Buying guide LCD TV

We are living in a crazy world: When having to decide which LCD TV to choose, many customers just compare some technical parameters like

• brightness
• contrast
• response time
• viewing angle

For some, size and design also play a role – or good test results in magazines.

My point of view: It is wrong to judge a TV set onyl using above four parameters.

Why is this wrong? Let me give one example: When having to decide next car, you never only have a look at the engine's performance. It is important, but overall performance, comfort, security and other things also count.

What does this mean for LCD TV? Above values characterize the LCD panel used in the TV set. Lets compare it to the car's engine. It does not respect one more important part in the TV set: The video driver chipset.

A LCD TV set has two main components who are responsible for the picture quality you can see: The panel and the driving chipset. In my opinion, this chipset has more influence to the quality you can see than the panel. If you only compare the four mentioned parameters, you just compare the LCD panels.

How to find out which product fits my needs? Well, basically this is an easy task: Analyze, which signal sources are most important for you. Is it TV signal generated from TV itself? Is it SCART interface? Or HDMI? Compare the picture quality of the TV sets which are in your scope already using the signal inputs most important for you. Do not look at color saturation, contrast or other things. These can be adjusted (maybe you can do when comparing at your dealer). Some things cannot be adjusted, because they show technical limitations of the TV set:

- look at color transitions, e.g. when there is transition from bright blue to dark blue in picture (good to see in still image)
- look at diagonal lines or round shapes. Are they really round (or a diagonal line) or do you see more steps than in other LCD TV?
- look at scrolling text as it is shown on cnn news
- look at small details in moving image: Is it sharp, or is it getting blurry during motion?

Doing this, you have a much better way doing the right decision for yourself than just comparing brightness etc. or just relying on magazine test results. The criteria of the editorials staff may be significantly different from the things important to yourself.

In case I find the time, I will try to explain some more technical details on LCD TV in other posts later.