Plasma TV Features Tips
Read these 12 Plasma TV Features Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Plasma TV tips and hundreds of other topics.
Speakers and Plasma Screen Televisions
Very few plasma screen televisions come with built in speakers. Some, however, are constructed with built in amplifiers on the sides that work with attachable speakers. These amplifiers are usually small (7 or 8 watts) but they do produce respectable sound. Owners of plasma screen televisions without built in amplifiers, or those who wish to have greater sound quality, still have many attractive options. The easiest is to connect the television to the receiver of a home theater system. This allows for the highest audio quality output possible.
Brightness of Plasma Screen Televisions
While LCD televisions and some high-end CRT televisions can be very bright, they do not approach the quality of brightness found in plasma screen televisions. Plasma screen televisions are capable of displaying picture brightness that is perfectly uniform. Often, screens of lesser quality have “hot spots” or areas that are too bright. The images of many televisions often darken at the corners with age. Both distortions can make the images on screen look unnatural. The transistors within a plasma screen television illuminate all of the screens pixels equally, creating an evenly bright picture.
Plasma Screen Televisions and Scan Lines
When a standard CRT creates an image, a beam of electrons moves across the back of the screen, scanning an image on to phosphors. These leaves scan lines in the images, which can be visible, especially on older televisions. Plasma screen televisions do not rely on phosphors or electron beams. Plasma screen televisions have transistor electrodes for every single pixel on the screen. These transistors eliminate the presence of scan lines, creating higher picture quality.
Screen Shape of Plasma Screen Televisions
Standard CRT televisions have a curved screen, which causes a slight distortion of images at the edges. CRT television screens are also often subject to problems cause by glare. Plasma screen televisions are perfectly flat, allowing for a uniform image with no edge distortion. The flat surface of a plasma screen television also allows for greater viewing angles than normal televisions. Coating the plasma screen with a thin layer of plexiglass often alleviates the problem of screen glare.
Color Levels of Plasma Screen Televisions
The colors present in plasma screen televisions far surpass the color capabilities of normal CRT televisions. This powerful imaging capability makes a plasma screen television a stunning entertainment piece for the homeowner and a useful tool for photo and video professionals. A plasma screen television of exceptional quality is capable of producing up to 16.77 million colors. The televisions are also able to show more subtle variations in color, producing a more lifelike picture. The color saturation of images on plasma screen televisions is much greater than that of the average television, making the picture especially vivid.
The Importance of Size in Plasma Screen Televisions
Plasma screen televisions are built to provide the largest image while saving the most space. The units themselves are only a few inches thick, yet capable of displaying images of over 60 inches. The standard depth is about 3.5 inches for screens around 40 inches, and 4 inches for screens greater than 50 inches. The housing of the plasma screen television is barely larger than the screen itself, making the plasma screen look less like a television and more like a framed picture. This makes the plasma screen an entirely different aesthetic television experience. Due to the size of plasma screen televisions home users and business professionals alike are able to place a television screen within spaces that no television could fit in before.
Plasma Screen Televisions and DTV Technology
Buying a plasma screen television allows you to take advantage of DTV technology. Soon, all methods of broadcast, recording, and display will rely on digital standards. Buying a plasma screen television insures that your home theatre will be compatible with future television standards. Plasma screen televisions are also able to take advantage of computer video and reception. They can flawlessly display digital video from DVDs, digital video tapes, and digitally recorded video.
Wide Viewing Angles of Plasma Screen Televisions
Plasma screen televisions have a wider viewing angle than the standard CRT television. Most plasma screen televisions give viewers 160 degrees of viewing angle, from top to bottom and left to right. This wide viewing angle is even better than that of LCD television displays. The 160 degree viewing angle of wide screen televisions allows for greater flexibility of screen placement within a room. Plasma screen televisions used in home entertainment centers will all viewers to see more comfortably from a wider area, and those used in professional settings will allow greater utilization of space.
Plasma Screen Televisions and Older Aspect Ratios
You may be worried that images formatted in the standard 4:3 aspect ratio may be incompatible with the 16:9 aspect ratio of plasma screen television. Luckily, plasma screen televisions have two primary ways of dealing with this incongruity. In the first case, plasma screen televisions are capable of displaying the whole of a 4:3 image on screen, with black or grey bars on the sides compensating for the unused image space. Plasma screen televisions can also display a 4:3 aspect ration image on the whole screen by stretching the image. The plasma screen television does this by enlarging the whole image and limiting the stretching to the image's side, minimizing distortion and rendering the 4:3 picture on the full screen.
Widescreen on Plasma Screen Televisions
Plasma screen televisions are capable of displaying images in their natural aspect ration. Currently, all films shown in theatres are displayed at a 16:9 or “widescreen” aspect ration. This aspect ratio is also used in standard DVD formats and HDTV. Images from satellite TV, VCRs, and cable television are shown with a 4:3 or “full screen” aspect ratio. This often creates distortion, often called “pan and scan” when watching movies on regular CRT televisions. Plasma screen televisions circumvent this problem by having a default widescreen display, allowing viewers to see DVD movies and HDTV in their natural formats.
Professional Video and Plasma Screen Televisions
Plasma screen televisions are cable of displaying images of very high resolution, producing pictures of incredible quality. Because the images are of such high resolution, a plasma screen television is ideal for people who work within the video, digital filmmaking, and digital photography industries. Plasma screen televisions can display standard DTV and HDTV signals and are also capable of displaying XGA, SVGA, and VGA computer formats. This means that your plasma screen television's use can extend beyond that of the home theatre system. It can also be used to display signals from your home computer, or to display images from a digital photography collection.
Video Formats and Plasma Screen Televisions
Right now, plasma screen televisions provide users with the greatest amount of compatibility across multiple video formats. They can display video using standard coaxial video input and the digital S-video input used by digital video recorders and DVD players. Plasma screen televisions also accept video signals from most computer systems. Plasma screen televisions are especially useful for professionals who work with multiple video formats. Most screens can display signals based on NTSC, PAL, SECAM, RCA, and BNC.
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| Linda Handiak |
