 240 volts at 50 to 60 Hz. The product is compactly designed with smart dimensions as:
• 40.3 inches width
• 24.05 inches height
• 3.5 inches depth.
• 62.00 lbs weight

You will get a basic remote with the main unit. Viewers can choose a specific language to display information or menus. You have to choose one language from multi-language menu. Progressive scanning process is used to procuring images on your screen.

There is a misconception that both Plasma TV and LCD TV lack superior audio quality when compared with traditional TV sets. It is also suggested that when you buy a flat panel like plasma TV, you should also buy some home theatre system or an audio system to enhance the quality of sound. This makes your choice of plasma TV more selective as you need to check whether the unit provides options for connecting it with an external audio system.

When you go for a plasma TV, first you need to check the number of connectivity options available in the unit. You can find audio/video inputs both on front and side panels. There are a wide range of inputs that include S-video, composite and component video inputs.

Check, whether the TV has at least one audio input and output. The audio output helps you to connect it with some external audio system to get enhanced sound quality. If you want your TV to show HDTV materials received from HDTV broadcast or DVDs, your Plasma TV should have high definition component video input, HDMI interface or DVI-HDCP. These inputs enable you to enjoy HDTV channels, HD-DVDs like blu-ray discs.

If you want to use a camcorder, PC or video game with your TV set, check you have got additional inputs on the side panel of your TV. This will often help you to connect these devices with your TV without additional hardware.

Even if you don’t plan to use all these devices with your TV presently, buying a TV with many inputs/outputs will nevertheless make your TV future-proof. As the flat panel technology is making tremendous advancements, this has become inevitable.

Both Plasma TV and the conventional CRT-type display use phosphors to produce the display. The screen of these display systems is made up of tiny spots known as pixels which have a phosphor coat on their back.

We can also compare a Plasma TV with a fluorescent lamp although on a superficial level. Not only they use the luminous properties of phosphors, they also use inert gases like argon, neon, xenon which in a plasma state, emit invisible, ultra-violet photons. In a fluorescent bulb, these emitted photons strike the phosphorous coating of the inner wall of the bulb resulting in a radiant glow, which fills our rooms.

However, a Plasma TV, which works on the same principle, has innumerable tiny fluorescent lamps, which are called pixels. Each Pixel, in its turn, has three tiny sub-pixels coated with red phosphor, green phosphor and blue phosphor. The pixels or cells are filled with rare gases like neon and xenon and the entire network of pixels is placed between two sheets of glass.

Two sets of electrodes address electrodes and display electrodes form two separate grids, one along the rear glass plate and another along the front glass plate. Once electric current is passed between the electrodes, it excites the noble gases to release the electrons thereby producing ions and free flowing electrons in the mixture. These charged particles rush towards electrically opposite charged electrodes, collide with each other and emit invisible, ultra violet photons. These photons react with the colored phosphors (RGB) in the sub-pixels and give visible light.

The overall shade of the pixel depends on the intensity of each sub-pixel which is proportionate with the level of electricity passing though it. To show a gamut colors, these three basic colors, RGB, are blended in different combinations by varying the intensity of each color. Plasma display Panels have a special feature, PCM (pulse code modulation) which modulates the electric pulse at a rapid rate and enable the production of more than 17 million colours.

Plasma is a special form of matter, which is unique from solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter. Although plasmas have a few common, fundamental properties with gases like indefinite volume and size, they significantly differ from gases by their electrical properties. A typical gas, like air, is electrically neutral, as the number of positive charged particles and negative charged particles in their atoms are equal in number. However, when a source of energy like heat or electricity is introduced into this state of equilibrium, it makes some or all negative particles (electrons) get loose, added or lost, thus making the gas ionized or electrically charged. It is the degree of ionization which actually determines the state of plasma. Thus, plasma refers to an ionized gas with unique properties like good electrical conductivity and their strong interactive nature in the electromagnetic fields.

In fact, plasma is everywhere in this visible universe in the form of dust or clouds which fill up the interstellar space. Not necessary to mention, our sun is also composed of gases, which are in plasma state caused by constant nuclear fusion. The lightning on the sky, which we see at thunderous nights, is another common example of electro-magnetic activity of gases in the state of plasma.

Plasma has a wide range of applications in the present world. For example, neon signs and fluorescent lamps use noble gases like argon, neon, and xenon, which become plasmas when the electric current is passed in the tubes containing these gases.

The best application of plasma that enhances our life style in the modern culture is the Plasma display Panel (PDP), which made very large display screens possible for the wonderful, digital devices like High Definition Television (HDTV). Nowadays, Plasma display Panels are replacing rear projectors in business and commercial places due to their advantages like slim design, big screen size and wide viewing angle.