LCD Television: The Future's Standard in Home Theater
LCD televisions are incredible, space-saving appliances. LCDs
possess extremely thin, flat screens that can be mounted on a
stant or even hung on a wall in your family or entertainment
room. In the case of the latter, hanging an LCD television on a
wall provides consumers with additional space in the room in
which the television is placed; allowing much more space for
furniture and decorating. Furthermore, many LCD televisions
include the option to tilt and pivot their direction, allowing
the viewer to easily adjust the screen to their preferences.
LCD (liquid crystal display) projectors usually contain three
separate LCD glass panels, one each for red, green, and blue
components of the image signal being fed into the projector. As
light passes through the LCD panels, individual pixels ("picture
elements") can be opened to allow light to pass or closed to
block the light, as if each little pixel were fitted with a
Venetian blind. This activity modulates the light and produces
the image that is projected onto the screen.
LCDs possess a number of advantages over Plasma televisions and
standard television sets. Such advantages pertain to their cost
effectiveness, their space saving capabilities, and their image
producing capabilities. In fact, in the future, the market is
likely to see a rise in the sale of LCDs that surpasses the
selling of both Plasma and standard television (SDTV) sets; such
a rise in the sale of LCDs will directly parallel the increase
in technology.
One benefit of LCD is that it has historically delivered better
color saturation than you get from a DLP projector. That's
primarily because in most single-chip DLP projectors, a clear
(white) panel is included in the color wheel along with red,
green, and blue in order to boost brightest or total lumen
output. Though the image is brighter than it would otherwise be,
this tends to reduce color saturation, making the DLP picture
appear not quite as rich and vibrant.
However, some of the DLP-based home theater products now have
six-segment color wheels that eliminate the white component.
This contributes to a richer display of color. And even some of
the newer high contrast DLP units that have a white segment in
the wheel are producing better color saturation than they used
to. Overall however, the best LCD projectors still have a
noteworthy performance advantage in this area.
LCDs are more energy efficient as well. LCD projectors usually
produce significantly higher ANSI lumen outputs than do DLPs
with the same wattage lamp. In the past year, DLP machines have
gotten brighter and smaller--and there are now DLP projectors
rated at 2500 ANSI lumens, which is a comparatively recent
development. Still, LCD competes extremely well when high light
output is required. All of the portable light cannons under 20
lbs putting out 3500 to 5000 ANSI lumens are LCD projectors.
LCDs are more cost effective; this does not mean that they are
less expensive than other television brands, but they are,
however, money saving in the long run. Due to the fact that LCDs
require less electricity to operate, the long term savings on
electricity can really add up. The reason that LCD televisions
are cost effective is because they do not require florescent
lighting to work, and their flat shape produces less heat. Thus,
if consumers are looking for a television that can save them
money on their monthly electric bill, then LCD television is
definitely the way to go.
LCD televisions are praised for their ability to produce sharp,
crystal clear images. In fact, the crystal clear imagery
produced by LCDs can be attributed to the fact that their
screens are literally comprised of crystals. Every crystal
either obstructs or allows light to pass through it and such
lighting produces the images seen by the viewer on the screen.
Furthermore, because LCD screens are flat, there is very
unlikely that glare from other lights in the room will present a
problem.
Directly related to the clearer pictures, is the fact that LCDs
produce sharper images and consumers will experience far fewer
occasions in which eye fatigue occurs. Many consumers enjoy
watching television for several hours at a time; thus, the
clearer images and less glare that are provided from the screens
of LCDs can prove to be quite beneficial in alleviating eye
fatigue.
Finally, for those individuals that are environmentally
conscious, LCDs offer less radiation emission as well as a lower
frequency of electromagnetic field emissions. Electronic
magnetic fields have been scientifically associated with a
number of health risks, including cancer.