The FlatHDTV Blog

Making the jump from regular TV to HDTV usually means switching from a square-ish screen to a flatter, more rectangular screen. Speaking technically, most of the TV screens we are used to have a 4 to 3 aspect ratio, meaning they are 3/4 as high as they are wide. Almost all HDTV sets have the “widescreen” format, with the slightly more movie-like 16 to 9 aspect ratio.

So, if you want to replace that old Trinitron with a similar-sized HDTV, you’ll need to do a little (very little) geometry to make sure your viewing experience will actually be better.

TV sets are measured diagonally, from corner to corner. So, because of its flatter shape, a 25 inch widescreen HDTV will be wider than a 25 inch regular TV, but will be lower in height. To match the height of a 25 inch regular TV (which is 15 inches, incidentally), a widescreen would need a diagonal measurement of 30.6 inches:

Maintaining the same picture height is important, because there’s still a lot of content out there that is designed for the old 4:3 format. This is what happens to regular content on a widescreen:

So, your new HDTV will need to be about 20 percent bigger, in the diagonal measurement, to display standard content as big as you are used to seeing it. If not, a good portion of the shows you watch will actually be smaller on the widescreen.

Of course, the easy option is just to “go big” with the new set. The extreme sharpness of HDTV, especially 1080p HDTV, makes it hard to go wrong by going too big.

The answer is no, of course, since Plasma didn’t really go anywhere.

Sales of LCD sets have been increasing fast over the last few years, mainly because LCD technology has enabled builders to make sets in the 40 and 50 inch size range that can compete well with Plasmas, in terms of picture quality and cost. In the past, LCD dominated the smaller sizes and Plasma dominated the larger, so this trend seemed like a death knell for Plasma.

However, North American sales of HDTVs have surged since last quarter, with Plasma sales growing about 17% faster than LCD. One possible cause for this is the emergence of smaller sizes, like the Vizio 32 inch Plasma and the Panasonic 37 inch UK Series Plasma.

source: PC Magazine

One of the big questions most HDTV buyers have these days is: which of the three most popular technologies (LCD, Plasma, DLP) should I choose? Or, should I wait for the next big thing I’ve been hearing about, OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode)?

The answer is no- unless you’re willing to wait several years. Buy your favorite HDTV that’s on the market now, and when that one wears out, you will probably be seriously considering an OLED. Here’s why:

• OLED screens are made with a synthetic organic substance, which is similar to the chemical that lights up fireflies and deep-sea fish. This substance shines bright and cool, doesn’t need a backlight like LCD sets, and so consumes very little energy.
• The construction process allows OLED screens to be extremely thin- an 80-inch HDTV might be as thin as a quarter inch.
• The OLED screen will be more durable, will handle greater temperature ranges, will change images quicker, and will even be flexible.
• They will eventually be produced in much larger sizes then current HDTV sets, and should be cheaper when production gets up to a certain level.

There are still a few bugs to work out, though. Here’s an example: the OLED screen is made of several layers of the organic substance, each of which is responsible for displaying a different color. The red and green layers have proven to last up to 40,000 hours in some laboratories, but researchers are having trouble getting the blue layers to last more than 4,000 hours in prototype screens.

The bugs aren’t preventing the big HDTV companies from spreading the word, though. Here are some recent updates and press releases on OLED:

http://techblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/05/sony-previews-03mm-or-is-that.html

http://www.current.com.au/2008/05/29/article/RXKLVDONVA.html

http://gizmodo.com/393734/giz-explains-oled-the-future-of-tv

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/05/sony-to-acceler.html

Sony makes what is arguably the highest-quality LCD HDTV on the market, the Bravia XBR series. Over the past few years, the latest model has been the XBR, XBR2, XBR3, XBR4, and XBR5. Now, to the surprise of no one, they have named their new model XBR6.

The word on the street is that this one has a little bit better picture than the XBR4 and 5, and a lower introductory price, but it is lacking a few of the advanced features. The first ones to be available online are the 32 inch, at about $1100, and the 37 inch at about $1500.

Check them out here:

Sony 32 inch XBR6

Sony 37 inch XBR6

Buying a big-ticket item like an HDTV through the internet is a pretty scary prospect for most people. There are several anxiety issues: Will my stuff get damaged in shipping? What if I have to return it? Will I waste the better part of a day (or two) waiting for the delivery truck? And isn’t it crazy to send several thousand dollars into cyberspace, to someone who may or may not even be a real person?

Those are all reasonable fears. But, the last one is not as reasonable as it was back in the 90s. The rise of major online retailers like Amazon.com has raised online customer service standards to a level where the overall experience, though different, is in many ways better than the experience at your neighborhood electronics store. Let’s look at some of the concerns behind buying online:

• My HDTV may be damaged in shipping. It’s certainly possible. But the policy of Amazon and most other online retailers takes this into account, and gives you several ways to deal with it. With their standard shipping, the delivery person will typically help you take the set out of the box, wait for you to plug it in and see if there is any shipping damage. If there is, it’s a no-brainer- the set goes back and you get a replacement immediately.
• The set may be damaged in a way that is not immediately obvious. Even if you don’t notice anything wrong with the set right away, you can still send it back for a replacement within 30 days, and Amazon will pay for the shipping. And when you think about it, this problem is equally likely when buying from a physical store: the set had to be shipped to the store in the first place, and the store is certainly not going to test every unit for every kind of defect. That means you’re the “test pilot” whether you buy from Circuit City or Amazon.
• I will have to wait all day for the delivery truck. Yeah, this one’s annoying. But fighting traffic and hanging around in a big-box electronics store for several hours can be infinitely frustrating as well.
• It’s easier to talk a salesperson into a lower price. If you’re a genius at haggling low prices out of retail sales managers, you might enjoy the buying process more at a physical store. Unfortunately, while most salespeople can be talked into matching the price you found down the street, they will rarely match the best price you can find online. Beating the other neighborhood stores is one thing, but beating every store on the internet is quite another. And to top it off, Amazon will actually give you a rebate on your purchase if the price of your HDTV goes down within 30 days after your purchase.
• It’s hard to trust a faceless online merchant. Given the speed with which the world is changing, that’s understandable. The best way to get around this one is to start spending more time online, do your research, interact with real people in chat rooms, read industry newsletters, and so on. Once you become aware of the potential pitfalls and the ways to safeguard against them, buying online will feel as natural as putting money in the bank.

For more information on buying HDTV sets online, please visit FlatHDTV.net, a website dedicated to helping you make a wise and informed purchase.

Whenever new, amazing, and mysterious technology appears in the world, a new group of “experts” on this technology often appears out of nowhere. These people are full of good information and have the best intentions, but sometimes they get a little careless with their explanations and promote an idea that seems logical and makes sense, but is actually wrong.

The conventional wisdom behind HDTV tech, magic as it is, includes several of these logical but misguided tips. One goes like this: Plasma TVs contain a weird substance inside the screen, called “plasma”, which is so slippery and sneaky that it could leak out of the set if you lay it flat on the floor or in the back of your car. This reasoning supposedly explains why many retailers have a strict policy against shipping a Plasma TV any way except vertically. Some customers have even been obligated to choose an LCD over a Plasma because the back of their car wasn’t tall enough to take it away from the shop in a vertical position.

The real reason behind that policy is that a Plasma TV has a relatively fragile construction, with two panes of glass mounted very close to each other. If one was resting horizontally in the back of a truck, and that truck bounced over a speed bump a little too fast, the panes could bounce a little themselves and squeeze what’s in between.

What’s in between is not a pool of mysterious liquid, but an array of tiny cells that contain a special kind of gas. When the computer inside the TV tells them to, these cells light up like tiny neon lights, because the gas inside them is excited into what’s called a “plasma state”. If some of these cells get damaged by transport, there’s really no way to fix them. Laying a Plasma TV carefully down on your living room floor, however, won’t do any harm at all. Just don’t step on it.

Here are some references, in case you need a little more convincing:

http://www.dtvcity.com/plasmatv/plasmatv-leak.html

http://www.hometheaterblog.com/hometheater/2006/06/plasma_tv_sales.html

http://www.answers.com/plasma+display?cat=technology

There’s a lot of confusion going around about the new TV standards that the FCC is going to impose on those of us in America next year. In February 2009, people with analog-only TV sets will have to take action to be able to keep receiving broadcast signals. If your TV is less than 10 years old, it probably has the capacity to receive a digital signal, so you’re in luck, but with an older one it’s questionable.

The best way to tell the difference is to check your TV’s manual, or just work the buttons and the remote to see if there’s a way to switch to digital input. If not, you’ll need to get an analog-to-digital converter at your local electronics store.

“DTV” is short for digital television (which is what you will need), and doesn’t mean the same thing as “HDTV”, or high definition television. Nearly all HDTVs are in fact DTVs, but all DTVs are not HDTVs.

For more information on the new TV standards, check out: The New TV Standards.