Your Complete Guide to High-Def

Not too long ago, HDTVs, even the cheapest, were extraordinarily expensive. Then, more recently, prices started coming down to where the smaller, more basic sets weren’t outrageously more expensive than their SD cousins. Now, even flat-panel HDTVs have dropped in price enough to where most people can afford them. The lingo is still a little hard to decipher, and, hopefully, this article will help you with it. Deciding which technology is right for you is still tough, but it’s also the fun part.

Lines and Dots

Standard TV has 480 lines of vertical resolution and is cleverly named 480i. That is to say, the onscreen image is made up of 480 horizontal lines stacked on top of one another like sheets of paper. The “i” stands for “interlaced,” which means that 240 of those lines alternate on the screen, and your brain combines them into one picture. The best 480i source is DVD. With other 480i sources, your results may vary. Cable and satellite offer decent 480i sources and, at their best, can offer a picture somewhat close to DVD. At their worst, they will make you long for VHS. The problem with 480i is that it wasn’t designed for TVs larger than 19 inches. Measure your screen, and you’ll see the problem. Enter HD.

HDTV is the next generation of television. HDTV broadcasts are 720p and 1080i. The “p” stands for progressive. This means that all 720 lines are on screen at one time. You’ll hear arguments as to whether interlaced or progressive is better, but, on a decent TV, it doesn’t really matter. Both look excellent. All HD displays support both formats, so you won’t really lose anything by choosing a TV that is native (the resolution it really wants to put out) 720 or 1,080, as long as the scaling is done right.

Almost all TVs have one native rate or native resolution. In the case of most displays on the market, this is often around 720p. Some new displays have 1080p resolution (more on that in a moment). The problem is, most programs aren’t at either of these resolutions. So, in order to display these, the TV has to do something to the image to make it fit on the screen. This something is called scaling. Done right, it is seamless and unnoticeable. Done poorly, you’ll have difficulty not noticing it. Scaling is one of the many factors that separate expensive and less expensive displays.

HDTVs are also wider than traditional TVs. The aspect ratio (the ratio of the width to the height) is 1.78:1, or 16:9. This ratio was chosen as a compromise between the 1.33:1 (also called 4:3) of older TVs and the 1.85:1 of many movies. Because no movie is shot at 1.78:1, there will still be black bars at the top and bottom of the screen on any movie that isn’t cropped to fit the 1.78:1 frame. (Many 1.85:1 movies are cropped this way; most 2.35:1 movies are not.)

There is a lot of excitement about the new 1080p displays. While this is understandable, in many cases, it is disproportionate to 1080p’s real benefit. Most people sit 10 feet from their TVs. At that distance, the human eye can’t see the difference between 720p and 1080p on any screen smaller than around 60 inches diagonal. If you don’t want a TV that size, you can probably get away with a 720p display.

The Displays

If you’re looking to get into the HD revolution as cheaply as possible, old-fashioned cathode-ray-tube televisions (CRTs) are still the way to go. They offer good image quality and are inexpensive. You can get a 4:3 set that displays an HD image in a letterboxed window (black bars on the top and bottom), or you can get a 16:9 model that will display older 4:3 material with vertical bars on the sides. (Almost all 16:9 TVs do this, in addition to giving you several stretch options to make a 4:3 image look like a 16:9 one.) The biggest problem with tube televisions is that their screen sizes aren’t very big (the largest being around 36 inches), and the larger screen sizes are extremely heavy and bulky. There are many sets that cost less than $1,000, and some of the more expensive sets offer the best picture quality available of any display type. The prices of flat-panel LCDs are now approaching that of CRT. If you want to go bigger, rear projection is your first stop.

Rear Projection

RPTVs come in several varieties. On all, weight and size have been greatly reduced, while light output has increased over the older (and now endangered-species) big-box CRT-based RPTVs. DLP (Digital Light Processing), LCD (liquid-crystal display), and LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon, also called SXRD and D-ILA) are letter groupings to look out for. TVs based on any of these technologies are significantly thinner than their tube-based predecessors. They are all significantly brighter than tube RPTVs, but they also have a much higher black level (how dark the dark parts of the image are). RPTVs offer tremendous value compared with plasmas and LCDs of similar sizes. Also, they won’t burn in (when part of the image gets permanently burned onto the screen) like plasma and tubebased displays. Even at their best, rear-projection TVs are still bulkier than any flat screen.

Look Out

What else should you look out for? Think about where you’re going to sit in relation to the screen. Figure that you either want to sit at a distance from this display that is around 2.45 times greater than the diagonal length of the screen, or you want a screen with a diagonal length that is 2.45 times smaller than your seating distance. So, if you already know where you’ll be sitting, figure out this distance, and you’ll have a general idea of what screen size you should be looking for. With some displays (like 1080p models), you can be closer; with others, you’ll want to be farther away. You can check this to some extent in the store. Stand at different distances (including the distance you’ll be sitting), and see how the picture looks. In addition, make sure you’re standing at eye level with the center of the screen. The picture will change if you’re off axis.

Other questions to ask: How do you like the remote? Does the display have enough inputs for you? If all you have is a satellite box and a DVD player, any display will do. If you have a DVD player, an HD DVD or Blu-ray player, an HD cable box, a VCR, and an Xbox 360, your sources will vie for connections, and that’s where a receiver or video switcher comes in.

It’s worth noting, if you’re new to the HDTV world, that just having an HDTV doesn’t necessarily mean you have HD. You also need an HD source. This can be as simple as an antenna (most HDTVs come with a built-in tuner to pick up the free over-the-air HD broadcasts in nearly all TV markets) or a specific HD box from your cable or satellite provider. Also, HD DVD and Blu-ray are excellent HD sources (and look better than any other HD source).

Lastly, keep in mind how you’re going to use this television. If you watch a lot of news programs and watch TV during the day, an LCD flat panel may be for you. If you only watch movies at night, check out a front projector. If you want maximum screen size and minimum space but need to be able to watch the TV all day long, consider plasma. Don’t totally disregard tube TVs, either—they offer some of the best picture quality and are the least expensive of any of the display technologies.

When you’ve narrowed down your choices, nothing beats a trip to your local electronics retailer. Bring some DVDs that you know, and check out several TVs. If possible, check out the same models at a different store, as they are bound to be set up differently. Most of all, trust your eyes—they are the closest line to your wallet.

There’s no point in waiting; HDTV is here to stay. There’s tons of programming, excellent displays at low prices, and a design and form factor for just about everybody. What are you waiting for? Go HDTV!