Why buy a new television?

Manufacturers have significantly improved the picture and sound quality of televisions, in addition to making TV's slimmer.

Secondly, using digital technology, TV programmes are able to offer home audiences interactivity such as replay and selecting another camera angle when viewing a programme. This functionality is not available to viewers without either a digital TV or digital decoder to receive the signals.

Thirdly, the current analogue method of transmitting TV signals will be suspended and will be replaced with digital transmission in the next 5 to 8 years. The Government's target is between 2007-2010.

 

The Future

The television is becoming the control panel to access a diverse, and increasing, range of services.

TVs and digital boxes will continue to provide Internet access enabling web surfing and email dispatch. Interactive services, such as home shopping and banking, will increase, and in the future, TV sets may well feature a hard disk (like the PC) which, coupled with an intelligent programming guide, will become an alternative to the Video Cassette Recorder (VCR).

Different types of TV screens & image projection

Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) - Standard televisions

• constructs on-screen images
• used in standard TVs

Rear projection televisions

• very large screen
• much thinner than conventional CRT sets
• red, green and blue colours in images are projected on to a mirror which reflects picture on to rear of screen.
• pictures are not as sharp (in general) as conventional CRT sets

Plasma screen TVs

• larger flat panel TV (from 81cm or 32" plus)
• one of the most recent developments in TV technology
• a gas plasma system constructs images onto screen
• ultra thin screen
• designed to be hung on a wall (like a picture frame)
• extremely expensive.

LCD Screens (Liquid Crystal Display)

• small flat panel TVs (upto 76cm or 30")
• LCD technology delivers on-screen images
• small screens
• expensive

Widescreen televisions

The term widescreen means that the screen is the wider ratio of 16:9, rather that the 4:3 format used by traditional.

Although programmes in 4 x 3 format normally only fill two-thirds of a widescreen TV, manufacturers have devised a 'Panorama' feature, which enables complete viewing of these and other formats (TV and DVD). Most sets also have zoom modes to enlarge the image to fill the screen, and also to remove the black bars that can appear at the top and bottom of the screen.

Look for the following features when considering a widescreen TV:

• Digital zoom to select the preferred viewing format.
• Formats typically include Widescreen (4:3) and Panoramic (which stretch a 4:3 picture to fill a 16:9 screen)
• Flicker-free technology (100Htz) scans at double the usual rate to reduce the picture flicker
• Digital comb filters reduce cross-colour distortion, resulting in a cleaner image.
• Split-screen Teletext ie display split between text pages and TV.

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