Buying Plasma TV

If you have decided to buy a Plasma TV but could not decide on brand, model or confused that if your selected brand or model is good enough.

Don’t worry, all you have to do is educate yourself by comparing some Plasma TVs available in market of different brands and models and compare their specification. If you are not clear about the technical terms mentioned. I have listed some of them here.

Screen Size: Screen size is measured diagonally. There are many screen size available in the market, you need to decide on your room size and your budget.

Native Pixel Resolution: Native Resolution for Plasma for screen size less than 50” will be 1024 X 768 and if you don’t mind bigger screens you can get more resolution and HD resolutions.

Scaling:

It is a process where a television's video processor will match the resolution of the incoming signal to its native pixel resolution. This means that lower resolution signals will be up-scaled, but the processor will downscale higher resolution signals so that they can be displayed at the TVs native resolution. That is the reason you need to buy HD Ready TV. Poor scaling can result in poor display results, such as jagged edges and inconsistent detail. It must be noted that results also depend on the quality of the incoming signal.

Contrast Ratio: Contrast ratio, or the degree of variation of the whitest and darkest parts of the image, is a very important factor to consider. A good contrast ratio to have in an TV is 1,500:1 or higher. Anything less than 1,500:1, may not provide an optimum viewing experience. If Compared to LCD TV plasma scores on contrast ratio point.

Brightness: Without sufficient brightness image might look muddy and soft, even in a dark room. Viewing distance, screen size, and ambient room light will affect the need for more brightness capability. A brightness rating listed as 550 cd/m2 or higher is good enough, but don't depend upon the technical number listed, just make sure the screen is bright enough for your needs upon your own visual inspection. Because manufacturing companies tends to give higher values.

LONGEVITY: Longevity means life of the TV. People do worry about this point regarding Plasma as they fear because Plasma has gas they will have lesser life than LCD’s. These might be true in past but latest Plasma’s don’t have this problem anymore. Life of LCD televisions and Plasma television is almost similar. Anything more than 40,000 hours is considered very good, when you consider that you watch TV 10 hrs day then it comes to more than 10 years. And I think that’s more than enough.

Viewing Angle: Viewing angle need not to be worrying point for Plasma’s as it is for LCD TV. Because plasma can be watched from side also but anything above 160° is good enough.

Tuner and Connection Considerations: Almost all TVs have built-in tuners, if it is not there you have to buy external tuner or set top box. There are TV’s with dual-tuners for PIP functions i.e Picture in Picture function which allows you to watch 2 different channels at a time. If they are HD Ready nothings like it. However, it will be useful only if you don’t receive HDTV programming.

Input Connection: Check if the TV has connection for HDMI Inputs, RGB Inputs, S-Video Inputs, Composite Video, Component Video, VGA input.

Speaker: Try and buy a TV which has at least 10W + 10W speakers in built. That’s not very good but that can be minimum requirement.

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