Television Buying Guide 8

Things to Consider

• Every floor model television is set its brightness to maximum. Try and ask the salesperson to reduce the brightness of the television you are comparing.
• Display floors are well-lit. Few living rooms are lit that much. See if you can ask them to reduce the light shedding on the picture.
  
• Blu-ray. If you have a disc that you are familiar with, see if you can use it instead of the TV signal that is normally shown. Blu-ray provides the best picture a television can display, so it makes for the best reference from which to judge. And if you are used to the look of a particular DVD, use it instead.
• Televisions come with many picture presets such as movie, sports, etc. Try all of them to see which is best.
  
• It is strongly recommended to protect your television with some sort of surge protection. Do not believe the hype that a better protector will somehow improve video quality, but do choose a model with coaxial inputs and outputs for your cable or antenna.

This concludes the series on television buying guide.

Television Buying Guide 2

Television Types
Televisions can be categorized into four different groups according to what type of signal they can accept and what picture quality they can show:

1. Analog
2. SDTV (Standard Definition Television)
   
3. EDTV (Enhanced Definition Television)
4. HDTV (High Definition Television)

Analog
This type of television can not display HDTV programmes. It can only show standard definition programmes found on regular television, cable, or satellite channels.

SDTV
This type of television (standard-definition) is basically an analog television plus a built-in ATSC tuner. Therefore, it can receive digital television broadcasts. It will display a picture from these broadcasts, but HDTV shows will not look nearly as detailed as they would on a true HDTV.

EDTV
This type of television (enhanced-definition) is usually a type of television that can display HDTV signals but doesn't have enough resolution to really do them justice. Most often it applies to plasma televisions and denotes 852×480 resolution.

HDTV
High-definition televisions, or HDTV, can display standard television, progressive-scan DVD, and HDTV signals. They are by far the most common type of digital television. Nearly every plasma, LCD, and rear-projection television is an HDTV.

Television Buying Guide 1

Soon after posting the previous notes, I received feedback from several people to write in simpler and more practical terms and also shorter; this brings me to the following series of posts which are a short and simple guide to buying a new television.

Introduction
Televisions are expensive equipments, but price-wise they can be put into a few categories. Here comes a small chart that can match your funds with the types of television you can actually afford, which might be far from what you have pictured in your dreams.


Selecting the best size
Now that you have narrowed down your budget, you need to decide the proper size for your television. Obviously, larger screens cost more, but television should have the right size for the room in which you are intending to put it. Here is a small chart that gives the proper distance from your television.

Generally, 30" and smaller displays work great in bedrooms but they are too small for the living rooms. Larger displays are suitable for the whole family to enjoy but they would be too much for small bedrooms. If the television is put in an entertainment centre, make sure it has enough room for ventilation. Nowadays, many televisions come with dedicated stands that can even accommodate other components such as cable boxes and DVD players.