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.

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.

Once you bring that shiny new HDTV home, you’ll notice something that might be disappointing: most of the stuff on TV right now is not high definition. And just because the set is expensive doesn’t mean it will do everything well: many top-of-the-line HDTVs display regular TV worse than a good standard definition set. If you only watch HD content, this won’t be a problem, but that’s hard to do.

When researching your purchase, be sure to check all possible reviews and keep the standard definition display quality in mind. It’s more important than you think. Here is a short list of some sets that are known to do a good job displaying SD:

• 1080p Panasonic PZ700 series
• Panasonic PX75/PE77U series
• Sony 40S3000
• Toshiba DLP Series