Introduction It’s time to buy a new HDTV and, after much deliberation, you’ve decided on a 42-inch flat panel. Little did you realize that your decision would inspire so many new questions. Needless to say, there are a few flat-panel models to choose from in the 42-inch category. As you walk that crowded retail floor, I want you to stop for a minute, take a good long look at yourself in that reflective plasma screen or glossy LCD frame, and ask yourself this: Do I really need 1080p in my new 42-inch TV? It’s an important question, one that will ultimately dictate how much you spend on the TV. Choosing 1080p over 720p can add from $500 to $1,000 to the bottom line; yet, purely from a resolution standpoint, 1080p’s benefits in a 42-inch or smaller panel are questionable. At an average seating distance, you probably won’t be able to see the extra resolution compared ...

Introduction Is 52 the new 42 in the world of flat-panel televisions? Last year, the 42-inch flat panel was the marquee TV, offering the perfect convergence of size and price that consumers craved. As flat-panel pricing continues to drop, consumers will be able to move up to a larger screen size without moving up substantially in price. I predict the 52-inch panel will soon take center stage, thanks to new arrivals like Toshiba’s 52HL167. This product’s MSRP is $3,499.99, which is right on par with new, similarly sized panels from other big-name LCD manufacturers; however, several online retailers have already broken the magical $3,000 barrier with this big-screen LCD. The latest crop of LCD panels is especially interesting because many employ new technologies, like LED backlighting or a 120-Hertz refresh rate, designed to improve performance issues that plagued older LCD TVs. However, these technologies also add to the bottom line, which may be worthwhile for the ...

Both Plasma and LCD flat panel TVs have been plummeting in price in recent months, and the two different display technologies are locked in a heated battle for your hard-earned dollars. The one obvious advantage that LCD technology has over plasma, at least in the short term, is the resolution. Enter Sony’s latest technological tour de force, the KDL-46XBR2 flat panel LCD HDTV. LCD flat panels have been available with their highly-touted 1080p resolution for some time now, and the Sony KDL-46XBR2 delivers this resolution and more for your viewing pleasure. Plasma panels are only now just arriving with 1920 x 1080 resolution, and definitely carry a major premium in price over their LCD competitors. This new Sony has many things to recommend it in terms of picture quality and performance but, like everything else in video, it also has its shortcomings. Design The panel is quite unique in its design and, as with many Sony ...

Introduction Keeping up with LCD’s evolution hasn’t been easy. It’s hard to believe that, just a few short years ago, the big-screen LCD was confined to the drawing board. It arrived on the HDTV scene with a bang and an explosive price tag, to boot. Some speculated LCD wouldn’t be able to compete with plasma, cost-wise, in the big-screen market. So far, that has proven true in the 55-inch-and-above realm. However, in the 40- to 50-inch range, LCD is coming on strong, and prices are dropping … fast. One of the companies that has helped usher in the era of affordable big-screen LCD is Vizio, also known as V, Inc. Just as it did with plasma several years ago, Vizio has introduced a line of LCDs with solid performance and a nice complement of features, for a price that makes them impossible for flat-panel-hungry consumers to ignore. At the top of the line is ...

Introduction It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly technology marches forward. Take the 40-inch television, for example. Five years ago, in 2001, Sony introduced the first 40-inch Direct View HDTV CRT Television featuring flat-screen WEGA (pronounced “Vega”) tube technology. At the time, this model, the 40XBR700, was the largest and most expensive consumer direct-view CRT ever created, retailing for a cool $4,000. Aside from its enormous size and weight at 385 pounds, the picture tube was designed to offer the best color fidelity and resolution for an NTSC consumer television up to that point, save for the Sony 32XBR100 squared (available from 1994 through about 1997), which remains the only consumer direct-view CRT monitor to have achieved the full NTSC color gamut in a commercially produced television, not counting, of course, the new Qualia 005, which is a Tri-Luminous LCD television capable of 105 percent of the 1953 NTSC color gamut and a ...