Buying a Flat Screen TV, The Fujitsu P42HTA51ES Plasma TV Possibly Overpriced for What It Is?

From its origins as a humble �electromechanical information system� and early Cathode Ray delivery systems to the broadcast medium we know it to be nowadays, television has travelled along way to get to the multi dimensional full colour Liquid Crystal Display sets /Flat Screen TV of today. Most people are now so much into TV that it's very difficult for anyone who has sampled TV to live without it.

Very few people if asked directly would be able to explain entirely how a television works or the process of television broadcasting works yet most would claim to understand the process, or so they say? The term television can actually be quite confusing because it can quite easily be used to refer specifically to a television set, programming or television transmission.

As in most industries, along with technological development and innovation has arisen a large range of technical descriptions and phrases that if the truth be known confuses most people.

Now would be a good idea to concentrate purely on the digital aspect of television, its latest developments formats and bandwidth issues in use and exactly what all this technical jargon and terminology actually mean.

So what exactly is Digital TV? Whereas traditional analogue technology and television was reliant upon transmission of its pictures and sound files via analogue channels newer digital television handles all of its broadcasting and transmission via digital signals which are much smaller, use up less bandwidth and are more accurate.

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 Fujitsu P42HTA51ES Plasma TV.

Now the key items of information that we need to be familiar with are as follows.

The Screen resolution of the TV is possibly the most obvious place to start. In this case it refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed.

Whether the TV is Hi-Definition Ready would be the next thing to look at. 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.

The next item that we would need to look at is what types of connectors are used between the peripherals used alongside the main Digital TV?

In this case we mean SCART Plugs and sockets and their usage. Here the definition of SCART refers to �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 P42HTA51ES is a 42in Plasma TV and currently these TV's can be found for 2000 pounds sterling or 4000 US dollars. The screen resolution is 1024 X 1024 and with regards to being HD Ready the answer is yes. The Fujitsu has 3 (3 RGB) scarts and the type and number of Multimedia interfaces the P42HTA51ES uses is HDMI and DVI (I each). The type of Tuner for this TV is Analogue and the Fujitsu is available from limited outlets only.

So given this information, what would be our view of the Fujitsu P42HTA51ES?

First up, we would look at the picture quality and our score here would be 4, next we would look at the sound quality and our view of this would be 4. Another useful aspect to review is the availability and number of relevant connections and our score here would be 10. As far as overall features are concerned we would give it 8 and the final individual verdicts would relate to the ease of use and overall value for money and our scores here would be, 8 and 4 respectively.

Finally our overall opinion would be that this TV might have impressed the guys in the Office if it was a budget or mid priced TV but for the price quoted we expected a whole lot more

With regards to the prices in this article we have tried in all cases to take an average across the industry from a number of well known web sites and so we ask you to bear this in mind and treat these prices as advisory only rather than absolutes.

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