Plasma Screen or LCD Flat Screen TV, Which To Buy?

It seems that everyone either has or wants to get the latest Flat Screen TV for their home. Taking price and money out of the equation which type of Flat Screen TV do you purchase? Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Plasma, TFT what do you go with and purchase?

Viewing television nowadays is certainly different from the humble experience it was in the early years under John Logie Baird to the vast array of images now viewable on the amazing Liquid Crystal Display /Flat Screen TV sets 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.

The one aspect of modern day television that if the truth be known completely confuses most people (yet most would try not to �let on�) is the amazing array of technical jargon that surrounds the everyday television set.

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 then the question is what is Digital TV?

Well the short answer is that phraseology is mixed here and quite often people get confused, LCD, TFT and Plasma are all terms that get bandied around yet they don�t all mean the same thing.

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.

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 what do all of the terms surrounding Digital TV mean? 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 8.

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

The first item we need to consider is the Screen Resolution of the TV Here we refer to the exact number of pixels that can be displayed in each dimension.

Whether the TV is Hi-Definition Ready would be the next thing to look at. Hi Definition TV essentially makes a TV picture in a quality format that is at least four times better than conventionally available at present.

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.

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).

The final item we would look at would be what is the nature and number of the High-Definition Multimedia Interfaces (HDMI) 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 8 is a 26in LCD TV and the prices for these are around 1800 pounds sterling or 2900 US dollars. The screen resolution is 1366 X 768 and with regards to being HD Ready the answer is yes. The Beovision has 2 (2 RGB) scarts and the type and number of Multimedia interfaces the Beovision 8 uses is HDMI and 1. The type of Tuner for this TV is Analogue and the Beovision is available from specialised outlets only.

So how would we rate the B&O Beovision 8?

The most obvious place to start with as far as TV's are concerned would be the picture quality and our score here would be 8, and closely tied in to the picture quality is the sound quality and our score for this would be 8. Another useful aspect to review is the availability and number of relevant connections and our score here would be 6. As far as overall features are concerned we would give it 6 and the final individual verdicts would relate to the ease of use and overall value for money and our scores here would be, 4 and 6 respectively.

Finally our overall opinion would be this is definitely one to consider if you don't mind paying a huge premium for the appearance and looks

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.

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