May 17, 2006
HDTV Basics
You may find that choosing the HDTV that best suits your needs isn’t the easiest feat to accomplish. When you’re trying to pick out the right HDTV, the available products break down into three major product groups, based on their display technology and cabinet type. By comparing display technology and cabinet type to your needs, you can easily rule out a whole bunch of different TVs and home in on the ones that are likely to be good matches for your preferences. HDTVs come in all sorts of different sizes and shapes. Some are flat-panels that you can hang on the wall; others are projection systems like what you find in a movie theater. And, of course, you can find HDTVs based on tubes that look just the way TVs have for decades (only with a better picture). Flat-panel HDTVs Flat-panel TVs - the super-thin models that you can literally hang on the wall - are the sexiest HDTVs around. You can find two main display technologies for flat-panel HDTVs: * Plasma: These big flat-screens use a layer of gas trapped between two glass screens to create their images. Here are some factors to consider when thinking about buying a plasma HDTV: • Pros: Thin, sexy, good picture, good color • Cons: Not all are HDTV, less-than-perfect black (how well the TV reproduces dark tones on-screen), screen burn-in (when an image on the screen for a long period of time remains visible, even after you should no longer see it), costly * LCD: These flat-panel TVs use liquid crystal displays, just like those used in laptop computers. An LCD HDTV has its positives and negatives: • Pros: Same as plasma, plus no burn-in • Cons: Black is very poor, costly, restricted angle of view Projection HDTVs These TVs project their picture from a smaller image source (either three small picture tubes or a digital system known as a microprojector) onto a screen. The screen can be either part of the HDTV itself (rear projection) or a separate screen hung on your wall (front projection): * Front-projection HDTVs: These devices are the HDTV equivalents to movie theater projectors, with a big screen on the wall and a separate projector mounted somewhere across the room. Here are some reasons for and against a front-projection HDTV: • Pros: Biggest screen, potentially best picture • Cons: Expensive, complicated, requires setup/focus/maintenance * Rear-projection HDTVs: The picture is projected on the back of a screen that’s built into the HDTV itself. Weigh these pros and cons if you want to buy a rear-projection HDTV: • Pros: Best bargain, no burn-in with microprojectors, near flat-panel thinness for microprojector • Cons: Burn-in for CRT, expense for microprojector, size for CRT CRT HDTVs The final category of HDTVs is based on the good old-fashioned picture tube - also known as the CRT, or cathode-ray tube. Here’s the CRT HDTV’s good and bad: * Pros: Cheapest, great color, great blacks * Cons: Smallest screen, bulky, lower resolution than digital displays
