How to buy an HDTV

HDTVs are expensive, but they look great. How do you choose between all those models that you see on the showroom floor? What are they key factors to consider when shopping?

Size

• Sizes are available from 42-inch sets or smaller all the way up to 60 to 70 inches (set size is measured diagonally based on its screen) to fill a home theater.

Room Environment

• Evaluate your room's illumination level: Is it bright or dim? If it’s up in the living room where there is a lot of sunlight, you’ll need to buy a particular kind of HDTV that will work better in a bright condition like that.

Picture Resolution

• If you don’t want it to be obsolete in two or three years, make sure you get an HDTV with 1080p (the sharpest picture resolution currently available). In the future more and more discs will come out in HD DVD and Blu-ray formats. Those disks for playing movies, videos and sports programs are all in 1080p.

HDTV Technology Types:

LCD

They have the advantage of being extremely bright TVs, so you can put them in a room where there is a lot of daylight, and still be able to see the picture --- it won’t be washed out. These are the flat panels for liquid crystal displays. It’s the same kind of monitor you see on a laptop computer or on a desktop computer. These are coming down in price every day; so the more you wait, the cheaper they’ll be. They aren’t quite as crisp as some other kinds of HDTVs and their colors aren’t quite as faithful. Also, if you watch a lot of movies, you’ll often lose a lot of detail in the darker scenes in movies. That’s something called contrast ratio.

Plasma

They look very much like LCD TVs: They’re thin, but they use a different technology with little gas capsules inside. They produce beautiful color images, and they’re excellent for watching movies, but not very good for a brightly lit room. They tend to be rather dim, so if you’re going to put it in the living room, maybe plasma isn’t the choice for you.

DLP

These are rear-projection sets. Unlike the old big boxes of old, newer models are much thinner in design and are based on digital light processors. They have the most cinematic experience. If you want the movie to look like what it looked like in the theater, a DLP set will do it for you. They’re often a lot less expensive than plasma and LCD sets as well, and are available in much larger screen sizes. For example, you can get a 50- or 60-inch set in a DLP for what it would cost you to get a 40-inch LCD set.

Hi, I’m John Quain for howdini. Today we’re going to talk about how to buy an HDTV. The most questions that we hear are about HDTVs. They’re expensive, but they look great. How do you choose between all those models that you see on the showroom floor?

The first thing you need to decide is how big a television that you can afford or will fit in your room. Sizes are available from those 42-inch sets or smaller all the way up to 60 to 70 inches diagonal to fill, basically, a home theater. So you’ve got to look at your room and what will actually fit in your room first.

Also look at your room: Is it a bright room, is it a dim room, is it in the basement rec room where there is usually not much light? If it’s up in the living room where there is a lot of sunlight, you’ll need a particular kind of television that will work better in a bright condition like that.

When you go into the store you’re going to see basically three different types of HDTVs. The first is called LCD. Those are the flat panels for liquid crystal displays. It’s the same kind of monitor you see on a laptop computer or on a desktop computer. Those are getting down in price every day; so the more you wait, the cheaper they’ll be. They have an advantage of being extremely bright TVs, so you put those in a room where there is a lot of daylight, for example, and still be able to see the picture and it won’t be washed out. However, they aren’t quite as crisp as some other kinds of TVs and their colors aren’t quite as faithful. Also, if you watch a lot of movies, in darker scenes in movies, you’ll often lose a lot of detail in those images. That’s something called contrast ratio.

Another popular type of HDTV are the plasma TVs. They look very much like LCD TVs: They’re thin, but they use a different technology with little gas capsules inside. They produce beautiful color images; they’re excellent for watching movies. However, they are not very good in a brightly lit room. They tend to be rather dim, so if you’re going to put it in the living room, maybe plasma isn’t the choice for you.

Lastly, you’ll see some other larger TVs still, called DLPs. They’re rear-projection sets. Unlike the old big boxes of old, these are a lot thinner in design and they’re based on digital light processors. They have the most cinematic experience. If you want the movie to look like what it looked like in the theater, a DLP set will do it for you. They’re often a lot less expensive than plasma and LCD sets as well, and are available in much larger screen sizes. For example, you can get a 50- or 60-inch set in a DLP for what it would cost you to get a 40-inch LCD set.

Those are your three main types of technologies that you’ll see in the store, and you’ll have to choose between. If there’s one specification when you’re going to the store, if you want the latest in HDTVs and you don’t want it to be obsolete in two or three years, that specification is 1080p. That represents the picture resolution or sharpness of the image you see on your HDTV. And it’s the highest available. The reason that you want that is, in the future more and more discs will come out in HD DVD and Blu-ray formats. Those disks for playing movies, videos and sports programs are all in 1080p; that’s the highest resolution. So if you want the sharpest picture, just remember 1080p.
That’s how to buy an HDTV.