Like all the great bouts before Ali vs. Fraiser, Duran vs. Sugar ray, Coke vs. Pepsi or Good vs. Evil there is a new battle-taking place on the horizon Plasma vs. HDTV LCD.

Which is the better.

This is how my idea for this Post all got started…

So, I’m invited to my best friends house the other weekend to try and revive an old Dell Laptop that is now experiencing the BSOD I’m hoping to give it CPR and at the very least transfer the important data off of it. When I arrive I knock on the door, he opens it we give each other our customary hugs and he invites me in. When I pass the hall way I can’t help but notice this new toy in the middle of his small living room. A brand new LCD HDTV. It looks very stylish, but the picture resolution is not at all what I expected it doesn’t even compare to his older tv. At that particular moment the only thing I know about HDTV is that it is a Digital signal as opposed to Analog and that the picture quality is reliant on the content. In other words if program is made for HD TV it will look unbelievable. So we try a few tests. First we run the signal through his DVD receiver will it resolve some of the poor resolution he is currently experiencing? Nope…next test if it is made for “Digital” will the quality improve if we view a DVD?

Ah yes because DVD, and CD’s are both digital media. Okay so we have to look at signal, if older TV broadcasting companies use Analog signal processing to your TV how do we improve the picture quality?

Here’s where my wheels begin to spin and I do some research.

I have heard that some LCD TV’s do suffer from picture quality but I have yet to hear of any Plasma screen with the same problems.

Let’s discuss the technology first LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) use millions of crystals, which are suspended in a liquid that is sandwiched between transparent panels. Behind this liquid crystal sandwich is bright florescent light. The crystals are instructed to either let the light pass or not. Color filters are used to determine color. LCD TVs typically can’t display black as well as plasmas; it ends up closer to dark gray. That shortcoming decreases the amount of detail you can see in the shadows and ultimately leaves the picture looking less three-dimensional.

What does this mean?

Sharp picture, vibrant color, better brightness level in bright light conditions, come in smaller sizes, weigh less, sometimes suffer from delay which causes the figures or objects to appear jagged.

In a plasma TV, each pixel is made up of three phosphors – one red, one blue, and one green. These phosphors emit light when struck by beams of electrons. The intensity of the electron beam determines the amount of light emitted. It is the phosphors themselves that create the light your see on a plasma screen.

What does that mean?

Better viewing angles, wide range of color, accurate color reproduction, greater contrast levels, suffer from burn in effect, weigh more due to size differences.

So here’s what I now know, in order to have a great picture on a LCD HDTV it is critical that you have a HDTV tuner, whether it is built into your TV, supplied by your cable or Satellite company or you purchase it, it is a must have.

Next is a thing called HDMI (High definition multi-media interface.)?

Is the new connector that basis itself on DVI HDCP model, supports uncompressed video and audio through the use of a single cable, transmits uncompressed video so that picture maintains a high quality of color depth, brightness and contrast.

That said I’m sure if we had this type of cable we would have gotten better resolution when we hooked it up to his DVD player but it being a slightly older model well it just didn’t offer that option.

Time for a new DVD player I guess… next I want my IP TV.

Update: Thanks to a tip from “tischzr” I got 2 useful links regarding this article:
Confused about HDTV? A guide to clear things up.
Plasma TV Features: The Useful, the Cool, and the Utterly Useless.

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