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.
# # # # #
SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
> Home
> HDTV Articles:
Main Page
|
