SolveYourProblem HDTV Article Series
Buying a High Definition Television (HDTV)

What's The Difference Between
CRT & LCD in HDTV?

In order to explain the difference between CRT and LCD when it comes to HDTV it is important to clarify the meaning of each one of those letters (or abbreviations). Let’s begin with HDTV. HDTV stands for high-definition television and it basically means the broadcasting of television signals with a much greater attention to detail and better picture quality and sound than more traditional formats of broadcasting including NTSC, SECAM and PAL. HDTV is broadcast digitally throughout the world, with the exception of Europe and Japan which use early forms of analog broadcasting. The idea behind HDTV is to increase the percentage of the image that is seen by the human eye on the screen. In other words, widen the image to be more clearly viewed.

Television technology is broken down into standard CRT, plasma and LCD televisions. Traditionally technology dictates that a CRT (otherwise known as a Cathode Ray Tube or more simply, picture tube) is put to work in a television set. A CRT is a fair sized vacuum tube that contains an electronic beam which juts out from a single point situated in the tube’s neck. Its job is to very swiftly scan the tube’s face and by doing so this action lights up what is known as phosphors (blue, green and red ones in this case) on the surface of the tube with the express purpose of creating a visual picture or image.

LCD televisions are always flat paneled in their design and basically make use of the same technology (known as Liquid Crystal Display) that is also to be found in other electronic equipment such as computer monitors, cell phones and camcorder viewfinders. This technology is being used more and more all of the time. The panels used in LCD are constructed with two different layers and consist of a material very much like glass. The layers are polarized and also affixed together. A special polymer is used to cover one of the layers, but not both, and it is this layer that is responsible for holding the liquid crystals together that make up the LCD set. What then happens is that electric currents make their way through the individual crystals and it is the crystals alone that allow light to either pass through or block the image(s) that the television set emits. A light source external to the crystals is necessary for a LCD television to work properly as the crystals are not capable of making their own source of light. A florescent bulb is generally employed and it is the action of this bulb that allows the television watcher to see the picture on the screen.

When it comes to the question of which is better, CRT or LCD in HDTV the answer is that they both have their advantages and disadvantages and in the end it often comes down to personal choice. Let’s take a closer look.

CRT television sets require phosphors (or a picture tube) to project images and these take up room and make the set bigger and bulkier. LCD panels on the other hand employ crystals to make them work and therefore are thinner and smaller in their size and don’t require nearly as much power, which is a big plus. Radiation coming off of the screen of CRT sets is a problem whereas LCD has no radiation to speak of.

CRT technology however, also has its advantages over LCD. The biggest advantage is cost. CRT is still the cheaper of the two technologies therefore if money is a concern you can purchase a larger sized television for yourself at a fraction of the cost. CRT’s have much better and wider angles for viewing images on the screen and color clarity is much greater with a CRT set. CRT technology allows for the adjustment of many things such as brightness, contrast and hues represented on the screen which makes the image before the viewer more true to life. The greatest disadvantage of CRT is the weight and general inconvenience of the sets, in terms of bulkiness.

Other advantages of LCD screens is that they are lightweight and very easy to move from place to place and they are a great deal more energy efficient than the CRT models. Also eyestrain is reduced when watching a LCD set.

But there is a downside to LCD technology. These sets, as previously mentioned, tend to be pricey and often display colors that appear washed out and not vibrant. Blurry images are very common with LCD sets, especially when it comes to fast moving objects onscreen.

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SolveYourProblem.com : 2007

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