Has LED caught up to Plasma?


I know that the plasma tv's in the past were always considered to be better than the LED or LCD formats. I'm wondering if this is still the case. With improvements in technology, has the gap narrowed? I bought a 42" Panasonic Plasma over 8 years ago (and yes, it's still working...wished it would have died by now! lol) and am looking to upgrade to a new 55" tv. In all honestly, when I chose plasma back then, I thought the picture quality of both the plasmas and the LED/LCD models were both very good. Even though my plasmas has lasted all these past 8 years, my big concern is that they do heat up quite a bit....where LED's run much cooler. I'm thinking this might translate into a longer life with and LED tv instead of a plasma. What would you buy today if you were buying??? Plasma or LED?
calgarian5355
Sadly every time you're at BB or a similar store;you don't get to see tv as you see it at home.--They stay away from movies with dark scenes that expose the weakness of milky blacks/and no detail within the blacks you do see.
I guess your average viewer doesn't mind that the colors they see on these demo tvs clips don't look anything like the actual colors. My example: NEVER saw grass the color of grass on most every display at the big box stores. Even the color of the uniforms in these showrooms clips isn't the actual color /if you were at the game.
I guess "DA-glow" color renditions sell more tvs and that's how it has been for years.----And if you like colors more real-life,like and proper grey scale plasma still has the "edge"--pun intended.
To clarify, the rumor I heard was that Panasonic and Sony would quit making TV's of all types. I don't think Sony has made a plasma for quite sometime. I hope it is only a rumor as my next TV was going to be a Panasonic.
avguygeorge makes a good point--the demo material at the store are juiced-up bluray played in a brightly lit room, which may not be representative of how the tv will perform at home on broadcast (often non-hd) material. the stuff i watch (pawn stars, military channel) looks much better on my ancient 480p panasonic plasma than on my fancy modern 1080 samsung lcd, perhaps because video tends to look better closer to its native resolution.
Theo,
IMO Panasonic and Sony are the best TV's available. Only ones I buy. What are they going to make, I wonder, if not TV's?