LCD television is becoming a viable alternative to the standard CRT television set and also competes with plasma TV to find a niche in television market. As LCD technology is advancing on faster pace in recent years, LCD television sets continue to come with larger screen sizes while prices are dropping down to a level that many customers are tempted to replace their older sets with modern, sleek and stylish LCD TVs.

However, before you shop around for the best LCD flat panel television, bear in mind that there are lot many choices available in the market so it can be rather confusing when it comes to deciding on which LCD model can best suit your needs.

The rule of thumb is to look for the key features that you would like your LCD TV should have and see for yourself how it performs in these areas. Our LCD TV buying tips will provide all the facts that you need to make an informed decision

LCD television sets are so thin and much lighter, and also take much less space, so you can either install them using table or wall mounts. However, viewing distance should be considered first before you use any of these options. If you plan to buy LCD TV with 40” screen, make sure that the room provides at least a distance of 8 feet between the screen and the viewer. For larger LCD TV screens of 50” +, it requires a viewing distance between 12 and 16 feet.

If you want to use wall mount, make sure that it suits the dimensions of the wall and also there is enough ventilation and the connections are proper so it is not a bad idea if you do it with some professional help.

Native Resolution

Resolution refers to how many pixels are on the screen. Most LCD TVs come with screen/native resolution of at least 1280 x 720 pixels and some of them offer higher resolutions like 1280×768 pixels, or 1366×768 pixels. The highest possible resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels, which is ideal for larger screens and HDTV and available for much higher price tags.

Higher resolutions offer more picture details and picture looks smoother and crisp clear but a lot more depends on the video sources you are likely to use and they should match the capacities of such high end models.

Brightness levels

Although LCD Televisions look decently bright in most light conditions, make sure that your TV has a brightness level of 550 cd/m2 or more. As LCD screens do not glare off in ambient conditions, this brightness level should be sufficiently enough for most viewers to get better picture from any distance.

Contrast ratio

Contrast ratio indicates the capacity of your LCD to show variations in the white and black shades on the screen. High contrast ratios produce deep black levels and better colour reproduction so the images look much better.

There is a lot of confusion arising from the two types contrast ratios – standard and dynamic contrast ratios and you can find both when you inspect the technical details. Make sure that your LCD TV has a standard contrast ratio of 1500:1 or more.

Response Time

Also known as motion response time or screen refresh rate, this is an important feature you should consider. Some of the older LCD televisions did not have faster motion response time resulting in blurring of images while showing fast action sequence. However, the latest LCD TV sets come with better response time like 12ms (milliseconds) or 8 ms which have quite fixed up this problem.

For optimum performance, LCD TV with response time of 8 ms is the best option and it does not blur when showing sports or action movies.

Viewing Angle

LCD TV should have wider viewing angles and this helps you to watch it from the sides, but the picture quality should remain intact. In the past, LCD TV had a drawback of narrow viewing angles with colours and brightness getting faded when viewed from the wide angles. However, newer LCD screens come with improved viewing angles of 1600 +, so you can sit as far as 800 from the central axis of the screen.

Video processing

More depends on how your LCD TV processes the signal input that it receives from video sources. So, it is an important feature to consider, as its way it digitizes the video information will affect the picture quality and the performance. Good video processing unit in a LCD TV does upscaling and downscaling of video signals to fit them to the native resolution of the LCD screen much more efficiently and enhances over-all picture quality.

Sony uses its Bravia Engine Ex and Live Colour Creation Technologies to reproduce life-like picture.

(Tip: Just verify the picture quality on the screen using various input devices like DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray.)

Other features and Connections

Picture-in-Picture (PIP)

Most LCD TVs come with NTSC tuners to connect to get standard video signals while some models feature additional features like picture-in-picture (PIP). PIP feature enable the LCD screen to show more than a channel with the second image displayed in the corner of the screen.

A good home theater system requires LCD TV to provide optimum theatrical experience

High-end LCD TVs provide 3 HDMI inputs – 2 on rear and 1 on side

If you want to watch high-definition videos or HDTV broadcast, make sure that your LCD TV has HDMI socket or at least a component input. As newer LCD models should have these HDTV tuners, it is important to check out for this feature in your LCD TV

One of the most common electronic entertainment home appliances today is the television.  The use of the old cathode ray tube (CRT) television is slowly being taken over by the newer technology that uses liquid crystal display (LCD).  The CRT television is very bulky and takes up too much space in the house and the quality is inferior compared to LCD.

Aside from the fact that LCD televisions look sleek and stylish because they come in flat screens, they also greatly complement with digital technology that moves computers and the internet.  In fact, LCD television is actually the same screen used in laptops and LCD monitors in computers.

Before buying your LCD television, which costs significantly higher than CRT sets, you must consider the following:

Size
The screen size ranges from 15 to 40 inches measured diagonally. The bigger screen size you want, of course, the more you will have to pay.  Because LCD televisions are flat, many people prefer to hang them on walls like paintings so you might also consider the size of your wall if you want the TV to hang on there.

Angle viewing
This is the indicator where picture can be watched from certain angles without getting much distortion.  Manufacturers label angle viewing in terms of degrees wherein zero degrees refers to the position where the watcher is directly in the middle of the screen.  When it says 160 degrees viewing angle, it means that the television can be watched at that degree without any picture degradation.  Viewing angle is commonly quoted as horizontal but some manufacturers also specify vertical viewing angles.  Knowing about viewing angle is extremely helpful in deciding which part of the house you want to television to be placed.

Contrast Ratio
This refers to the difference between the darkest black and the brightest white of the picture on TV.  The average ratio is 500:1 but subtle gradations can be hard to get noticed by the human eye.

Aspect Ratio
This refers to the height and width of the viewing field.  There are many shows on film that are not tailored for regular TV but LCD TV sets can be set to the appropriate aspect ratio for better picture viewing.

Frequency Rate
Have you noticed that if you take a picture of a computer screen or television, you see scan lines in print?  This is because the screen or monitor is continually updating the display.  This number of updates per second is called “refresh rate”.  Older TVs having refresh rates of 50 Hz can give viewers flickering pictures.  Try to opt for LCD TVs with refresh rates above 100 Hz so you can get clearer and steadier pictures.

High Definition TV
Still related picture clarity, High Definition TV (HDTV) refers to more vertical lines, about 1080 lines compared to regular digital picture made of 576 vertical lines.  Try looking for an LCD TV that is HDTV-ready or HDTV-compatible especially if you are thinking of buying larger screens.

Sound Quality
Sound is as important as the picture in your TV viewing experience.  High end home cinema is system of usually five speakers that gives your house the sound quality as that of a real movie house.  Purchasing home cinema is usually a separate expense from the LCD TV but will definitely complement in the enjoyment of TV viewing.  Another option is the Dolby Surround Sound which is used in most TV programming broadcast.  Look for LCD TV that has Dolby Pro Logic to decode the Dolby signal from DVD of any digital TV broadcast.

Connections
Make sure that you get the right connections as many digital accessories like DVD players play stations and other VCR games need to be connected to be played.  There are also LCD TVs that provide high quality connections for better performance.

Warranty
Since LCD TVs don’t come cheap and can be complicated to tinker with by a non-technical person, it is extremely important to know the warranty terms.  Make sure that there is a service center you so that when you have a problem with your TV, you can easily get a quick fix.