reliability of Pioneer plasma sets

On Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:55:50 -0700, "William Sommerwerck" put finger to keyboard and composed:

FWIW, I notice that LG plasma TVs have a 1 year warranty whereas their LCD TVs have 3 years. This would suggest that plasma panels are inherently less reliable than LCDs.

As you have said, Pioneer appear to be getting out of the TV business:

Last year they began outsourcing production of plasma panels to Panasonic/Matsushita, so a more appropriate question might be the reliability of Panasonic panels.

On the plus side, I notice that Pioneer will sometimes sell you individual ICs (eg scan IC) rather than the whole PCB.

You may want to check some parts prices here:

This article recommends against an extended warranty:

"Our most recent survey found few repair problems during the first three years of use for plasma sets from Panasonic, Pioneer, and Samsung. ... Our surveys of thousands of consumers show that plasma flat-panel TVs have been very reliable for the first three years -- the time covered by many extended warranties -- so there's little sense in spending several hundred dollars for such a warranty."

- Franc Zabkar

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Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

It's a shame. Pioneer has made some great high-end video equipment, and they supported LV more vigorously than anyone else. (I still have the LD-S2, perhaps the best LV player ever made.)

Actually, the problem is that Matsushita has not gotten around to building the plant they promised.

I do find it puzzling that Matsushita could build panels more cheaply than Pioneer. Aren't they all working from the same labor pool (wherever it might be)?

That assumes you know which part is required! I'm not worried about parts or boards as much as I am about the panel.

I've bought very few extended warranties, on the assumption that all the money I save not buying them will more than cover the cost of repairing the few items that do. This has proved to be the truth (in my experience anyway).

According to Wikipedia, the half life of a plasma display is about

100,000 hrs. That's 27 years at 10 hrs per day. That's the time to where the display brightness drops to half. Have you light meter ready.

There's quite a bit of good info in that article on plasma tv.

My very limited experience with plasma displays is that the failures are usually in the electronics or power supply, not the tube. However, the tube will be prematurely ruined by leaving it on the program guide causing burn-in. Overheating, due to in the wall or cabinet installations that lack sufficient ventilation is another culprit. Of course, the big tube is fairly fragile and will not survive the impact of the kids indoor baseball game.

The actual failure curve for a system has peaks at the beginning and end of life, with a flat curve in between. The initial peak is usually manufacturing defects and are covered under the warranty. Those usually show up within a year. At the end of life, components that degrade due to temperature effects or thermal cycling, will cause failures. In between, a random assortment of failures might occur, but the rate is very low.

The exception is the failure of Low-ESR capacitors, which tend to show up after several years. The problem can be catastrophic as there may be dozens of identical caps in your TV, all with the same problem.

About 8 years after the counterfeit electrolyte and counterfeit capacitor problems were discovered, I'm still seeing brand new equipment with volcanic electrolytics.

The big problem with repairing a plasma TV is the size and weight. It just can't be dragged to the service shop or warranty repair station easily or economically. So, if a trivial part fails, it's a truck roll and a major production. TV repairmen still make house calls, but you'll pay handsomely for the effort. Or, you can drag it down to the few remaining repair shops.

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2

the

The initial failures are called "infant mortality".

occur,

I'll have to ask Magnolia what sorts of repairs those 5% comprise. The only thing I'm worried about is the display panel. And although the Federal government requires electronic parts to be available for 10 years after end of manufacturing, I wonder whether Pioneer will have any stock of panels after 2012. The government does not enforce these laws very well (if at all.

Picky point... "Degrade" is a transitive verb, not reflexive. You mean "deteriorate" or "fail".

According to Magnolia, warranties include in-home service.

The pioneers I used to see were all ITT chasis, back in the day of the CRT!

Personally, I don't think it was wise to invest in this set for various reasons. a)the manufacturer is getting out of the business which is bad news for after sales support, parts etc. b) production of plasma sets is to be ceased if it hasn't been already. As such, it could even be seen, in tech terms, as 'old technology'. c)fragility and screen burn problems mentioned above. :-/ B

I'm curious as to where you got this information. It's amazing how an "old-technology" set is generally considered to be the best direct-view TV made.

Screen burn is not so much of a problem as it was in the early days. Most sets have a service mode which 'washes' the panel, and in many cases, will remove all but the most 'burnt-in' burns.

On a slightly different note, anyone heard what point SED technology has reached now ? I believed that there was some legal issue between manufacturers at one point, but that it had been resolved, and large screen SED based sets were due to be hitting the market by the end of last year. Can't say that I've seen any yet. I wonder whether it has become a 'shelved' technology as a result of the economic downturn, and the strong foothold that LCD has now established in the market ?

Arfa

After two days of hot-n-heavy viewing (Saturday and Sunday), I turned on the "wash" mode and let it run for an hour.

That's what I've heard.

... and large-screen SED-based sets were due to be hitting the

I'd wanted to wait for SED, but gave up when I heard about the legal wrangling. Given the current economy and the generally strong sales of both plasma and LCD sets, it's unlikely we'll see SED sets that soon, if ever.

Very likely.

On the 3D front... Matsushita has announced it's working on a frame-sequential 1080-line system that will be generally compatible with existing players and displays. Besides the new stuff, there are lots of classic 3D films: "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (and its first sequel), "The Maze", "House of Wax", "Dial M for Murder", "It Came from Outer Space", "Kiss Me, Kate", "Hondo", and that stinker de tutti stinkers, "Robot Monster".

Patience. The patent attorneys must all be fed first. This article covers the technology and legal wrangling (near the bottom):

Personally, I think LED DLP projectors are going to be a winner, mostly because of the (eventual) low cost and small size.

After that market is saturated, 3D TV will probably be the next big thing. Apple will probably call the required LCD shutter/viewer glasses the "Eye-Pod" which will display 3D videos while walking down the street and double as a heads-up information display and game machine. The colander helmet docking station is optional.

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One general principle-- the harder the salespeople push for you to buy an item, the higher the profit to them and lousier value to you.

In particular, all those places that push for "extended warranties", they can often triple their profit just on the warranty part.

And collecting on the warranty can be a real hassle. Not like the smiling attractive people in the glossy warranty brochure, you'll be writing and calling and getting put on hold for months if you try to collect on the warranty.

That's interesting. I see that the original question was posted back in

2005, and it looked as though a resolution to the legal problems was expected in fairly short order, back then.

But isn't this just typical ? The eco-bollox green mist brigade jump on every dubious 'mis-use' of energy, such as getting 'proper' light bulbs banned world-wide in favour of dreadful substitutes like CFLs, and here we are with a technology that uses half the power of a CRT, a third the power of a plasma panel, and although it doesn't state the ratio with LCDs will be at least a third of those if not less, and which could actually make a big difference, whilst *improving* the picture over the current flat screen technologies, and they let it just fester as a result of one company getting arsey with another !

Makes you wonder who has got an interest in not letting this technology out onto the mass market ...

Arfa

Arfa, try putting a CFL in a glass or plastic fixture. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Except for the bathroom, where the CFLs are directly exposed (above the mirror), the others are in IKEA fixtures. You can't tell they're not incandescent. They look great.

I have. I currently have one in a bathroom 'globe' fitting. It takes a quarter second to start, which although is a very short time, is still long enough for your dumb old brain to think "sod it, the bulb's gone ..." every single time you go in there. After it does start, for the first 20 seconds, the light is like a candle shining through a glass of piss. After that time, the light output ramps up until it is like standing on Venus with the sun at your back.

The colour of the light is sick and rancid. I have another in an outside light. During the winter, that is just about giving its full quota of light, by the time it's dawn, and time for it to go off again.

I have another in the hallway in a Tiffany style shade. It too takes a quarter second to strike, and again, the light output ramps up over perhaps a minute. The colours of the glass lozenges in the shade shine in a kind of dull way, instead of producing the vibrant colours that you associate with this style of shade, and which you get when the fitting has a normal incandescent bulb fitted.

My wife has one in the lamp on her side of the bed. When it's on, the room has a strange 'green' feel to it - even though it's predominantly pink and magnolia.

About the best one I have, is in the table light which is about 2 feet away from me right now, and even the light from that has a slightly 'sick' quality about it. All of these lamps are from different manufacturers. I have tried to like them based on the fact that incandescent manufacture is slowly ceasing. I really have. But try as I might, I can't. I don't like the way they perform. I don't like the colour rendering index, and I particularly don't like the utter bollox that the green mist brigade spout about how environmentally friendly they are. They are nothing of the sort. The only positive factor is the energy consumption, which is the only thing about them that is rammed down everyone's throats, and the only factor that Joe Public understands. The many negative factors involved in the manufacture, transport, use and ultimate disposal of them, is conveniently ignored or glossed over. They are not by any stretch of the imagination a 'replacement' technology for incandescent lamps. They are a substitute, and not a very good one at that.

Arfa

long

every

My cheap Chinese CFLs from Home Despot start instantly -- faster than an incandescent. (That's not a joke. They don't "ramp up" the way an incandescent does. Blam, they're on)

Mine are fairly bright to start, but take about 30 seconds to reach full brightness. The color is okay from the start.

light,

Not mine. They aren't up to photographic CFLs, but they're close.

Those are Really Bad CFLs.

It's no wonder you don't like CFLs. You just haven't seen any decent ones.

Its caused by that 50 Hz European electricity. ;-)

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You're right William, because for *me*, I'm dubious that a *decent* one that's readily available, actually exists, If I haven't managed to find one in the several years that I've been trying, then it's a bit of a lost cause. It's a f'kin light bulb for Christ's sake ! I want to be able to just go to my supermarket and buy whatever is there, stick 'em in the fitting, and have light that doesn't give me suicidal tendencies ... (that my eyes can actually read under !)

I guess if you don't like 'em, you just don't. A bit like the way that you just don't like some particular brands of audio gear, no matter what others think of them ... :-)

And how on earth do you see the light output from an incandescent 'ramp up' ? That really *must* be as a result of that low voltage American electricity ... I can honestly say that I have never in all my years seen a traditional incandescent bulb start slowly enough to be able to see it do so. Possible exception to this is some halogen bulbs in decorative fittings, but as there are not CFLs to directly replace those, it's hard to use them as a comparison. Also, a lot of the low voltage halogens are driven these days by 'electronic transformers' which may well 'soft start', giving the ramping up effect.

Even if you have found CFLs over there that satisfy you as to their suitability for the job, that still doesn't address the many negative aspects of them over incandescents, which are conveniently ignored to serve the green lobby's arguments on end-point energy useage.

Arfa

one

cause.

to

have

I disagree strongly. You have GOOD REASONS not to like the ones you've seen.

up'

electricity.

I have no trouble seeing it. An incandescent bulb takes a fraction of a second to reach full brightness, and this is plainly visible. 220V bubls should be no different.

traditional

That's because you assume they come on "instantly". They don't.

Such as the fact they use more materials in their manufacture? This has to be weighed against how long they last and how much energy they (don't) use over their lifespan.

Although it's a slightly different situation, I've seen the same phenomenon quite easily... in vehicles (cars or trucks) in which some of the rear-facing brake indicator lights are incandescent bulbs and others are LEDs.

In this case, when the driver hits the break, the LED indicator comes on instantaneously, while there's an appreciable time lag and a perceptible rise-time in the light from the incandescent bulbs.

The latter isn't all that easy to notice if you're looking only at an incandescent bulb... but if you see an incandescent and an LED side-by- side, driven by the same voltage, it's very obvious.

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">> Even if you have found CFLs over there that satisfy you as to their

They have many more manufacturing processes. They use many more processed materials in their construction. It requires many more factories to make the materials for the capacitors, resistors, inductors, semiconductors PCBs, phosphors, and then many factories to make those materials into capacitors, inductors etc. Then all of those components have to be shipped to whoever makes the electronic ballast. Then that has to be shipped to the lamp manufacturer. The glass discharge tube requires a much more complex process to manufacture it, and coat its inside with toxic chemicals, than is needed to make the simple glass globe of a conventional incandescent. Then that too has to be shipped to the lamp manufacturer. When they've finally built the thing, it has to be put in much more substantial packaging than a standard light bulb, because the discharge tube is fragile, and its contents potentially dangerous. Then the whole item, which weighs a lot more than a conventional light bulb, has to be shipped to wherever it's going to be sold. All of the many many processes involved, require workers that need to be got to and from the factories where they work. Then when they're there, they have to be kept warm or cool, lit, and fed. When the lamp has reached the end of its life, it has to be taken to a collection facility, because they are considered to be too dangerous to go into the regular household trash. Aside from that factor, countries within the EU have a mandate to recycle any electronic equipment. And so it all starts again, with shipping, dismantling, recycling and all of the processes and workers which that involves.

So no, I'm not talking *just* about the additional materials that are in them.

And as an amusing twist of irony, guess what happened to the one in the wife's bedside light tonight ? Yep. That's right. It failed. Totally. 10,000 hours ? Ha ! 6 months tops of 20 minutes per night ...

These things are useless s**te. On a stick.

Arfa