Top 10 Hdtv
Plasma vs LCD
Which is the right TV for you?Plasma or LCD - which is the right high definition TV for you?
Let us first make on thing clear, up front. There is no such thing as the best' technology. Each of the different options has its place, depending upon your needs.
For example, consider LCD TVs and plasma TVs. Until recently there was a clear division between the two on one important criterion: size. If you wanted something under 40 inches, then you chose LCD. Over 40 inches and plasma was your answer.
But LCD TVs have been growing, and improving, and now there's an overlap in the 40 to 50 inch category.
Some would say that you should go for plasma because LCD TVs do not deliver blacks as dark as plasma TVs. That's largely true. But if you're sitting up close, LCD TVs deliver a smoother picture than plasma, and that could well be more important for you in your room, especially if you rarely switch off the room lights while you're watching.
HDTV Basics
Things to consider when choosing a high definition TV.Before we charge into the plasma vs LCD battle, let's take a step back to consider what it is that sets high definition apart from standard definition, and some of the jargon you will definitely encounter and have to sift through.
When you take the plunge and start visiting stores to select your new high definition TV, you will be dazzled. Not just by the picture quality of the various options, but by the terms used on the brochures and thrown about by the salespeople.
So let us equip you with an understanding of what all these mean, if, indeed, they mean anything at all! And which are the most important things to consider.
HD Ready, HD Compatible or HD?So what is the difference between a TV labelled High Definition', and one labelled High Definition Ready' or High Definition Compatible'? The two additional words, Ready' and Compatible' tell the story. They mean that something more is needed for true high definition performance.
For a TV to be labelled High Definition' it has to have two features: a high resolution display (1024 x 768 pixels or greater, typically), and a built-in high definition digital TV tuner. Even if it has a standard definition digital tuner, it still doesn't qualify. High definition Compatible' or Ready' mean that the display supports high resolution, and is suitable for use with a standalone high definition digital TV tuner.
ResolutionThe single most important term you will come across when choosing a new TV is resolution'. That is a measure of how much detail a display can deliver. High definition is all about resolution, which is measured in pixels'. Pixel' is derived from the term picture element', and refers to the smallest dot of information a display is capable of delivering.
Glass tube TVs scan a continuous line on their screens, kind of 'painting' the picture into the tube. But modern digital displays are quite different. Their pictures (whether LCD or plasma) are made by little red, green and blue dots, which together form a 'pixel' (short for 'picture element').
By having lots of pixels, a display such as a projector, plasma or LCD panel can show finer and more precise detail in the image, and that is the point of high definition.
When we talk about resolution, we just count the number of pixels in the full vertical height of the picture (commonly 480, 720, 768 or 1080), and sometimes the number in the width. Resolution is single most important term you will come across when choosing a new high definition TV, so what are the numbers that count?
Real HDTV (and Blu-ray) signals have vertical resolution of either 720 or 1080 pixels. That is much higher than the 576 of SDTV.
But the displays themselves come in a much greater range of resolutions. The important figure to pay attention to is the vertical resolution. The bigger this number, the better.
The best TVs have a vertical resolution of 1080 pixels, but you can get very good results with lower resolutions. For example, most projectors have 720 pixels (often called '720p' projectors), and most plasma and LCD TVs have 768 (if you see a TV labelled 'WXGA', that means it has 768 pixels vertically).
A display with less than 720 pixels is pretty useless for HDTV. In fact, in most cases the next resolution down is a mere 480 (sometimes called 'SD'). These TVs actually reduce the detail in even SDTV and DVDs.
Contrast ratioThe contrast ratio is probably the second most important specification for a TV. What it tells you is how black the TV will go. Plasma and LCD TVs don't have any trouble producing plenty of brightness, but they find if difficult to produce really dark black areas on the screen, at least compared with old-fashioned glass tube TVs.
But blacks are as important as bright colours and whites, because a lot of the shows you watch have night scenes. If all the blacks and dark greys and browns merge together into one indistinguishable mass, you may have trouble telling what's going on.
Until recently, LCD TVs had a contrast ratio of around 1000:1, but new generation LCD TVs are up to as high as 10, 000:1, as are plasma TVs. The higher the number the more realistic the blacks will look.
Interlaced and Progressive Scan VideoThere are two forms of delivering a signal to your TV: interlaced and progressive scan. The picture on your TV is made up of a series of frames, with 25 of them shown each second. But each frame is made up of two fields. With most DVDs and most movies broadcast on TV, the two fields fit together seamlessly to produce a beautiful picture. But if the show was filmed' on a video camera, like most sports and studio presentations, the fields will have been captured at slightly different times. When these are shown on a large display, often the difference can be seen as combing', where a person moving across the image will have fine leading and trailing lines extending a little to either side. Such images are interlaced'.
Australia's standard definition TV is also called 576i, where i' is for interlaced'. High definition can be 1080i, 576p or 720p. The p' stands for progressive. That means that the two fields have already been joined together so there can never be any combing. Most displays have deinterlacing circuitry', which corrects the combing in 576i pictures, and an increasing number also have it for 1080i.
Progressive video creates a picture by scanning the entire picture frame at once, two fields to create one complete frame of video.
Aspect RatioThe aspect ratio is the ratio of the screen width to the screen height. For four decades it was 4:3, or 1.33:1. These days, if you're at all serious about home theatre, it is 16:9 or 1.78:1. This is also called widescreen. It is an excellent compromise for modern movies, most of which have an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 or 2.35:1. Note that with the latter, you will get black bars on the top and bottom of the picture even with a widescreen TV. There isn't much that you can do about that, nor should you.
Virtually all decent modern TVs have a 16:9 aspect ratio.
BrightnessSome manufacturers specify brightness' for their plasma or LCD TVs. Feel free to pretty much ignore this. Virtually all plasma and LCD TVs are plenty bright enough to produce an excellent picture in normal room lighting, and even during daylight so long as the sun isn't shining directly onto the screen.
Response TimeYou will want your action movies to be sharp and precise, even when the characters are running around fighting each other. This has been a weakness with LCD TVs, with fast-moving action smearing so that you can't see things clearly. The reason is due to a slow response time'. That is the time that it takes for each element of the picture to switch on, and then off again.
LCDs are relatively slow. It can take over a hundredth of a second to switch on an LCD's pixels, and the same time to switch off again. That may seem pretty quick, but your TV is called upon to display a lot of different pictures in a very short time.
Fortunately LCD TV makers have been working on this problem and each new generation is an improvement over the previous one. On models claiming a response time of eight milliseconds or better this problem is all but eliminated.
Video processingWhile old-fashioned TVs used to just take the incoming picture signal and use it to control electrons, which it then sprayed on the end of the picture tube, your new digital TV or display has to do a lot of work with the video before it's ready to appear on the screen.
For example, DVD resolution is 720 x 576 pixels, but most good 42 inch plasma TVs are 1024 x 768. Rather than just display a small picture in the middle of a black screen, the TV converts the picture to the new size. This is called scaling'. The TV analyses the incoming picture and calculates new pixels to fill its display area.
The same process occurs when the incoming picture is bigger than what is referred to as the TV's native resolution', such as a 1920 x 1080 pixel high definition TV broadcast being displayed on that same plasma TV.
Many TVs have other video processing circuits implemented to enhance the picture quality. A few of these are vital, but some can be useful.
A digital comb filter is becoming increasingly unnecessary, because it is used to achieve better results with a low-quality video signal. Only worry about this if you watch a lot of VHS tapes or analog TV. Digital noise reduction can be useful with some older movies and TV shows, because it can remove some of the noise. Other processing circuits improve the pictures contrast and colours.
Video processors vary in quality. Read the brochures to see what is on offer. These come with various names from different brands, such as DRC, DniE or PixelPlus, but they all mostly do much the same thing. Try switching them on and off in the shop to see whether they really do make things better.
Millions of coloursWith home entertainment equipment there is usually a running specifications war. One of the most recent has been between different brands over whose TV can display the most colours. Some claim figures only in the tens of millions, some claim as much as a billion colours.
Should this influence your decision? Forget about it. Any figure above 16.7 million is quite superfluous since sources such as digital set-top boxes and DVD players don't offer even this many! Sure, some extra colours are required for generating those intermediate pixels during scaling (see opposite), but 16.7 million is more than enough for that.
Grey ScaleAccurate colour and overall picture performance depends hugely on how well your TV displays grey. Of course, black-and-white movies aren't going to be very pleasant if grey is poorly handled by your TV, but it also affects colour performance as well.
This can be checked with a grey scale'. That's simply a series of grey bars, with full black on one side, full white on the other, and progressively lighter grey sections between them. A decent TV will make sure all of them are grey, not green or purple. And the white section will be clearly distinguishable from the almost white section -- likewise at the dark end, and between the ends the ramping up of brightness will be even.
Try using the THX Optimizer' section of a Star Wars DVD. There is a grey scale on this disc. You may need to adjust the brightness and contrast controls of the TV to produce that clear difference at the extremes of the scale. Jamming up the whites together may give a more dramatic subjective appearance, but there are details in the picture that you will no longer be able to see, and the human face will start to have a paint by numbers' appearance.
Ideal viewing distancesThere have long been rules for how far you should sit from your TV for the best picture. Forget them. They were from the days of glass tube TVs, which were fuzzy and simply incapable of producing all the detail in the TV broadcast signal.
What you need to do is work out where you're going to put the TV in your home, and from where you're going to watch it. Measure the distance between the two and take a tape measure to the shop with you. Set yourself the same distance away from a TV and have a look. If the picture is smooth, then it's okay for your home. If it isn't (you can see, for example, the individual pixels), then it's too large. You can tend to sit closer to an LCD TV of any given size than the same-sized plasma because LCD TVs don't have as much black space around the individual pixels, making them merge into each other at closer distances.
Viewing anglesBack when colour LCD screens first appeared on notebook computers, they had a dreadful viewing angle. If your nose wasn't positioned right in line with the centre of the display the colours would go off and the whole thing would become indistinct. Happily, things have improved a great deal since then and LCD TVs typically have their viewing angle' specified at 176 degrees or more in both horizontal and vertical directions.
Despite what the brochures say, though, picture quality does drop off at those extreme angles, usually with colour saturation falling away and the contrast looking odd. And while this doesn't have much of an impact on anyone sitting somewhere near the centre of the screen - whether plasma or LCD - it's not so great for anyone seated far away from this sweet spot'.
LCD panels with wide viewing angles allow the picture to be seen more clearly from other than right in front of the screen.
ConnectionsIf available, use a digital video connection between whatever device you are using (eg. HD set-top box, DVD, Blu-ray or HD DVD player) and your display, be it a plasma or LCD. That connection will be either HDMI or DVI. The next choice, which is nearly as good, is component video. If even that isn't available, then make do with S-Video. Finally, there is composite video, but this really should be your last choice.
Although these last three type of connections aren't digital, it is important that any TV or projector provide them. That's because some of the sources you will want to connect to your TV are analog (eg. the VCR) and even if they are digital (DVD players and Foxtel decoders, for instance) may not actually provide digital sockets.
For hooking up a HD set-top box, Blu-ray p-layer or Pay TV decoder, look for high quality video connections at the rear of any plasma or LCD panel.
ConvenienceDon't forget that your TV should make your life easy, not hard. Do you have a videocamera that you like to plug in from time to time? Then your TV ought to have AV sockets on the front or side that you can get to easily.
Even though most movies on DVD are widescreen, many of the special extras are in the old-fashioned 4:3 aspect ratio, so it is a good idea if your TV has a key on the remote control to allow you to switch easily between widescreen and standard' aspect ratios.
Most modern TVs come with lots of AV sockets. Lots! If the only way to switch between them is to press a single Input' key several times to cycle through them all, you will be in for a frustrating time. The best sets have a button on the remote for each input (eg. a DVD or HDD recorder, HD set-top box or games console), but nearly is good is if a single key pops up a menu, and you can arrow down to the input you want.
Why the large price differences model to model, brand to brand?
To say that this section, or category', of consumer electronicsis a viper's nest of contention, opinion and grandiose posturing would be somewhat of an understatement.Competing manufacturers and, with the advent of retailer brands' where a store commissions a manufacturer to produce its own unique brand' for that retailer alone, stores themselves, all have their own stories to tell, to convince you what you should be looking at when you buy a flat panel. And yet the acid test is simply to trust your own eyes and look for yourself. When you do, you'll discern huge differences across brands, technologies and models, but one central element that is easy to pick, is image quality.
A common cost-control method with flat panel TVs is to outsource the production of the panel itself to a third-party operation and this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
But the central element of flat panel TVs, whether they're LCD or plasma, is the video processing; the engine' processing the video source going in and driving all those pixels to put the image up on the screen. Let's taking a 50 inch plasma as an example: with a 1080p panel driving two million pixels, 50 times a second in three possible states (red, green and blue) for each of those pixels, that's 300 million things a second to get wrong if the video circuitry isn't up to snuff. And, with cheaper flat panel TVs, it isn't. This will show up as any number of colour
problems, hazy or broken' images and artefacts (or, in technical speak, stuff that shouldn't be there') and if you test the TVs using your favourite discs, this will show up pretty quickly.
The expensive parts of the flat panel equation all reside in engineering prowess, cost of components and level of quality control. Reliable, accurate video processing comes at a price, and economising on these factors can turn
your tears of joy at finally convincing your partner to allow a monstrous TV into your lounge room into tears of disappointment as your TV turns into, simply, a monster.
The best way, as we said, is to give your new prospective flat panel TV a good test run - good retailers will be happy for you to do this - and judge for yourself. If the screen size is over 40 inches and the price is under $2, 000, look before you leap.
When buying a plasma or LCD TV, it's never OK to go cheap.
Plasma TVs
Plasma TVs were the first true flat panel displays in Australia. In the 9 or so years since they first appeared, their prices have reduced by a factor of 10, with excellent high resolution 50 inch (127 cm) screens priced at under $5, 000.Plasma TVs work by having hundreds of thousands of tiny glass cells filled with gas. When an electric charge is applied, the gas releases ultraviolet light that stimulates the phosphors painted on the outside of cells. These glow red, green or blue, producing your picture.
Since they generate their own light, rather than using a backlight like LCD TVs, they are generally pretty good at producing black. Contrast ratios of up to 10, 000:1 are regularly claimed for some models.
Because those cells have glass walls, the individual points of light can't be hard up against each other, so if you sit too close to a plasma TV you will see the picture through what looks like a fine grid. If your room is going to force you to sit close, you will probably do better with an LCD.
Of course, plasma TVs are the panel you want for large screen sizes. Although there are a couple of 36 inch (91cm) models around, plasma really starts to dominate from 42 inches and up. The largest consumer sets are 65 inches (165 cm)... for the moment, anyway.
The most important consideration in buying plasma is resolution. The market is divided into HD and SD models (for high definition and standard definition). But SD' is a misnomer. These TVs, which have a resolution of 852 x 480 pixels, are indeed SD' in the United States, but only because its standard definition video format is a lower resolution than ours. With an SD plasma you will not enjoy all the detail available even from SD digital TV or DVD, let alone high definition. So go for a high resolution model.
Unlike LCD TVs, you have a choice with plasma as to whether you want a TV or a display. If you already have a home theatre sound system and a HD set-top box, then a display may work better for you. It won't have speakers attached, making it more compact, and ideal for wall mounting.
And don't forget to make sure that it has all the inputs you need, especially HDMI and side AV inputs.
Plasma TV purchasing checklistHave these questions handy when you're shopping around for a plasma TV.
- High resolution?
- Does it have an HDMI socket? If so, how many?
- Is a high definition digital tuner built-in?
- Does it have plenty of analog sockets?
- Does it have side AV sockets?
- Are AV sources easily selectable?
- Is there an aspect ratio key on remote control?
- Is a wall mounting bracket available?
Myth BustingPlasma displays are so light you can mount them on a wall
And indeed you can. But not because they are light. In fact, a 42 inch plasma generally weighs around 30 kilograms, and a 50 inch model is up towards 50 kilograms. They are only light compared to what a similarly sized glass tube TV would be if they made them that big. So don't expect to hang them on a picture hook. Most plasma TV manufacturers have special wall-mounting brackets for the TVs, which have to be fixed securely to the studs in the wall. Make sure you use these.
Plasmas suffer from burn-in'.
Actually, that can be true. Burn-in' is where the ghost of an image is retained after the image has gone. It can be particularly visible in dark parts of the picture. Some recent plasmas are relatively resistant to burn in, but the important thing is to avoid leaving menus showing on the screen for a long time. If you're watching a 4:3 movie, see if your TV can set the side black bars to mid-grey instead. That will reduce the chances of lines developing on the edges of the display area.
LCD TVs
LCD TVs are becoming increasingly popular, for a set of very good reasons. First, while initially very expensive, the prices are now falling fast enough to make them affordable for a broader range of people. Second, their common sizes suit many homes. Third, they are light, thin and often very attractively styled.If you want a really big screen, above 42 inches (107cm), then you will have to choose between plasma and LCD. But below that, LCD rules. The common sizes for quality LCD TVs are 26 inches (66 cm), 32 inches (81 cm) and 37 inches (94 cm), and lately 40 (102 cm), 42 inch and even up to 50 inch (127 cm) sizes. The future will likely see even larger sizes.
LCD TVs work by having a panel of liquid crystals, which can be switched to either transparent or opaque as directed by an electrical signal, in front of a backlight. Each panel has over three million individual liquid crystal segments, and each one is covered by a red, green or blue filter. Three of these segments make a pixel.
The resolution of almost all LCD TVs is actually higher than most plasma TVs and projectors, offering 1366 pixels across by 768 down. True high definition LCD TVs, with 1920 x 1080 pixels, are becoming increasingly common at a relatively small price premium over the older resolutions. We think that this resolution will come to dominate the LCD TV arena over the next couple of years.
One huge advantage of LCD TVs is that each liquid crystal segment has only a very thin border around it, so you can sit quite close to them without the individual pixels becoming obvious.
But there are two potential problems. The first is that liquid crystals don't actually go completely opaque when switched off, so some of the backlight still tends to seep through. That means that in a darkish room, the black' areas of the picture can still glow a little and eliminate some of the detail in dark scenes. The other is that LCDs can be a little on the slow side, both in switching on and off. That can produce smearing of the picture in fast action scenes.
Fortunately, both these problems are significantly reduced with the better current models. Still, watch out for them with budget LCD TVs.
There will be a TV tuner built into your LCD TV. But what sort? Many budget models still, unfortunately, come with analog TV tuners. That means that you'll have to spend extra for a HD set-top box tuner.
If your TV doesn't have a digital TV tuner, you can add one and get near perfect picture quality. The trick here is to ensure that your TV has a HDMI input, and buy a HD set-top box with a HDMI output. Together, digital video gets through with no analog loss of quality. You should also make sure there are a sufficient number of analog inputs (S-Video and the like, see LINK TO CABLE AND CONNECTIONS for more information) for any other equipment you want to plug in. And if you're wall-mounting the TV, make sure there is a set of AV sockets on the side for plugging in a games console or videocamera.
Most LCD TVs are specified as having a life for the backlights of 60, 000 hours. This can sound worrying... until you do the maths. Even using it eight hours a day it will be good for 20 years.
LCD TV purchasing checklistHave these questions handy when you're shopping around for an LCD TV.
- Does it have an HDMI input? If so, how many?
- Is a high definition digital tuner built-in?
- Does it have plenty of analog sockets?
- Does it have side AV sockets?
- Does it have digital audio output?
- Are AV sources easily selectable?
- Is an aspect ratio key on the remote control?
- Is a wall mounting bracket available?
LCD myth busting
LCD TVs are immune from burn-in.
Well, this is sort of true. It takes a concerted effort in the abuse required to create burn-in (a kind of lingering ghost' image that stays long after the original has gone), but we're assured by the technical experts that it can, at least theoretically, happen. We have to be assured, because we still haven't seen it ourselves. Achieving burn-in on LCD isn't easy. The solution, though, is just not to leave DVD and games menus displayed all night long. Easy.
Testing plasmas and LCDs before you buy
When it comes to HD TVs, just how do you pick the good from the not so good? Here are our top audition tips.We've given you lots of guidance so far in what to look for in your high definition display purchase, but it in the end it will be you and your family, standing in a store with TVs all around you, that have to make the decision. So how can you make that decision?
Simple. Use the TVs that look like they might suit you, just the same way that you would at home. That's the key. Watch some DVDs, and sit the same distance away from the TVs as you would at home. Most displays look pretty poor when you're up too close, even with high definition material. But move back a little, or choose a slightly smaller screen size, and everything will snap into focus.
Is your normal viewing room in a darkish room? Then have the TV placed somewhere the lights can be dimmed, or it may look completely different when you get it home.
Finally, take a selection of DVDs that you are familiar with to show on the display. They are the best test of how much you are going to like your new purchase.
A DVD with very natural outdoor photography: our eyes are best at assessing whether the colour and contrast have a natural appearance by looking at something natural. Play the DVD. Is the green grass like a well-manicured lawn in your own suburb, or is it a garish lime green? Is the sky the right colour? The ocean? How about people? Are their faces naturally coloured, with smooth graduations in brightness and colour across their cheeks, or do they look like they have been painted by numbers'?
Beware, though, as most LCD and plasma TVs set up in the store will have their pictures set to the dynamic' or vivid' mode, so they can compete with all the other dynamic and vivid TVs. Switch it to natural' or standard'. Initially it'll look bland, but give your eyes a few minutes to adjust, and then take in those natural scenes.
A DVD with lots of darkness: many movies and TV shows have much of the action taking place in low-light conditions, such as at night. You are going to have difficulty enjoying the show if you can't see what's happening, which can be the case with TVs with poor black levels. These tend to crunch the black and near-black picture elements into one uniformly dark splodge, so you may not actually see that hand sliding the knife towards the victim.
So take a movie that contains scenes like that. If nothing comes to mind, take one of the Star Wars' DVDs. Go to the Languages' menu and choose THX Optimizer', then Video Tests'. One of the test screens has a large THX' in its centre and various levels of black. Make sure you can see these distinctly. If you can't, try turning up the brightness' control on the TV a little to see if it will separate them out from each other.
This test is best performed in as dark a room as possible.
A DVD with fast moving action: take a recent movie with fast moving action with you as well. Something with a great fight scene or speeding cars. Make sure the action occurs under bright lighting so that the contrast is strong. Now play back this scene on the various TVs under consideration. Does everything remain clear on all of them, or are some clearer than others? Those that are less clear may be smearing the image due to LCD lag, or just plain poor video processing.
High definition with fine detail: DVDs are standard definition sources. To check out the ability of the TV to reproduce fine detail, have the store plug in a high definition TV receiver, preferably using a HDMI connection, and switch it to the high definition demonstration loops on Channel 9 or 10. Look at the fine hairs on the animals. Are they distinct and smoothly curved or are they jagged? Obviously you want the former. Better yet, get the store to plug in a Blu-ray or HD DVD player if they have one, and examine sections of a recent well-photographed movie, such as Hitch'. This should be both sharp on the edges of all the objects in the video, but have very smooth shadings on the characters' faces.
A DVD of a TV show: you will probably want to watch sports (cricket, football and so forth) from time to time. These originate from video cameras and are interlaced. That means that they can produce horrid little jagged lines on the leading and trailing edges of horizontally moving objects, especially sports people.
As an alternative to a DVD of a TV show, have the shop plug a standard definition digital TV tuner into the TV using an S-Video cable, then find some sports show or a news reader or even an advertisement. Do any of those lines appear? Some TVs have a cinema mode' in the menu. If those lines are there, try switching that mode off if it's already on and look again. Nothing can wreck your viewing enjoyment more than those lines!
Take your time: some of these tests may take a bit of time. Don't feel guilty about it. The staff of the store is certain to help and often you can involve them in your selection process. Many are very experienced and can help guide you.
And don't forget to check out secondary matters, particularly the remote control. The remote is how you will almost always interface with your TV. Try it from as far away from the TV as you're likely to be in your own home. Try it at extreme angles. Does it work reliably, or is it one of those painful models that require you to be right in front of the TV?
If the difference between two models you're considering is too hard to pick, you could make a choice based on other features. For example, two LCD TVs might be pretty much indistinguishable in picture quality, but that doesn't mean they'll be the same in visual quality. Have the family member with the best taste choose the TV that will fit most attractively into your family or lounge room. If all else fails, try getting the same brand as other equipment you have. Many of the TVs made by the major electronics companies come with remote controls that will also operate same-brand DVD players and VCRs. That can be a real convenience.
And the winner in the plasma vs LCD battle is
You. But that's a qualified you', so let's go over the main points to have you know, and see, that you have a winner. Plasmas are still a shade in front in terms of PURE picture quality, but LCD is fast catching up on this, and there will soon be, to most ordinary eyes, no discernable difference between the two technologies.The first thing to do, before you go into a store, is to do some measuring. Will the bigger dimensions of a new panel cause problems with your current AV furniture? If you already have a surround sound system, consider whether the pedestal mount will affect the placement of your centre channel speaker - can it fit in front, underneath or behind the panel? Centre channels are ideally placed in front and directly below the screen, any variation in this can affect the sound output.
Secondly, measure the viewing distance between your current TV and seating position. If you plan on changing this along with purchasing a new panel, be sure to take a measurement using the new position. As a rule viewing distance is not an important factor, except when viewing standard definition video, such as analog or SDTV, DVD or videotape on very large screens. In these cases, any picture problems are amplified and distract from the viewing experience.
Finally, your choice is very much dictated by the size of the screen. If you're buying 42 inches (107 cm) and above, plasma and LCD are both there for you to choose. But below that, LCD is really the only choice. The common sizes for quality LCD TVs are 26 inches (66 cm), 32 inches (81 cm) and 37 inches (94 cm), and lately 40 (102 cm), 42 inch and even up to 50 inch (127 cm) sizes. The latest and largest in LCD is 70 inches.
TV as an investment
It is best not to think of your new TV - whatever the technology - as an investment. Since prices are dropping, you will never recoup even a significant part of what you paid for it. So write of its cost in your mind, even as you're loading it into your car to take home.When it comes time to upgrade again, your TV need not be wasted. You can 'retire' it to a spare room or the garage. Even if you want to get rid of it entirely, and you can't sell it for a price worth your while, call up one of your local charities. They will happily accept a TV in good working order.
what is the top 10 HDTV LCD's?
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10 Money Saving HDTV Shopping Tips, Netflix on the PS3 - HDNation
3 Nov 2009 at 1:27pm
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