Television Answers

It's really hard to say what the best TV is these days. With plasma and LCD TVs coming out left and right, capable of High Definition TV and EDTV, it's dizzying trying to keep up with the advances. Every company claims that they have the best TV, and I'm finding it pretty hard to tell the difference. Since I'm in the market for a new television, I've been looking into it, and here's what I think so far.

Plasma technology is in my opinion the most advanced technology on the market as of today. However, I'm not really sure plasma TVs are the best TVs. First of all, they are riddled with all sorts of technical issues from what I've been able to determine. Of course, the people who make them don't really want you to know that, but from everything I've been reading and hearing, they have a maximum life expectancy of maybe 5 years tops. Sure, they are probably the best TVs out there when it comes to picture quality, but you have to weigh it against their still exorbitant price tag, and low lifespan. They are pretty sweet though, and when I see one in a store I can't help but drool just a little!

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) television sets are almost as good with respect to quality, in my humble opinion. Maybe not the best TVs available, but they may just be the best combination of luxury and affordability. Of course, they are still fairly expensive, especially when you start getting into the 30-plus inch sizes, but their price tags are dropping. It looks to me that LCD technology in general is going to be a sort of standard in the near future, both with televisions and monitors. For this reason, I suspect that many of the best TVs will in fact be made with LCD technology, even if it's not the most state of the art concept we have available to us.

Then of course there's the good old Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TV. These are clearly not the best TVs with respect to the quality of the image, but they work great, are tried and tested, and always very affordable compared to their more advanced cousins. The money you save on going with CRT TV may allow you to get a much larger TV. Sure, it'll be clunky and a pain in the posterior to move, but bigger is better, right?

After all is said and done, it's impossible to say what the best TV is. The best TV is the one that meets yours needs better than any other, so it really depends on what your needs are.

Trying to find a good yet cheap television today can be tricky. With all the new technologies available, it seems like most new TVs out there you have to put a down payment on, take out a loan, and possible put a mortgage or two on any property you own just to take the thing home. Does anyone even sell cheap televisions anymore, or are they all technological marvels destined to drive you into the poor home?

Fortunately, the older CRT technology is still available and still popular. Actually, the advent of the newer technologies makes this a good time to get a cheap television that actually is quite decent. If you are looking for a cheap television you'll be pretty much limited to the CRT type, but the prices on these have dropped significantly in response to the newer types, like plasma screens and LCD TVs. For what you would pay for a LCD or plasma TV you can get a much bigger CRT TV. And CRT TV's aren't bad at all, they represent a technology that has been mastered, even if it is obsolete.

Even if you already own or are going to buy a plasma screen or LCD TV, it's always nice to have a cheap TV or two on hand as well. You can lug them around, put them in high risk areas (such as on your work bench), and generally treat them like crap without worrying too much about it. As great as it would be to have a state of the art 70 inch plasma beast, I think I'd be terrified of damaging it somehow, and would almost be afraid to turn the thing on.

So as of 2007, the best cheap televisions you're going to find are going to be CRTs. They're bulky and a pain in the behind to move around, but there's tons of different types to choose from and they're generally extremely reliable. Keep your eyes on the price of LCD TVs however. It's been dropping steadily recently, and pretty soon will be in line with their CRT counterparts. Then you'll be able to have a cheap TV that is also state of the art.

The question you have to ask yourself is how important is television to you? If you find yourself watching a lot of TV, love sports games, video games, videos, and or all of the above, it may be worth splurging a little for a bigger or higher quality TV. If you spend an hour or less a day watching television, you probably will be fine with a cheap TV.

About twelve years ago we bought a 29" television. We were newly married and our TV was our pride and joy and served us very well over the years and to this day. However, recently we've come to realize just how outdated our television has become, in functionality, features and especially size!

A couple of months ago, my sister's boyfriend when out and bought a 50" lcd television. You want to talk about a big TV - this mammoth dwarfed our modest television in size! He planned to keep the TV at my sister's new place, since they do most of their movie watching there anyway. However, somehow my sister wasn't overly impressed. When she heard how much he paid, and had a chance to watch a couple of movies on this monster, she found that the difference in picture quality and sheer size, made little difference to her enjoyment.

After much discussion, that big TV was sent back to the store in favor of a much smaller, economical model. My sister is completely happy with her reasonably sized television and with the surround sound system that they opted for instead.

My parents also recently purchased a 42" Sony TV with plasma screen. It drove my mother crazy to have that big TV sitting out plain view for all to see. She has some strange 1950's mentality that it's somehow inappropriate for one to "show off" their TV set. She insisted that my father purchase a new model that would sit flush with the edge of their wall unit, and that could be enclosed behind doors of some fashion, when not in use.

My dad somehow thought that using a bamboo blind to conceal this big TV would make a great fashion statement, and he spent three days rigging up this oddity. Now when people come to visit they can be driven to distraction trying to figure out what on earth is hidden behind that blind - AND wonder why my mother would allow a makeshift blind contraption to be the focal point of her living room.

In any case, my father is happy. This is one time when he actually benefitted by one of my mother's whims, wacky bamboo blind or not.

As for us, while we do long for a brand new sleek, flat screen, big TV, we have decided for the technology to become more stable and the prices to level out. While it is much more exciting to jump on the bandwagon and purchase the latest and greatest television system, we've learned to be more practical and put first things first. Hey, we can always visit my sister or parents and watch the big TV at their house!

Downloading television programs is basically the same as downloading other kinds of files. You first need to find a website that contains links to TV shows online, and then you have to make sure that you have some kind of file-sharing client that will allow you to access the files (often called "torrents" after the name of one of the most popular clients out there). Television program files contain both audio and video components, so they are much larger than music files. As a result, it can often take several hours to download a single file, unless you have a broadband connection.

There are a couple of different ways you can watch the files you've downloaded. First, the most common way to watch TV shows online is to simply view the downloaded file in a media player. You probably already have a media player on your computer; if you don't, there are several different ones that are available for free. You just have to run a search and choose the one that you think will suit you the best. You'll also have to download the appropriate codecs so that you can both see the video and hear the audio of the television program files. Again, a few minutes spent with your favorite search engine can point you in the right direction as far as codecs go.

If you're a bit more comfortable around your computer and know what you're doing, there's another way to watch TV shows online. If you have a cd burner and recordable discs, you can actually burn the MPEG file to a CD-ROM (thus creating a VCD), which you can watch on your regular DVD player. You should be aware that this extra step takes much longer and that not all DVD players are capable of handling VCDs. But the end result is definitely worth it, so give VCDs a shot.

Even though most television programs are available for free to anyone who owns a TV set, it's also helpful to know where you can find TV shows to watch online. That way, you'll know exactly where to go if you happen to miss an episode of your favorite program or if you suddenly find yourself in a position where you don't have access to regular television options.

When I was a kid we had three television stations - you know the ones... We had to get up and click on the dial, there were no remotes way back then. We had a dial that we spun like a coveted safe dial, waiting for just the right click to tune us into a clear enough picture to watch.

We had the television stations that you could click on, sure, but you would get a big black line about a third of the width of the screen (no HD) that went down the center of the picture like a censor's marker might. (We lived in wooded and semi-mountainous terrain where it was better for skiers than it was for TV addicts.)

Skiers got only a bit more "snow" than we who wanted to stay inside with cocoa or fudge and "The Brady Bunch." The grainy quality of the television stations we did get was nearly enough to force a weakening of eyesight and a subsequent trip to the optometrist for glasses we didn't need, save to watch TV.

"If I am done complaining, could I get on with the television stations of today and the offerings each makes?" Where does a TV lover begin? Yes, ABC, CBS, and NBC are still kicking butt, only changing to their logos slightly and their focus slightly more. They still broadcast way too many news hours for my liking. But click down to the Fox network and you have "Seinfeld" re-runs and "American Idol" and all those other reality shows.

Speaking of reality TV shows, I suggest for the real TV fan that you move to the television stations that at first were riding on others' coattails but have made a slot for themselves: The WB, a Warner Brothers conglomeration, seems to target and provide a place for the black population - often neglected on other major television stations save the occasional "Cosby" or "Bernie Mac" if you are lucky.

CBS has the longstanding "Big Brother" television show, the award-winning "Survivor," and the top reality TV show, "The Amazing Race." NBC has the great new "Beauty and the Geek," and ABC has "The Bachelor".

But now that we have hundreds more than three television stations from which to plan our days and nights, though we pay more, we have access to Reality TV stations, Soap Opera stations, and of course, hundreds of sports stations and specialty channels.

If you've been shopping around for a television set in the recent past, chances are that you've been astounded by the wide array of television sets available. I'm not referring to the number of manufacturers. Most state of the art television sets today come from the Asian region, from companies in China, Korea and Japan. What I am referring to is the new technologies that are available. If on the one hand there are still cathode ray tube conventional televisions, on the other hand, there are innovative display systems like liquid crystal display televisions and even what are known as plasma televisions.

In the tried and tested conventional televisions that most of us have grown up with, the technology used is known as the cathode ray tube technology.
Being built of glass, the screen of the cathode ray tube or conventional television has a size limitation. Most conventional televisions which use the crt technology are less than 42 inches in size. This size is not the height or width of the television, but the diagonal distance between one corner and the other. So, the biggest conventional television you can have is around 42 inches. Conventional televisions are bulky, restricted in image size and confined to the limitations of the box they are built in. This makes them big, and in some cases impossible to fit into your living room.

This is where newer display technologies have resulted in better, modern televisions like the plasma television. In a plasma television, the older cathode ray tube technology is left behind in favor of an atomic technology. Our ability to manipulate and control the behavior of atomic particles has also enables us to enhance our viewing experience. This is the technology that a plasma television uses. A plasma is a gas that contains freely flowing ions and electrons. When an electric charge is passed through this plasma, photons are released, which then provide illumination. The rest of the technology in plasma televisions is concentrated on using this illumination to create the three primary colors and to display them as images. Just as the cathode ray tube televisions use different intensities of particles to produce differing colors, the plasma television also varies the intensity of the illumination to produce color changes. Which is why, while using a plasma television, more numbers of colors can be seen.

A flat lcd tv is a great purchase because of the low profile and spacial efficiency, but not that alone. A flat lcd tv is also great because it offers the highest resolution of any tv, and also because it has low glare, almost no glare at all. This is because the flat profile of a flat lcd tv means that, unlike a normal curved tv screen, which catches light from any direction and sends it to you in the form of glare, a flat lcd tv is only vulnerable to light disturbances from a particular direction, kind of like a mirror, and unless there is a powerful light source there right in that specific spot, the flat LCD tv will not reflect it back at you.

The reason it can have a flat screen is because a flat lcd tv does not have a cathode ray tube like a normal tv. A cathode ray tube (crt) is basically a gun that shoots out electrons at high speed at the surface of a normal tv. These electrons strike a surface that flouresces, or glows, giving you a pixel on the screen. This means that a crt tv has to have a curved screen and enough depth to position an electron gun behind it to shoot the image out of the tv. A flat lcd tv, however, because it doesn't have a crt tube, but instead a light source with polarizing filters and a thin layer of liquid crystals between, can be very thin and efficient.

It also uses less power by far than a normal tv, so although initially a flat lcd tv will cost more than a normal tv, eventually, that flat lcd tv will actually save you money by cutting down on your electricity bill. But the best thing about a flat lcd tv is the clarity of the image. Because there is no distortion from the curved screen that normal tvs have, you will simply never see a clearer image than on a flat lcd tv. Additionally, flat lcd tvs have better resolution than most normal tvs and clearer defined boundaries. This will make some difference in watching normal tv programs, but is most noticeable when you look at dvd movies, which are at a higher resolution than normal tv programs. If you are a movie fan like I am, flat lcd televison is the way to go without a doubt!

Whether you prefer them separate or enjoy a TV/DVD combo, you have many to choose from. There are definite advantages to purchasing a TV DVD combo - one being the space they save. You no longer have to bother with two separate units. The DVD option is built right into the television. This feature is rather ideal for those trying to preserve space. You don't have to worry about size, because TV DVD combos come in a range of screen sizes. You can even get those nice widescreens with a DVD feature added to the set. Talk about your complete packages.

I first encountered the TV DVD combo when browsing through Sears. I wanted a TV for our bedroom, but my wife didn't want it to be too overbearing. In addition, we both wanted to be able to watch DVDs. The result was a 13 inch TV DVD combo. These are not expensive anymore. They, like everything else, have dropped in price since time has passed. Now we enjoy DVDs without the hassle of the DVD player. You get the two-in-one remote control, which does it all. It's a perfect collaboration.

When I first tossed out the idea of the TV DVD combo to my father, he said, "But what if one breaks? That means they both don't work. Then what?" I had to roll my eyes. Come on, what if anything breaks? You end up fixing it or buying a new one. The fact is we've had ours for years and never had a problem with it. The sound and picture are great and the DVDs never skip. What else can one ask for? If you're interested in purchasing a TV DVD combo, the best place to do some comparing and browsing is online. You can get an idea of price and size. Best Buy is also a great place to check when in the market for electronics such as TV DVD combos. This way you can get a look in person.