Are extended warranties necessary on plasmas?

Mitch4t, I am not in the position to state whether plasma have high fail rate in general but just stating some known facts. My CRT TV is still going strong after almost 20 years of service.

NEC plasma is the 2nd biggest plasma house on earth and manufacture their own glass. Mine was made in Japan, the land of rising sun with tight QC, but still failed prematurely. NEC did not offer any explanation why it failed so quickly, but they are confident their products are well built and offer 3 year warranty on their newer plasma.

Rear projection is not any better. My Sony GW-IV RP went from 3 dead pixel to >10 in one year and I only watch about 3~4 hours of TV a week. Called up Sony and they replaced the light engine, but that does not guarantee pixel count will not grow again. LCD panel used in PR is also known to have other issue due to the organic substrate. Newer LCD (not sure which version) avoided it. DLP can also fail from fatigue.

Geez Semi, you just bummed me out. The money was burning a hole in my pocket to get one of those cool and sexy flat panels hanging on my wall. I currently have a four year old 61 inch 4:3 Phillips analog projection behemoth sitting in my living room now. It works just fine, except that it's so, um, er, ...20th century....and I wanted something new and sleek. I guess I'll hold off until the reliability issues clear up. Thanks Semi and the rest of you for your input, I appreciate it.

mitch

Ya, hold off a bit more. I read that Panasonic is going to flood the market and drive prices down a bit. Panasonic if I remember right.

First of all,it's everyone's preferences.
For paying extra $500 for five years extended warranty is a great deal.That is $100 a year,big deal !.but $100 devided x 365 days =.27 cents a day....that is nothing ! So,actually you can relax and watch movie for the next 6 years ( incl. 1 yr.fr.manufacturer)with out worry.Have any one heard about this image retention ?As i said it's every one's preferences.

Pescolar, $500 is something. It's $500. They make you pay all $500 of it up front....not .27 cents a day over 5 yrs.

A 25% warranty is excessive.