Beginners Flat Screen TV, What To Look For, LCD or Plasma?

It seems that everyone either has or wants to get the latest Flat Screen TV for their home. Of the many and varied types of Flat Screen TV available (and there are) which one do you purchase? Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Plasma, TFT what do you go with and purchase?

From its infancy and the first shadowy images broadcast in 1925, viewing television has evolved and certainly changed over the years to the amazing LCD TV sets that we now view today. Ask most people to list their most essential item or possession and a large number will list their TV as very high up on the list.

So having established where and when television arrived in our daily lives, just what exactly is TV and how does it achieve the things that it does do if that is not too technical a description (joke)? Since its inception as an electromechanical system of receiving and broadcasting information the term television has become broadly synonymous with both the unit required to receive and play the information and also the technique and medium for broadcasting the data in the first place.

Understandably if you were to ask the average man in the street his biggest issue with television today most would reply that the one problem they have is an increasing dependency on technological terms and an increasing ignorance of what these terms actually mean.

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 what exactly is Digital TV?

Here quite often we see the terms TFT, LCD and Plasma being bandied around as if they are the same yet though they may be similar technologies LCD and Plasma Screens are very different in practicality.

In a nutshell Flat Screen TV's can either be Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) sets or can be Plasma screen but the two are different.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 a telecommunications system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound by means of digital signals in contrast to the more established analogue systems which is effectively the transmission of signals used by analogue (traditional) TV.

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 7-32?

When considering a new Flat Screen TV it would help if you were familiar with the following items of information.

The first item we need to consider is the Screen Resolution of the TV In this case it refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed.

Next up is whether the TV is Hi-Definition Ready and what does this mean? By Hi Definition Ready we mean that is the TV is ready and suitable to take advantage of the latest Hi Definition TV pictures that more and more programmes are being broadcast in.

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. SCART stands for 'Syndicat francais des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radio et Television (SCART).

Lastly on the technical side we would need to look at what types and what numbers of High-Definition Multimedia Interfaces (HDMI) are being used. The High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a licensable audio/video connector interface for transmitting uncompressed digital streams between digital audio/video sources such as set-top box, HD DVD Player etc.

The Beovision 7-32 is a 32in LCD TV and the prices for these are around 6000 pounds sterling or 12000 US dollars. The screen resolution is 1366 X 768 and with regards to being HD Ready the answer is no. The Beovision has 3 (3 RGB) scarts and the type and number of Multimedia interfaces the Beovision 7-32 uses is DVI and 1. The type of Tuner for this TV is Analogue and the Beovision is available from specialised outlets only.

All these points being taken into consideration, how would we view the B&O Beovision 7-32?

Well to start with our score for the picture quality is 8, next we would look at the sound quality and our view of this would be 10. Taking a look at the number of relevant connections and their availability, our score would be 8. As far as overall features are concerned we would give it 6 and for ease of use and overall value for money we would give it, 8 and 6 respectively.

Finally our overall opinion would be this has all the hallmarks of being possibly the best of B&O's current offerings but this has to be balanced with the fact that the price tag which we feel is way over the mark for the performance of the TV makes this sadly one where we feel that is not ideal value for money.

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.

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