Flat Screen TV Sales

Let's face it. If you've got a flat screen TV you want a larger screen in high definition. If you still have an old picture tube TV you want to move up to a flat screen TV. The bigger screens seem to be more realistic and put the sports action right in your living room.

There are a few factors about flat screen TVs that are worth considering before you visit your local flat screen TV sales stores.

The first choice is LCD or Plasma. Let's look at the major factors that will help you choose.

Viewing Angle: This choice sometimes depends on how and where you view your flat screen TV.

Plasma TV screens have a wider viewing angle than LCD screens. Either screen can look great when you're watching from directly in front. However, if you watch from the side or lying on the floor, the LCD image grows dimmer and the picture becomes less distinct.

Take a look at your TV room to see where people are positioned in relation to a line coming directly out of the screen. If everyone watches from nearly straight on, then an LCD screen would be fine.

Image Contrast: Contrast means the range between the most intense white and the darkest black your screen can display.

Choosing between LCD and Plasma screens may depend on the normal lighting while watch TV. LCD screens are, on average, brighter overall. That is, the overall level of brightness is higher for LCD screens than for Plasma screens. Brighter screens are more easily seen in daylight conditions or in rooms that are well lit.

So, if your viewing room is normally well lit, an LCD screen would work better. If your viewing room normally has subdued lighting a Plasma screen would be more visually pleasing. In addition, Plasma screen have a glass front surface. While many are coated with an anti-glare layer, some are not and would reflect room light in a brightly lit room.

Smooth Action: Every screen displays clear and distinct images of still life. But, in fast paced sports action or dramatic action sequences, some screens do better than others.

Because of the way LCD and Plasma screens display images, there is an inherent difference in their ability to display fast action scenes without blur.

In Plasma screens, individual pixels are subdivided and coated with red, green, and blue phosphor. Address electrodes can ionize gas to emit electrons at just the right spot to illuminate the right phosphors to produce a full range of colors. This system can illuminate and extinguish the phosphors rapidly producing individually clear images without blur.

In LCD screens, individual pixels are made up of liquid crystals, hence the liquid crystal display or LCD. Each pixel is divided into three cells dyed red, green, and blue. Electrical signals straighten or coil the liquid crystal to allow light to pass or to block light. In backlit LCD the light source is contained in the LCD panel, otherwise the image is created from environmental light reflected from a rear reflecting surface. This technology is often slower than the Plasma technology and more blur can occur. But, high-end LCD TVs can include anti-blur processing technology and a higher refresh rate from 120Hz to 240Hz.

So, if you tend to view action films or fast action sports, you can get clear images on either Plasma or LCD technology, but make sure the LCD technology includes a fast refresh rate and anti-blur processing.

Perhaps the most important factor in selecting the right flat screen TV size is the room or wall where you will place the screen. This is a major limiting factor.  It's no use bying a large flat screen TV when you don't have enough space to house the TV and the viewers in comfort.

A comfortable viewing distance is thought to be about 2.5 times the width of the screen. In general, for a 30 inch diagonal HDTV screen, the comfortable viewing distance is about  5.5 feet.  For a 38 inch screen a comfortable viewing distance is almost 7 feet.  A 50 inch diagonal screen should be viewed about 9 feet away. A 60 inch screen should ve viewed from about 11 feet away.

The number of pixels across the width of the screen determines the clarity of the overall image. Most models come with 1080 pixel resolution. While some screens claim higher resultions, you should determine the actual number o pixels in the screen.

Pixels can be square or rectangular.  A 16.9 dimensioned screen with an array of 1280x720 pixels has square pixels. While a resolution of 1024x768 has rectangular pixels.  Whatever the native pixel resolution, most sets can take a lower resolution image (from an old TV show, for example) and interpolate or digitally process the intermediate pixels  in order to display the image as clearly as possible.