10 Bone-Headed Mistakes Plasma TV Shoppers Must Avoid!

This brutally frank article points out ten major pitfalls that buyers of Plasma TVs can easily to fall into. It strips away the lies told by con men, the confusion spread by geeks and the bumbling interference you’ll get from supposedly helpful know-it-alls as you search for the perfect Plasma, LCD or DLP TV.

Shopping for a Big Screen TV means avoiding lots of people trying to dazzle you with new technology.

You have to side-step slick TV salesmen talking about "DLP", "EDTV" or "1080i". You have to outsmart internet con artists selling "gray market" Plasmas. And you have to ignore bone-headed advice from Fred, the neighborhood know-it-all.

Mistake #1: Don’t Buy A "No-Name" Plasma TV!
The most important decision you can make when buying a big screen TV is to decide not to buy a "No-Name". A device as complex as a LCD, Plasma or DLP TV must be manufactured with the finest components by dozens of expert technicians working in multi-million dollar plants. "No-name" companies use none of those.

Mistake #2: Never Trust A "Seeing Eye" TV Salesman!
If you walk into a TV showroom and don’t know EDTV from HDTV, some slick salesman will smile and eat you for lunch! Don’t let salesmen make choices for you, or you’ll end up with some outdated TV his boss wants to get rid of. Or you’ll end up with screen burn-in on your new Plasma when your son hooks up his Playstation 3; or suffer with a dim display in your brightly lit living room. Do a little research before you make a purchase; it’s not difficult.

(If you’re not familiar with some of the terms used above – DLP, EDTV, LCD – Google the "123 Guide To Plasma TV.com")

Mistake #3: Don’t Buy From A "No-Name" Retailer!
It’s important to buy your Plasma TV from a reputable dealer selling brand name merchandise. The return of a faulty $2000 Plasma TV won’t bankrupt Wal-Mart or Sony; but could devastate a Mom and Pop electronics store. Try to make major purchases from a major retailer’s website; make sure they offer a good return policy and have brand name Plasmas at a discount price.

Mistake #4: Don’t Fall For Plasma Internet Scams!
We’ve all seen what look like great deals on Plasma TVs online. But exactly what is a great deal? It means getting GREAT MERCHANDISE at a GREAT PRICE. It’s not a great deal if you get CRAPPY MERCHANDISE at a GREAT PRICE! You don’t want your "new" Plasma to be a returned or refurbished item. Avoid "gray market" or "B stock" merchandise, and avoid sellers who aren’t authorized retailers.

Mistake #5: Don’t Play Video Games On A Plasma Television!
The chance of screen burn-in on a Plasma TV has been greatly reduced by improved technology, but not eliminated. Computer programs, video games, stock tickers and station logos can burn permanently into the screen, ruining your expensive TV. LCD and DLP TV screens cannot suffer screen burn-in, ever.

Mistake #6: Don’t Let A Know-It-All Pick Your TV!
Your neighbor Fred says he’s an expert on Big Screen TVs, and volunteers to help you buy one. Fred may be a good guy. . . he may even know the difference between DTV and DLP. But Fred may also be a Boob blowing smoke out the rear of his shorts. How can you tell? Rely on the only person you can trust to look out for your interests . . . you! Listen to Fred, but take him with a grain of salt . . . and do your own research!

Mistake #7: Don’t Try To Bring Home A Plasma TV By Yourself!
There was a time you could go to Circuit City, buy a 19-inch color TV, throw it in the back seat and take it home . . . those days are over! Shipping a Plasma TV to your home is the only sensible way to get it there; it’s too big, expensive, heavy and delicate to be shoved in the trunk of a car. Your retailer will arrange shipping for you; make sure that insurance and order tracking are included in the deal. Don’t sign for delivery until you’ve inspected your TV for damage.

Mistake #8: Don’t Install A Plasma TV Without Help!
A Plasma TV, although thin, is actually very heavy. A 50-inch Plasma TV can weigh over 160 pounds. Mounting a Plasma TV on it’s table stand is a three person job; call some strong friends over. The delivery people will put your TV on the curb, or in your living room, depending on what you paid for. They won’t install your TV on a wall mount, that service costs $200-$300.

Mistake #9: Don’t Fail To Connect A Dolby Sound System!
You shouldn’t settle for the sound coming from your TV speakers. Attached to your TV, a Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound amplifier sends six separate channels of sound through speakers in front of, on both sides of and behind the viewer. Home Theater Systems start as low as $250 and go into the thousands; they include an amplifier, five speakers, wire and a sub woofer. Dolby 7.1 is even more advanced with eight sound channels.

Mistake #10: Don’t Forget To Budget For Peripherals!
For full enjoyment of your new Plasma TV, you’ll need lots of other stuff: HDMI cables for each peripheral, surge protectors, a TV stand or wall mount, a HDTV DVD player and digital cable for High Def broadcasts. You’ll also need a Home Theater System with at least Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound and a comfortable viewing area. I’m not trying to scare you . . . a modest system can cost less than $300, A good system between $800-$1000 and a Top-of-the-Line system $1500 and up.

Well, there you have it . . . the 10 Biggest Bone-Headed Mistakes you could make when shopping for the perfect Plasma TV! Avoid them like the plague!

Good luck . . . I hope you find the Plasma TV that will thrill your family for years to come!

It’s as easy as 123!

About The Author

Ike Ridley is the avid videophile and self-confessed "Movie Nut" who created the website the 123 Guide To Plasma TV . To visit us, click the links or paste this URL into your web browser:

http://www.123-guide-to-plasma-tv.com/

Ike has moved to the Caribbean where he clicks away on his laptop under a palm tree.

Click Here for tips on buying discount Plasma TVs!

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Working Of A Plasma TV

The slim and thin plasma TV sets have become desired products worldwide. Learn the basics of how the plasma technology works.

Television technology for the past 75 years has been based on the technology of CRT or cathode-ray-tube. In it there are guns that fire beams of electrons, which are particles that are negatively charged inside a tube, made of glass. These electrons cause excitement in phosphor atoms located at the screen end or the end gets lighted up. The phosphor coating being lighted up on different areas with various colours with dissimilar intensities produces the image on the screen.

The images are sharp and vibrant but the sets are bulky. Thus a big screen will result in a television set that will take up a good size of the room! With necessity being the mother of invention, this difficulty has led to the popping up of a new technology leading to plasma flat panels for display. These sets have wide screen but are only a few inches thick.

A video signal lights up thousands of dots inside the monitor or television. These dots are known as pixels having highly energized electron beams. Usually pixels have three colours – blue, red and green. These are evenly spread out across the screen. Combining these basic colours in different proportions produces the entire colour show. The fundamental idea of the plasma unit is to light up minute coloured lights that are fluorescent to create the image. Each pixel comprises of three of these lights – red, green and blue. Similar to the CRT, the plasma television alters the intensity of the various lights to bring about the effect of the full spectrum of colours.

The first generation of plasma displays did not have tuners that receive the television signal and interprets that to make a video image. But today digital tuners have been assembled to the main unit.

Plasma is the central element in the fluorescent light. It is a gas that has free flowing ions and electrons. Ions are atoms that have been electrically charged and electrons are particles that have been negatively charged. Normally a gas is made of uncharged particles. Thus a gas atom usually has equal number of protons and electrons atom resulting in zero total charge. But the scene rapidly changes with the introduction of free electrons in the gas. This leads to the setting up across it of electrical voltage.

Free electrons clash with the atoms dislodging other electrons. When an electron goes missing the atom loses its balances. It becomes and ion. In the case of plasma there is electric current passing through. This causes particles that are negatively charged to rush to that region of the plasma that is positively charged; on the reverse the particles, which are positively, charged hurry towards the area that is negatively charged.

There is a mad rush and one collides into another constantly. The gas atoms in the plasma get excited. Photons of energy are now released. The atoms used in plasma displays are neon and xenon atoms. The gases of these are contained in thousands of tiny cells sandwiched between two glass plates.

Thus to sum up we find that the Plasma TV forms a picture from plasma or gas that is filled with atoms of xenon and neon as well as innumerable electrically charged electrons and atoms that bump and collide to release energy or power. The net result is that without extra bulk, the viewing area gets enlarged. Rather than being fat the Plasma TV is slim and thin. The quality of picture is par excellence but the draw back is that the cost is beyond the reach of many people.

This article can also be accessed in portuguese language from the Article section of page www.polomercantil.com.br/televisores.php

Roberto Sedycias works as IT consultant for Polomercantil

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Toshiba Are A Great Player In The Tv Market

In TVs, Toshiba is really pushing big, wall-mounted LCD TVs as a lifestyle item. It is trying to get away from the image of TVs as big, bulky items, hiding away and outsourcing its old CRT offerings to promote the flatscreen LCDs relentlessly.

This is a good decision for Toshiba, as their CRT TVs were mediocre at best, while their LCDs are some of the best on the market today. While expensive, as ever, they are extremely lightweight and come with very good software and extra features to help you get the most out of your TV viewing, such as automatic tuning, picture-in-picture, very quick channel changes, and all the other little things that add up to make a good TV much better than a cheap one.

If you’re buying a Toshiba TV, you will find that it works much better if you actually mount it on the wall as intended. The best thing to do is to clear a space that you know works – perhaps take down a painting – and measure it, and then take the measurements with you when you go to the showroom. Hopefully the showroom will have the LCD TVs hanging on walls to allow you to see how they will look in that environment, and they should be able to provide the exact measurements for any given TV for you on request.

Even though Toshiba’s LCD TVs are selling well, they know that nothing is forever. However, they tend to be a company that leads rather than follows, and they’ve got an ace in the hole: they’re already working on SED, a possible successor to LCD. These screens will again be flatscreen and look much like existing LCD TVs, except that they will be capable of displaying much higher resolutions, such as those output by top-end HDTV – that’s high-density TV, the next-generation broadcast standard. However, there is as yet no known release date for SED TVs.

By: john

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John Gibb is the owner of Toshiba Resources, For more information on Toshiba Laptops check out www.Toshiba-Laptops-sources1k.info

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Buying The Best Lcd Tv: Helping You Choose

When it comes to size, resolution and picture quality, more and more people are opting for an LCD TV. These are currently the bestselling flat and high-definition televisions today, preferred by more consumers because they come in a wide variety of sizes, fits just about anywhere and are light enough to be mounted on the wall just like an ordinary picture frame. But with so many choices today, how do you find the best LCD TV? Here are some factors to consider, along with a few recommendations.

LCDs explained

LCD is short for liquid crystal display. This refers to the type of technology used on the screen of the TV to produce images. Thanks to backlighting, LCD TVs are better than older CRT models using fluorescent lights to produce a wider variety of colors. This is also the technology that allows even distribution of light across the whole screen, so overall brightness is consistent.

Does size matter in TV?

Apparently, it does. The best LCD TVs today are those that offer a good range of sizes – from desktop computer-sized 15" units to more home theater-friendly 70". Bigger units even come with tuners and surround sound speakers to better enhance the home theater experience.

Picture quality

Admittedly, even the best LCD TVs have visual performance issues they have to contend with. Some of their main drawbacks are the low refresh rate (leading to relatively slower response time), low contrast ratio compared to plasma TVs and blurring during fast action sequences.

However, LCD TV manufacturers are promising better performance in the next generation LCD TVs. That means, we can expect significantly higher response rates and tweaks that will resolve blurs during high-speed car chases and fight scenes in future models.

How to choose the best LCD TV

Here are some factors to consider:

Size

Probably the major consideration you need to keep in mind is the LCD TV’s size. It has to fit the area where it will be placed and must be big enough to optimize your viewing experience and small enough not to overwhelm. Remember that the best LCD TVs are built for maximum viewing pleasure at a distance. So if you have a 40" set, you should at have enough space in the room to allow you to sit at a distance of 5 feet or so. The larger the TV, the farther the area you should view it from.

Resolution

This is another gauge in which the best LCD TVs are measured. Resolution refers to the overall picture quality of the TV. The higher the number, the sharper and clearer the image. High definition formats generally range from about 720p to 1080p.

However, if budget is a major concern, there’s no need to pay extra for higher resolution. Even 720p LCDs can already produce excellent images and reliable picture quality. The difference between a 720 and a 1080 is almost negligible especially if you have access to shows with HD programming.

Brand

In some cases, brand loyalty matters when deciding which LCD TV is best. If you must consider the manufacturer, look for top names such as Samsung, Sony, LG, Philips or Vizio. These brands have some of the best models in the industry, with several premium offers available.

Price

If you stick by a particular brand and consider a larger-sized LCD TV, some of the best you’ll find can set you back at least $700 for a decent-sized 32". Bigger sizes starting at 37" can cost from about $1,500 to $3,000. However, you could still shave off a few hundred dollars by opting for lesser-known brands that are typically sold by distributors at stores like Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy. You’ll generally get the same picture quality at about 15% to 20% less.

By: Alex Bradbury

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Discount LCD TV is a consumer electronics website which stocks the latest plasma and LCD widescreen televisions from the major manfacturers. We have plenty of information and advice for buyers on what to look for when buying the Best LCD TV.

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