What To Look For In Buying a Flat Screen TV, LCD or Plasma?

It would appear that latest and most prestigious in house fashion accessory for the home is the Flat Screen TV. What sort of Flat Screen TV do you purchase? Of the many choices it really boils down to two really, Plasma or Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) for your Flat Screen TV?

Television sets have come a long way since the days of John Logie Baird, Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth in the 1920's to the Liquid Crystal Display /Flat Screen TV Sets of Today. Such is the all embracing (some say insidious) nature of TV that once with it, it is very difficult to do without it.

Highly complicated yet when reduced to its basics quite frighteningly simple in execution the process of the television broadcast is one that very few people actually understand entirely or do they? The word television is derived from a mixed usage of Greek and Latin roots meaning in literary terms 'far sight' and being derived from the Greek term 'tele' meaning 'far' and the Latin 'vision' meaning 'sight' or 'to view in the first person'.

Television has problems that are similar to most emerging and developing technologies in that one of the problems that most people have is a total misunderstanding of the majority of the jargon and terms in use.

Rather than continue with a basic history of the industry, it might be best to stop and take a look at the latest developments within the industry mainly that of digital television, what digital television actually means, its formats, bandwidth and the technical terminology and jargon used today.

So then the question is what is Digital TV?

Well the short answer is that phraseology is mixed here and quite often people get confused, LCD, TFT and Plasma are all terms that get bandied around yet they don't all mean the same thing.

The two main types of Flat Screen TV or screens available today are either Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) or Plasma.The main difference between the two (apart from base technologies) are that with LCD TV's the main technology used is TFT (Thin Film Transistor) which means that by and large you can make the screens smaller and more energy efficient.

Digital television is much more flexible and efficient than conventional analogue television and digital signals provide a much clearer picture, much better sound quality and a far greater choice and availability of programming.

So in basic terms, how does a Digital TV differ from a more conventional one? Let us look at this whilst analysing one of the newer LCD TV's available.

The LCD TV that we shall use for our illustrative purposes here is the B&O Beovision 8.

It is essential that we are familiar with the following key items of information.

The Screen resolution of the TV is possibly the most obvious place to start. Here we refer to the exact number of pixels that can be displayed in each dimension.

Next up is whether the TV is Hi-Definition Ready and what does this mean? Hi Definition TV essentially makes a TV picture in a quality format that is at least four times better than conventionally available at present.

We would need to look next at what types of connectors are used to connect the various peripherals that go to make the entire Digital Package work.

We are referring here to the exact nature and number of the Scarts Sockets and Plugs in use. Here the definition of SCART refers to 'Syndicat francais des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radio et Television (SCART).

The final item we would look at would be what is the nature and number of the High-Definition Multimedia Interfaces (HDMI) being used. Here High Definition Multimedia Interfaces (HDMI) refers to the audio/video connector interface that transmits the uncompressed digital streams of information between two or more digital components such as a HD DVD Disc player, a Blu-ray Disc player, a Personal Computer or Video Console.

The Beovision 8 is a 26in LCD TV and the prices for these are around 1800 pounds sterling or 2900 US dollars. The screen resolution is 1366 X 768 and with regards to being HD Ready the answer is yes. The Beovision has 2 (2 RGB) scarts and the type and number of Multimedia interfaces the Beovision 8 uses is HDMI and 1. The type of Tuner for this TV is Analogue and the Beovision is available from specialised outlets only.

So how would we rate the B&O Beovision 8?

The most obvious place to start with as far as TV's are concerned would be the picture quality and our score here would be 8, and closely tied in to the picture quality is the sound quality and our score for this would be 8. Another useful aspect to review is the availability and number of relevant connections and our score here would be 6. As far as overall features are concerned we would give it 6 and the final individual verdicts would relate to the ease of use and overall value for money and our scores here would be, 4 and 6 respectively.

Finally our overall opinion would be this is definitely one to consider if you don't mind paying a huge premium for the appearance and looks

It is essential to remember that the prices we use in these reviews are guides and are taken as an average across the industry and it is entirely conceivable and possible to find an occasion when you could be met with prices that are cheaper but also on occasions more expensive.

Scott James writes quite regularly on the Internet about TV and Home Entertainment issues and more on the above can be found at sony flat screen tv and also at http://bestflatscreentv.biz