LCD or Plasma?
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LG 50PS3000 Plasma TV from £730.09
The first choice you need to make is deciding on whether you want an LCD or plasma screen. These are the two competing technologies used to make flat screen televisions. Plasma TV utilises plasma gas cells hit with very precise electrical charges to form an image, whereas LCD has a sandwich of liquid crystals between glass plates. There are advantages and disadvantages to both and it helps to know what they are so you can make an informed choice.
Plasma screens have much better picture quality but used to occasionally suffer 'burn-in', whereas LCD TVs are great for displaying computer signals. However, the gap between the two has narrowed in the last few years as the tech has moved forward.
Home Cinema Experience
Plasma TVs have always been recommended by movie fans for their image quality. The screens have vastly superior contrast, and so can produce much deeper blacks, handle fast-moving pictures better than an LCD and the viewing angle is greater. Viewing angle refers to how far you can sit to the side of a screen before the image quality suffers - you'll have noticed it with LCD computer monitors and TVs.
One of the big advantages of a plasma TV has always been the price; for TVs of 50 inches and above plasmas are often cheaper than LCD. You can pick up a full HD LG 50PS3000 from around £700 while a roughly equivalent 52-inch LCD could set you back over £1,000.
But though plasma screens have a lot to recommend them there are disadvantages. The altitude limit (effect on plasma TVs by very high altitudes) isn't much of a concern here in the UK even if you lived up the top of Ben Nevis, but more of a realistic concern is burn-in, where a static image such as the borders on a widescreen video or TV station logo becomes permanently imprinted on the screen. The technology has been improved to minimise this but it is still a risk, so you have to be careful not to leave a plasma screen on pause for long periods of time.
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Samsung LE40B530 LCD TV from £479.97
Media Centre PCs
LCD TVs are basically very large computer monitors, so it's not surprising that they are ideal for displaying images from your laptop or PC. Plug your computer into an LCD screen and you have a giant monitor in your living room, fantastic for gaming as well as using it as a high-tech media player.
LCDs offer higher resolutions at smaller sizes compared to plasma screens, so you don't need to get a 50 or 600-inch set to get full 1080p resolution. The 40-inch Samsung LE40B530 offers 1080p playback and is very reasonably priced, and there are many more like it in the 40 to 49-inch range.
The new back-lit LCDs also mean that the plasma's traditional advantage in contrast and fast-moving images is now negligible. LCD sets are also lighter and more energy efficient and there's no worry about burn-in.
What size?
The size of your TV is going to be entirely dictated by the size of your room. It's not just about whether the TV will actually fit, you have to consider the viewing distance. Sitting too far from a small set isn't enjoyable and you could strain your eyes. But sitting too close to a big TV is no fun either and you'll be able to see the pixels that create the image, ruining your viewing.
The general rule is to sit no closer than twice the width of the display, and no further than five times its width. So for a 40-inch TV you want to be sitting between six and 16-feet away to get the most out of your television.
Knowing the ideal size will help narrow down the kind of TV you might want. For a really big set of 50-inches or
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Panasonic TX-P50G10E from £955.00
more then plasma is a great choice. Plasma sets like the Panasonic TX-P50G10E and Samsung PS50B451 offer fantastic image quality at a decent price. Under 50-inch LCD TVs have the advantage, with a huge amount of choice ranging from little 15-inch models for the kitchen or bedroom to 40-inch home cinema sets.
Full HD or HD Ready?
You'll see the words 'HD Ready' and 'Full HD' constantly when shopping for TVs. HD Ready means that the TV is capable of displaying at least 720p (a resolution of 1280x720 pixels), while Full HD is 1080p (1920x1080), giving a more detailed picture. Some HD Ready sets also support 1080i - the same resolution as 1080p but interlaced. What that means is 1080i can have more pronounced motion blur on fast moving video but it is heavily dependant on the video source and quality of hardware inside the TV. You may find that 1080i looks nicer, or that there's no visible difference.
Both HD Ready and Full HD offer an amazing experience, but the important thing to remember is that unless you watch a video that matches the exact resolution of your television then the image will either have to be upscaled (such as 720p upscaled to 1080p) or downscaled (1080p to fit on a 720p screen).
With HD video you may not notice this much, but do bear in mind that if you buy a 1080p screen there's very little 1080p content around right now. Blu-ray and some computer games are 1080p, and you could connect a PC at that resolution, but HD TV signals like Sky HD and Freesat HD are using a maximum of 1080i. It's not a huge issue and 1080p means you are future-proof, just be aware that a normal TV broadcast won't look stunning on a HD TV because it's being upscaled to match the resolution.
Of course, any modern LCD or Plasma screen should include a digital TV tuner as standard, giving you access to freeview TV without an external box. Freesat, the satellite equivalent of freeview, is also handled by the new Panasonic Viera range like the TX-L37G15, which have integrated Freesat tuners.
