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Buying Portable MP3 PlayersWhat's the Difference Between Plasma TVs and LCD TVs? by Tom Ace
Plasma and LCD TVs are the latest trend in home entertainment. Both offer unrivalled picture quality and resolution, while doing away with the bulkiness of the older rear-projection technologies. But with all of the hype surrounding these two types of televisions, what is the difference between them? Although they look- and are virtually priced- the same, they are not.
There differences are found in the way in which they display their pictures. Plasma TV technology is made up of hundreds of thousands of little pixels, each capable of displaying red, green, and blue colors. A plasma monitor often consists of two panels, which are filled with an inert gas, such as xenon or neon. When the pixels are excited by pulses of electricity, the gas becomes liquid, thus generating light. This light in turn then illuminates the pixels, causing them to display the appropriate color to form a picture.
LCD panels function in a very similar manner. A panel of thin-film-transmitters, or TFT, sends electricity to cells filled with liquid crystal. When the cells are struck by the electricity, the liquid crystals allow light to filter through. Unlike the pixels found in plasma TVs, LCD monitors create color by blocking out the appropriate wavelengths from white light.
So which is better? The answer to this question depends upon what you plan to use TV for. Do you just want to use it to watch movies and television? If so, then a plasma TV might be best, because they are capable of a higher better color saturation and contrast than their LCD counterparts and for displaying moving images. If you plan in spending a lot of time showing digital photography or plan on using the monitor with your computer, then a LCD display might be better suited to these purposes.
Both plasma and LCD technologies each have their advantages and disadvantages and your decision should ultimately be based on your monitor's application.
About the Author
Tom Ace is the founder of Plasma tv Resources a website providing information on plasma televisions
TV home projector
How to find the right home projector for your home by Dakota Caudilla
Some people think that buying a home projector is the same as buying a TV or AV system. The cost, of course, has everything to do with which home projector that you finally decide to buy but in actual fact, spending a little bit more time researching and finding out more about home projector systems can make your investment more worthwhile.
Brightness, typically, is measured in ANSI lumens. For a typical home projector system, the brightness can range anywhere between 700 and 2,000 lumens. The brightness, itself, does not determine the quality of the picture that you will receive from your home projector. The environment of your home will pretty much determine the outcome. Therefore, before you buy a home projector, take into account the ambience of the room that you'll be placing the home projector system in. If you have a special TV viewing room with controlled lighting, you don't and won't need a home projector that gives out too much brightness. However, if you're placing the home projector in the living room where there are open windows or ambient lighting, you'll need a far brighter home projector to make it worth your while.
Most experts recommend that TV rooms or dedicated home theatre spaces need a 700 lumens home projector or more. Rooms with ambient lighting should use a home projector with at least 900 lumens or more. In open spaces or living rooms with extremely high lighting, you'll need a home projector with at least 2,500 lumens.
When shopping for your home projector, take a quick look for a menu that is easy to use. Some professional or business home projectors are not as user-friendly as the projectors made for home users. Your home projector should make it as hassle-free as possible for you change the color, brightness, switch between HDTV and NTSC and adjust your video input sources. Most home projectors come with a remote control because it could be hard if your home projector is fixed on the ceiling or high up on the wall, but be careful and be sure to ask the sales person if the home projector unit that you're interested in buying comes with a remote control.
Do you want to mount the home projector on the ceiling or place it on a table? Well, both options have its advantages and disadvantages. Mounting the home projector on the ceiling gives more space, creates a more polished look for your viewing area. It won't be knocked off the table by kids and saves you time since you don't need to unpack, take it, install, and set the home projector up every time you want to use it.
With a light home projector, you can probably lift it from place to place without too much effort. With these home projectors, placing it on the table for each use is probably not a problem at all. In fact, portability has its advantages...you can literally take your home projector with you everywhere you go!
About the Author
Dakota Caudilla, journalist, and website builder Dakota Caudilla lives in Texas. He is the owner and co-editor of http://www.must-have-gadgets.com on which you will find a longer, more detailed version of this article.
LCD Monitor
Let's resolve the frequent troubles of LCD monitor Ourselves. by Willson Peterson
TFT LCD monitors are rapidly becoming shipped with new computers by default. On this page I explain you the frequent trouble of TFT monitor and how to resolve them.
No display or white screen:
If this is a new install make sure the refresh rate is not set too high. If you installed a new video card in your system make sure the refresh rate is not set too high. Under Windows, reboot the system and go into "Safe Mode" (Use F8 key on boot up) select safe mode and change the refresh rate under display properties to either 60Hz or Default. Then reboot the system and the screen will turn on. Maximum mode on 15" TFT screens is 1024x768 and maximum mode on 17" and 19" TFT is 1280x1024. Check to see if the green light is on with the external power adapter. Make sure all plugs are secure and the video cable is properly attached to the computer.
Dark screen in games:
TFT Liquid Crystal Display monitors are a unique devices that are manufactured to meet excellent picture clarity and reproduction in a native mode. Outside a native mode graphics will be darker, fine lines and text will be thicker. Native mode for 15" TFT panels is 1024x768, 17" and 19" TFT panels are 1280x1024. Most games can be configured to run at 1024x768 which should produce clean graphics.
Thick text:
As described above, TFT LCD monitors perform best in their native modes. Other modes can be used however the reproduction of text will vary in thickness depending on the mode the monitor is running in. Best text reproduction is view in the monitors native mode.
Faint or unseen text:
TFT monitors are Bright! So bright that sometimes text in a DOS program may be very faint or not seen. In order to see this text, you can reduce the contrast level down until the text is visible. TFT LCD monitors were manufactured to perform in a GUI environment such as Windows, Linux (X) and Macintosh. Older designed programs may have upgrades to enhance this effect to make the text legible.
Wavy lines on the screen:
In some instances you may encounter wavy lines on the screen. These are usually 1/4" thick and move in a vertical motion. This is caused by a noisy electrical feed from a wall outlet. If you change your vertical refresh rate under display properties to 75Hz this effect should disappear.
Small dot on screen:
TFT panels by their very nature are difficult to manufacture. KDS uses displays from various suppliers including; Samsung, Hyundai and Acer, who all guarantee the display to be 99.99% free from pixel defect. What that means is a 15" LCD display can have up to about 6-10 broken pixels and still be considered "acceptable". Broken pixels are individual pixels, which are stuck on, off, or as one particular color. Depending on their location and intensity, they can be next to invisible or obvious. This is common to ALL TFT screens and is not considered a defect by the screen manufacturer.
Dark areas:
Retail TFT LCD monitor products employ the use of a single TFT backlight. This backlight is responsible to deliver full edge to edge brightness across the screen. On some models the screen may not be as bright in the center or the edges as other areas. This is due to the design the actual panel manufacture took to keep costs down so that the TFT panel is affordable for the retail environment. Prices of TFT panels vary according to added features (TV tuner, SVIDEO etc.). They also vary according to the number of backlights that are in the panel. High-bright monitors with multiple backlights can cost upwards of $2,500.00 for a 15" panel.
About the Author
Willson Peterson is computer expert and network engineer. He is the author of and "Monitor Glossary of Terms."
http://www.ebookarticle.com to visit his website.
Plasma Television vs Lcd TV
A Plasma Television or an LCD TV Set
Which is better
by Andrew Ghigo
A Plasma HDTV or a LCD Television – Is this your dilemma? This is a rather difficult and complicated comparison between two technologies that process the image in a totally different manner.
This article highlights the pros and cons of plasma versus LCD as applicable to a television display. It also presents a set of guidelines to help you determine where either of these two flat panel display technologies fit best.
Plasma or LCD – Which type of display is right for you?
Though both LCD and plasma displays come in the form of slim flat panel displays, yet from a technology perspective, these two flat panel displays process the image in a totally different manner.
Plasma uses a matrix of tiny gas plasma cells that are charged by precise electrical voltages to emit light and hence to create the picture image. Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD) panels - work by trapping a liquid crystal solution between two sheets of polarized glass. When an electric current is passed through the liquid crystals, they change the polarization of the light passing through them in response to the electric voltage – as a result of which, more or less light is able to pass through the polarized glass on the face of the display.
It is not the scope of this article to go into the actual details of how these different display technologies process the image – after all, what really matters is not what is going behind the screen but rather how these different display technologies perform as a television screen. At the same time, it is worth taking note that it is these same differences that gives each of these display technologies, its strengths and weaknesses, and that therefore renders one more suitable than the other in certain circumstances.
The list below highlights the most important differences between these two flat panel display technologies:
Size: For the time being, collision between plasma television and LCD TV occur in the 40 to 50 inch screen range. In reality, LCD TVs top out at around 45” – meaning that for bigger screen sizes, a plasma display is your only real option if what you are after is a direct-view TV system. On the other hand, at the smaller end of spectrum, namely 15” to 36” TVs, LCD is the way to go if what you want is something stylish and slim (at under 4-inches in depth).
Picture Quality, Contrast and Color Saturation: Both plasma and the latest TFT-LCD flat panel displays are capable of producing excellent picture quality – with bright, crisp clear images.
However, plasma flat panel displays are more suitable for basic home theater usage than LCD. The gas cell structure within a plasma display is such that there is no light leaking between adjacent cells (or pixels). This renders plasma displays capable of displaying deeper blacks – hence better contrast and detail in television and movie scenes where lots of dark and light content is shown simultaneously.
In comparison, the nature of LCD technology – where a backlight shines through the LCD layer – means that it is hard for it to achieve true blacks (i.e. true absence of light) as there is always some light leakage from adjacent pixels.
This does not mean that LCD panel s are not suitable as TV screens; today’s LCD TV sets make use of extreme high contrast panels that are capable of displaying deeper blacks, yet the latest plasma TV sets still have a slight edge over LCD when it comes to contrast levels.
The situation is somewhat similar when it comes to color saturation. Again, it is the different display structure between LCD and plasma that is the reason behind the difference between the two technologies in this respect, and though both are capable of handling color in an exceptional manner, yet plasma displays still lead in this respect - producing more accurate and vibrant colors.
Viewing-angle:Plasma Television sets – like their CRT TV counterpart - typically have better viewing angles than LCD. The viewing angle represents how far one can sit on either side of the screen away from the center, without experiencing significant deterioration in picture quality – mainly as a result of color shifts and reduced contrast.
Though recent developments in LCD technology means that this is less of an issue with some of the latest LCD TV sets boosting a viewing angle of 160 to 170 degrees vertically and horizontally, yet it is always best to check. The tendency – especially with cheaper sets – is that the deterioration in picture quality is more accentuated with LCD than with plasma displays.
Burn-In: As with all phosphor-based displays, plasma displays are prone to burn-in, or image retention. Screen burn-in occurs when an image is left for too long on the screen – resulting in a ghost of the image burned on the screen. Surely, keeping the brightness and contrast levels down will help reduce the risk of burn-in.
While some brands of plasma displays are more prone than others to burn-in, yet in general, plasma screens are more prone to suffer permanent burn-in during their first 200 hours of use; the reason being that fresh phosphors burn more intensely as they are ignited.
Technically speaking, burn-in is the result of a damaged pixel, whose phosphors has been prematurely aged and therefore glows less intensely than those of surrounding pixels. The presence of a static image for more than half-an-hour is enough to cause temporary burn-in; temporary burn-in or image ghosting, should not be cause for alarm as normally this will wash out after several hours of use.
Worst still is the prolonged presentation of static displays, such as the use of black or gray bars to view a 4:3 picture in its original format on a wide screen display; this will result in a permanent burn-in. Once permanent burn-in occurs, the damaged phosphors cannot produce the same levels of light output as the other phosphors around them do.
In these circumstances, an LCD display may be a better choice.
Viewing distance: It seems that the pixel size and shape of an LCD panel renders a smoother picture than an equivalently sized plasma panel for the same pixel count.
This means that even if your viewing distance falls within the recommended distance of approximately twice the screen width, if this is less than at least nine feet, most probably you will be better off with an LCD TV.
Life-time: The rare gases used in plasma display panels have a life and will fade over use. Earlier plasma TV sets had a quoted half-lifetime of between 20,000hrs, following which the image brightness will fall to half its original value. However, the latest plasma displays can boost anything between 30,000 and 60,000 hours. On the other hand, LCD displays have a guaranteed lifetime of between 50,000hrs and 60,000 hours. This degradation in image brightness takes place gradually over time.
Now, the average household in the US replaces their TV set every 7 years. Taking a conservative figure of 30,000 hours for either technology, this corresponds to well over 6hrs usage a day - every day - for over a period of 14 years! In other words, both plasma and LCD displays are extremely stable and reliable devices. This means that life-time should not be an issue with either display technology.
At the same time, keep in mind that there is no way to re-generate the gases in a plasma display or to repair any ‘dead’ pixels in an LCD display – the only option in such circumstances will be to replace the display.
Response: Some LCD panels – especially on older generation models - had a tendency to blur images particularly during fast moving scenes in movies and sports. However, recent advancement in LCD technology means that response times are such that there is no noticeable difference in performance between LCD and plasma TV sets in this regard.
Power requirements: The advantage here goes to LCD panels as these consume less electricity. Estimates show that the use of LCD panels can result in some 30% power savings for the same screen size than plasma display.
Price: Price is always a big issue when it comes to choosing your TV display. Although prices online vary considerably, yet LCD TV sets tend to be more expensive than Plasma Televisions. The main reason behind this price gap is that the production process for plasma technology still supports a better yield and thus carries a pricing advantage – especially at the large screen end of the market.
This contrasts heavily with LCD display technology where an estimate 30 to 40 per cent of all manufactured panels will have to be discarded as a result of defects leading to what are known as 'bad-pixels'.
Making the Choice:
There is a market for both plasma and LCD displays - Plasma gives you a bigger screen for your dollar, deeper blacks, but then LCD do not suffer from burn-in and at the smaller end of the market (less than 40-inch screen size), LCD is your only way forward if you want something slim and stylish.
It is all a question of knowing what are the advantages and limitations of each with respect to your specific needs.
(c) 2004/2005 www.practical-home-theater-guide.com . All rights reserved.
About the Author
Editor & publisher of www.practical-home-theater-guide.com - a comprehensive home theater guide to home theater systems, product reviews and home theater design.
This article is an excerpt from a series of guides appearing under the Plasma Television section of the site.
LCD TelevisionThe Future's Standard in Home Theater by Mitchell Medford
LCD televisions are incredible, space-saving appliances. LCDs possess extremely thin, flat screens that can be mounted on a stant or even hung on a wall in your family or entertainment room. In the case of the latter, hanging an LCD television on a wall provides consumers with additional space in the room in which the television is placed; allowing much more space for furniture and decorating. Furthermore, many LCD televisions include the option to tilt and pivot their direction, allowing the viewer to easily adjust the screen to their preferences.
LCD (liquid crystal display) projectors usually contain three separate LCD glass panels, one each for red, green, and blue components of the image signal being fed into the projector. As light passes through the LCD panels, individual pixels ("picture elements") can be opened to allow light to pass or closed to block the light, as if each little pixel were fitted with a Venetian blind. This activity modulates the light and produces the image that is projected onto the screen.
LCDs possess a number of advantages over Plasma televisions and standard television sets. Such advantages pertain to their cost effectiveness, their space saving capabilities, and their image producing capabilities. In fact, in the future, the market is likely to see a rise in the sale of LCDs that surpasses the selling of both Plasma and standard television (SDTV) sets; such a rise in the sale of LCDs will directly parallel the increase in technology.
One benefit of LCD is that it has historically delivered better color saturation than you get from a DLP projector. That's primarily because in most single-chip DLP projectors, a clear (white) panel is included in the color wheel along with red, green, and blue in order to boost brightest or total lumen output. Though the image is brighter than it would otherwise be, this tends to reduce color saturation, making the DLP picture appear not quite as rich and vibrant.
However, some of the DLP-based home theater products now have six-segment color wheels that eliminate the white component. This contributes to a richer display of color. And even some of the newer high contrast DLP units that have a white segment in the wheel are producing better color saturation than they used to. Overall however, the best LCD projectors still have a noteworthy performance advantage in this area.
LCDs are more energy efficient as well. LCD projectors usually produce significantly higher ANSI lumen outputs than do DLPs with the same wattage lamp. In the past year, DLP machines have gotten brighter and smaller--and there are now DLP projectors rated at 2500 ANSI lumens, which is a comparatively recent development. Still, LCD competes extremely well when high light output is required. All of the portable light cannons under 20 lbs putting out 3500 to 5000 ANSI lumens are LCD projectors.
LCDs are more cost effective; this does not mean that they are less expensive than other television brands, but they are, however, money saving in the long run. Due to the fact that LCDs require less electricity to operate, the long term savings on electricity can really add up. The reason that LCD televisions are cost effective is because they do not require florescent lighting to work, and their flat shape produces less heat. Thus, if consumers are looking for a television that can save them money on their monthly electric bill, then LCD television is definitely the way to go.
LCD televisions are praised for their ability to produce sharp, crystal clear images. In fact, the crystal clear imagery produced by LCDs can be attributed to the fact that their screens are literally comprised of crystals. Every crystal either obstructs or allows light to pass through it and such lighting produces the images seen by the viewer on the screen. Furthermore, because LCD screens are flat, there is very unlikely that glare from other lights in the room will present a problem.
Directly related to the clearer pictures, is the fact that LCDs produce sharper images and consumers will experience far fewer occasions in which eye fatigue occurs. Many consumers enjoy watching television for several hours at a time; thus, the clearer images and less glare that are provided from the screens of LCDs can prove to be quite beneficial in alleviating eye fatigue.
Finally, for those individuals that are environmentally conscious, LCDs offer less radiation emission as well as a lower frequency of electromagnetic field emissions. Electronic magnetic fields have been scientifically associated with a number of health risks, including cancer.
About the Author
Mitchell Medford is a popular reviewer of consumer electronics and technology and has served as a product development consultant for several consumer electronics manufacturers. Visit his site or more information on plasma tv.
