As we are approaching the end of analog signal for television which will happen on the 17th of February 2009. There is no better time and excuse to get yourself an HD ready TV. But there are so many options to choose from, it can be overwhelming for some to figure out which TV to buy. Often people will end up buying something different than what they were originally looking for. So I have decided to write this guide to help those who are interested in or are planning to purchase an HD TV. I’m no professional mind you, I just want to transfer any knowledge that I’ve gathered during my research and ultimately a purchase of my first TV. Feel free to correct me!
The first thing on your list should be your budget, just like purchasing a house or a car. How much are you willing to pay for a fancy TV? I suggest buying from one of the more known and popular brands like Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung and LG. Why? These brands have been around longer than another other small brands that just popped out recently so buying known brands are safter in terms of quality and reliability. And you can justify that because, say you are spending $2000 on a new TV, most of you will be watching this same TV for at least 10 years. Therefore if you spread the money into 10 years, you are only paying $200 per year or roughly $17 a month! So when purchasing TV, or any other electronics, please try not to be TOO cheap or there will be a chance the TV will haunt you with broken this and broken that. For now, the average you can expect is somewhere around $1000 for a 37 inch.
Second on the list will be the size, this can also be factored in when you are deciding on a budget though. Size matters but that does not mean the bigger the better. Say you are living in a normal size apartment, with 20 feet or less between where you sit and the wall where you will be putting your new TV in the living room, it doesn’t make sense to purchase a 52 inch LCD or Plasma TV. With that viewing distance, chances are you won’t be enjoying watching TV because its almost the same feeling as going to theatre and watch a 3 hour movie sitting at the front row! The recommended TV size should be roughly 7 to 8 feet away from you and make sure you can view the entire TV without too much eye movement as that will just stress out your eyes by looking all over the screen.
This next item on the list can also be tied into budget and size – HD or Full HD. HD stands for high definition as most of you should know by now. HD ranges from 720p to 1080i and Full HD is 1080p which is the best quality there is in the market right now. Without going into too technical about i (interlaced) and p (progressive), I will pick 1080p as an example. 1080p means 1920 horizontal x 1080 vertical resolution in a 16:9 aspect. To simply put, you have 1080 horizontal scan lines covering each frame, so the more lines you have, the finer the image.
Aside from the size of the TV, you should also know a bit on the technical side. You should ask yourself questions like these:
- Do I watch these mostly for sports or anything with fast movement?
- Am I planning to get other electronics that are HD capable?
I think the first question isn’t as important but its good to point out. In general, HD TVs nowadays, except the newer models run in 60Hz, which is the refresh rate for displaying. So the faster it is, the smoother the transition between frames. 60Hz is the most common speed right now in the market, you can also get 120Hz with the newer models but the price will be higher, obviously. I believe 60Hz is more than enough for most people.
Second question is more critical because you should always plan ahead for the future and again the TV you will buy soon should last you roughly 10 years, there are what they are called HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) inputs. HDMI is basically the HD version of your components cable and normal AV cable (remember the yellow/white/red cables?) that can output 1080p quality. Say you have a PlayStation 3, which supports 1080p output, that will take up one HDMI input from your TV, you should think ahead of how many you need and will need. In general, having three inputs should be sufficient. Again, you should really think about this because buying an HDMI router/switch with 3-4 inputs now will cause you hundreds of dollars on top!
Last but not least, although these are not really questions to ask yourself, but rather to watch out for. Generally you want an HD TV with high contrast ratio. The bigger the contrast ratio, the greater is the difference between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks which means better display quality. But you don’t need extremely high number as you will hardly be able to notice any difference, I suggest anywhere around 10,000 to 15,000:1 ratio is more than enough, at least for now.
And finally, please pay attention to HD and Full HD TVs, HD only goes up to 1080i while Full HD supports up to 1080p. Don’t be fooled by salesmen lying to you about a Full HD TV with 720p for example.
Now that you have a budget and you know what kind of TV you want, I suggest paying an actual visit to store like BestBuy. It has tons of TVs on display so you can really compare side by side the quality of the TVs. Its really hard to just look at one and judge if its good because you have nothing to compare it with. Again I recommend buying one of the five brands I mentioned if possible. You should also consider buying a TV with at least 1080i since I still cannot find any noticeable differences between 1080i and 1080p on my own Sony Bravia 40 inch LCD (for those interested to know the model number, its KDL-40W3000), because again you won’t be buying a TV every year, it is good to invest on something better. The difference in prices is minimal these days. But try not to buy yet, I know you are now all hyped up and want that TV more than ever. But unless you know exactly what you want, I suggest you don’t rush into getting it just yet. Take some time to “digest” what you have seen in the store and be sure to take down notes for each model just in case you forget about each one’s specs.
Now you should be ready to finalize and choose which TV suits you the most in terms of style, pricing and capabilities. After reading this, I hope this guide has helped you, at least a bit, regarding how to buy an HD TV.
Special thanks to Charlie Bradley for giving me ideas for this article!
