LCD TV - Are they reliable ?

Undertow - I found it on internet:

"In fact, many plasma manufacturers boast a life span of 60,000 hours to half life! This is a longer life than a tube based television. The specification is somewhat suspect since the process of determining longevity of the product is based on deductive mathematical calculation of phosphor dissipation, and does not take into account the electronic components and the myriad of problems that can occur. Panasonic was the first to claim the 60,000 hour life span, up from a previous 30,000 just a year prior.

Within months after Panasonic announced this new life span, other manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon announcing that their plasma television is now rated to 60,000."

This remainds me a joke about old chinese man who got sack of gold to teach King's dog to speak in 10 years or his head will be cut off. Old man said to terrified family and friends "Who knows what going to happen in ten years, maybe I will die, maybe king will die and most likely dog will die"

Same is true here - they can promise anything but how people can verify it? Are we going to remember what was promised 20 years ago (30k hours / 4 hours a day)?

Kijanki
I agree.. all we can go on is what is so far stated by these companies... However I do have some very extensive experience with both Plasma and LCD... Used in business applications, and under streess and heavy hours, the cost to run(via power cost) and maintain so far has been a clear winner of LCD on top.. Laptops used for the last 15 years even would rarely have some kinda screen failure, too bad the other hardware on them is obsolete 2 weeks after they are manufactured!

Undertow - I'm happy so far with my 42" DLP TV (since 2001)but I consider larger size in future. My daughter's TV (plasma-Panasonic 42") has very shiny surface and worse HDTV picture than my DLP. It has something to do with noise reduction software that makes false contouring and a little "plasticky" faces. Perhaps not set optimally. In the store I liked Panasonic and Pioneer plasmas. LCD is promising but I have to look at these black levels again.