Well that is the question that many consumers as themselves. I am making a large purchase, do I want to get a wide screen or a traditional aspect screen. Here are a few things to consider when choosing to buy a widescreen HDTV, a traditional aspect HDTV or regular TV.
Older Analog TVs versus HDTV. Older era televisions are analog televisions unless they have a digital receiver built into them. In February 2009, all television broadcast stations will be required to broadcast in digital. This means analog televisions without digital tuners will be unusable unless they are hooked up to satellite or cable. These are not a good choice to buy. Move along down the row to HD enabled televisions. Luckily enough, all television equipment sold after May 25, 2007 must either contain a digital tuner or be identified at the point of sale as not having one.
LCD or Plasma. HDTV comes in multiple types that can vastly affect price. The liquid crystal display (LCD) type of HDTV dominates the consumer market in small-size to mid-size and is typically cheaper. Plasma television models dominate the consumer market in large-size models. This consideration is generally not an issue when deciding between a wide screen and a traditional aspect. What is a consideration is life expectancy and cost. A widescreen has more visual area that can “burn out. ”
Flat Panel Television versus Rear/Front Projection Television. HDTV designs that are plasma or LCD are generally found in the flat panel design. However, you can still find rear projection and front projection HDTVs sold for home theatre systems. In general a wide-screen version will add considerably to the requirements for room size, the total shelf weight and moving restrictions are your overall consideration when making this selection. Unless you have a dedicated home theatre room and plan on never moving again, it’s generally suggested to stay away from Rear or Front Projection wide-screen television.
Widescreen for TV Broadcasts and Movies. Over 90 percent of all broadcasts are in traditional aspect. Most are not in widescreen formatting or have been pre-formatted coming from the broadcaster to fit traditional aspects. If you mostly watch regular television broadcasts and do not routinely use a service provider that has widescreen broadcasts or movies using widescreen aspects, then widescreen is not for you.
Using your Widescreen for Gaming. The beauty of current of having a widescreen for computer gaming is the ability to use the split screen option on many different games without feeling crushed. This is especially true on many First Person Shooter games. If you are an avid gamer, a widescreen HDTV will only enhance your game experience.
Using your HDTV for Work. Here is another example of where the widescreen really can assist the consumer. Some HDTVs are enabled to accept input from computers and can be used as a monitor for your work. You can often get two or three documents on your desktop and view them much easier with a widescreen than on a traditional aspect. If you use your HDTV as both a television and monitor, here is where it can pay off in many ways.
For most consumers, the widescreen HDTVs are the way to go with very little drawback. Unless you are only watching sitcoms or are setting up a home theatre in a small confined space, they are the most versatile aspect. You can watch both traditional aspect and get the full widescreen aspect on the same set of equipment. They are more useful than traditional aspect HDTVs as they can provide additional workspace and even a greater gaming experience.

Plasma TVs are one of this year’s hottest electronic products. Here’s a FAQ that explains what a plasma TV is and where you can get one at the lowest price. What is plasma TV?

A plasma TV is a television with a screen that’s composed of hundreds-of-thousands of tiny gas-filled, colored cells. When electricity passes through the cells they light up and produce a TV picture. What are the benefits of plasma TV?

The benefits of plasma TV are:

* Lifelike picture - Plasma TVs produce a picture that’s so realistic you think you’re watching a scene through a window.

* Slim design - Plasma TVs can be placed virtually anywhere in a room and can even be hung on a wall.

* Flat screen - Plasma TVs have a flat screen so there’s none of the distortion you get with curved screen TVs.

* Large size - Plasma TVs are available in sizes ranging from 37″ up to 84. “

* Widescreen design - Plasma TVs are made in widescreen format so they’re compatible with widescreen DVDs and HDTV.

* Side-angle viewing - Unlike projection TVs, plasma TVs can be watched from any angle without the picture fading.

* Multi-broadcastf formats - Plasma TVs are compatible with HDTV, DTV, XGA, SVGA, and VGA broadcast signals. How long do plasma TVs last?

Older plasma TVs had a screen life of 30,000 hours or less. The newer plasma TVs have a screen life of 60,000 hours. Where can I get a plasma TV at a cheap price?

My advice is to take a trip to your local electronics store or discount store so you can check out plasma TVs in person. Then, when you find a model you like, go online and check out prices at a comparison shopping website. These sites give you prices from various retailers for anything you can think of.

The comparison site I use gives me prices from both online and offline retailers. It also gives me expert product reviews, reviews by consumers who own the products, and even reviews of the stores that carry the products so I know if the store I’m dealing with is reputable and will give me good service.

I recently purchased a flat screen TV through one of the retailers I found on this site that was $150 cheaper than the same TV I found at my local Wal-Mart. I also saved $85 on taxes (you don’t have to pay sales tax on online sites that don’t have a store in your state), and the shipping was free.

I’ve saved thousands of dollars on big-ticket items I’ve purchased online and, thanks to this site’s store ratings, have never had a problem.

Visit the http://TheSatelliteTVGuide. com to get more information, to compare prices, and to get consumer ratings for plasma TVs or LCD TVs.

The author, Brian Stevens, is the senior editor for TheSatelliteTVGuide. com and has written extensively on plasma TVs.

HDTVs have changed the face of television viewing. The HV’s possess a screen, which can match the size of projectors, and movie screens. And not just that, but they also include crystal clear pictures and Dolby Digital 5. 1 stereophonic sounds, apart from the mammoth flat and wide screen. The types of HDTV’s are also varied, ranging from CRT and DLP to LCD and Plasma HDTV. A large number of leading TV manufacturers have also produced many interesting models. Many competitors like Samsung, Sony and Pioneer continue to one up each other with amazing picture quality and sleek design.
Being the number one electronics manufacturer in the world, Samsung has managed to gain a lot of market share and also become the official HDTV of the NFL. HDTV being a drastic launch from the ordinary television sets, they are seen as quite beyond the reach of the usual customer. But makers are trying to downscale the prices to accommodate everyone. The rear-projection TV (RPTV) is made with such an aim. These models are based on DLP technologies as developed by Texas Instruments. The particular model mentioned above includes TI’s latest chip designed on the lines of DLP, yielding better pictures at the same time. This model is one of the very first to use the new HD3 . 55-inch micro-display of TI. It has a reduced chip size and a resultant cheaper cost of the chip. Large manufacturers takes into account four factors to determine the standard of the display performance which are contrast ratio, grayscale linearity, RGB color response and color temperature linearity. These factors significantly help towards ensuring that the display is able to distinguish between the subtleties in colors.
If you are an impule shopper or hate spending hours researching TV’s, sticking to a brand name manufacturer is probably your best bet. If you are a more picky shopper, you will want to visit various HDTV review websites to determine which one will be best for your home. You can choose between rear projection (which is usually cheaper) or you can go all out for a LCD or Plasma flat panel which will cost you more but typically have a better picture.
Although the picture of a rear projection HDTV isn’t quite as impressive, you may notice that you can save hundreds or thousands of dollars for the same size TV over a LCD or Plasma flat panel. For the average TV watcher, a rear projection is usually leaps and bounds above your old CRT monitor.

Here’s the list of some common mistakes for buyers and owners of HDTV sets.    Keep chemicals away from TV, ammonia in Windex can damage coatings. Liquids sprayed on the screen can seep in between the bezel and panel and cause all kinds of problems. Best to use a damp cloth preferably not wood-based paper products like newspaper or paper towels which can create tiny scratches. Andy’s Screen Cleaner: If you want to save some money on expensive “glorified water,” mix equal parts distilled water and 99% isopropyl alcohol and use it to clean your screens and other electronic devices. *Note, some claim that even a weak alcohol solution can hurt your screen. Don’t buy a Plasma TV if you’re going to be watching it in a brightly lit room with a lot of windows. Unlike LCD TVs plasma TVs have thick glass panels which can create lots of glare. On the other hand, don’t be afraid of Plasma “burn-in” which was a more common problem on older Plasma TVs . Most of today’s Plasma TVs  have circuitry to prevent burn-in or ghosting.   Don’t pay too much attention to those formulas that use room size to determine screen size. Buy the biggest TV that fits with your furnishing. Also keep in mind if you don’t have an upconverting receiver or upconverting DVD player, a lot of programming that comes from DVDs and standard def programming shows up on your screen with big black borders around it so a bigger TV might be better if you’re going to be watching a lot of standard def programming. Don’t turn down a great deal on a 1080i TV. Even though we recommend buying a future-proofed 1080p TV, Bruce Berkoff of the LCDTV Association points out that it is difficult to tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p on a set capable of displaying all the pixels. He adds, “If a TV is rated at 1920 x 1080 resolution it shouldn’t matter if the program is in 1080i or 1080p. ” Currently none of the programming coming in over the air, on cable, or satellite is 1080p. More so, you can’t really tell the difference on anything smaller than a 37 inch TV or if you sit far enough away from a larger set.   Don’t leave the brightness up too high. Many TVs ship with the brightness setting 21 in “showroom” mode. In a normally lit living room a lower brightness level is perfectly adequate and saves energy too. If you want to get the most out of your HDTV set, you should consider having it calibrated by an expert like someone from Geek Squad or do it yourself with a DVD like Digital Video Essentials. Don’t get fooled into buying expensive add-ons from the salesperson at your local big box retailer. Most HDMI cables work just fine for most programming. The one reason to spend the extra money is for a high speed (Category 2) capable cable used for “Deep Color,” and lossless audio.   Pay Attention to Audio. You may think the sound on your TV is just fine but if you haven’t heard 5. 1 (or more) surround sound on a quality audio system you haven’t experienced HDTV. Some things to keep in mind when shopping for an audio system are; be cautious when buying speakers from a brand not necessarily known for speakers like some major consumer electronics brands (you know who they are), make sure you listen to the speakers before buying them, don’t hide the speakers in furniture, and make sure the receiver has enough ports for future expansion. Now that you have some general idea of what to look for and what to avoid, the last step in finding the perfect TV set for your home is to read reviews.  

Buying your HDTV can lead to confusion and most find it an intimidating experience. However you can make the process easier by breaking it down into smaller parts such as checking the budget ranges, size of screen, style and considering special uses and options available. Budget RangeThe very first thing you need to consider is of course the budget range. In regards to this you will need to look for HDTV of a particular screen size, display type, quality of picture and the name of the brand. We recommend you to read various reviews of individual HDTV’s, though for less than five hundred dollars, you should be able to pick up a twenty inch set with HD-ready. In case you are considering spending somewhere between five hundred and one thousand dollars, you can go for a thirty-two inch set with integrated tuner. A forty-six inch HDTV is available in the range of one thousand to two thousand dollars. For higher budgets beyond two thousand dollars, the market offers a fifty-two inch LCD, sixty inch Plasma and seventy-five inch DLP HDTV. Though most dealers are ready to offer discounts on the above prices, you may have to settle for the previous year’s model. This is merely because HDTV technology is continuously getting improved and the old sets are available at lower prices. Another important aspect to purchasing your HDTV is the screen size, which is not like what you were used to with CRT TVs and the biggest size was the most desirable. With so many extra large screen sizes becoming available in HDTV’s today, you risk being too close to the screen. It thus involves you having to move your eyes from one end of the screen to the other. This causes a dizzying effect on the viewer, most often resulting in headaches. So it is advisable to buy a HDTV which matches well with the size of your room. The thumb rule for selection is to seat at a distance of two to four times the diagonal measurement of your screen. Which means that for a twenty-four inch set, the proper distance to view from would be between four and eight feet. Another aspect of HDTV sets is that they are available as LCD, Plasma and DLP. A LCD means Liquid Crystal Display which is more or less the same as found on computer monitors. On the other hand, Plasma sets are those with glass screens unlike the plastic which are used in LCDs. Plasma sets are sure to provide better quality of picture, especially when viewed from an angle, though the screen glare is also more