Welcome to www.WhatTVs.com
Our aim is to answer all your questions about TVs. All the technical words regarding TV and TV specs will be explained in detail. We aim to be your Flat Screen TV buying Guide or a TV Wiki.
Televisions can display a picture on the screen using three different types of technologies. They are CRT or 'Cathode Ray Tube'; LCD or 'Liquid Crystal Display'; and 'Plasma' Television. The term LED or 'Light Emitting Diode' refers to the back lighting system in a Television. An LED TV is simply an LCD TV with LED backlights instead of the usual CFL lights. 3D TV is an LCD, LED or Plasma TV which has the additional capability to play double images, one for the left eye and the other for the right eye. When these double images are watched with special glasses, our left and right eyes see different images and we feel we are seeing a 3D scene.
What are Smart TVs
Smart TVs are simply any TV which can be connected to the internet and come with inbuilt Apps like Social networking Apps Facebook and Twitter, Streaming Movie Apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Pandora, other Apps like Photo Sharing, News, Sports News and Weather Update streaming, etc. You could also watch Youtube Videos on TV direct without the need of a computer. Online Gaming is another feature. In fact, once online, the Smart TV is capable of doing anything which a Laptop Computer can do online. Depending on your TV brand, the built in Apps can be different and the TV manufacturer usually maintains an Apps Store from where you have a wide selection of Apps. To connect to the internet you may have to buy an additional USB adaptor, but now a days most Smart TVs with builtin WiFi.
A new type of TV will be available within the next 2 or 3 years. This is the OLED TV (Organic Light Emitting Diode TV). OLED screens are now available on mobile phones and laptops, but these are very expensive now. The OLED TV holds promise of being larger, clearer with better pictures and better contrast ratios than all the present day TVs. There is also the promise of OLED TV screens being able to be printed which could make OLED TVs very cheap compared to any of the TVs of today.
Let us explain each of the different TV technologies, starting with the newest technologies in TVs, the OLED-TV and 3D TV.
OLED TV
OLED TV has an organic light emitting diode screen, which uses organic chemicals based electroluminescent layer as the light emitting medium. OLED Screens are AT present being used in Mobile Telephone screens, PDA screens, Laptop screens and a few TVs. They are expensive now, but expected to get cheaper soon.
An OLED display functions without a backlight and thus has very high contrast ratios. The TVs can also be made very thin, in fact it may be possible, in future, to have TV screens which are curved and flexible. DuPont stated in a press release in May 2010 that they can produce a 50-inch OLED TV screen in two minutes with a new printing technology. If this works out, then OLED TV prices may hit the bottom and we may be looking, in the future, at giant OLED Screens, 100 inch and more, mounted like a painting on walls. OLED TVs consume less than half the electric power now being used by the most efficient TV, the LED TV. This could well be the death knell of LCD, LED and Plasma TVs and also of the rear projection TVs and front projectors. Please visit our OLED - TV page for a more complete presentation of OLED - TVs
3D TV
When watching sports on a 3D television the ball literally seems to come out of the screen. 3D TVs are the latest in TVs. 3D TVs are available as 3D LCD, 3D LED and 3D Plasma TV. The leading manufacturers of 3D TV are LG, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, etc. (names in alphabetical order). 3D Television is a method by which the picture is shown on the TV in double image, one image for each eye, the left and the right. You need to wear special glasses to see 3D effect. You can switch on and off the 3D effect, so it is possible to watch normal TV on a 3D Television.
3D Televisions are normally the highest model on offer from manufacturers. When the 3D effect is switched off, it becomes a normal high end HDTV.
LCD & LED TV
LCD TVs are Flat Screen TV’s making use of LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screens which have millions of crystals sandwiched between two glass panels. This assembly is known as the LCD panel. When the liquid crystal elements in the LCD panel are charged with electricity using individual transistors for each pixel, the LCD crystals allow a certain amount of light from the backlight through to the people sitting in the front. The backlight can be produced by two sources, by a CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent light) or with LED (light emitting diode) bulbs.
In the case the backlight is from a CFL light source, then the TV is simply called an LCD TV. But when the light source is from LED bulbs, then it is referred to as an LED TV. It should be noted that an LED TV has the same LCD panel at its heart, and the only difference between an LCD and LED TV is the backlight source. The CFL lit LCD TVs are normally thicker than LED TV because the LED bulbs are much smaller and can be mounted on the edges as in an "Edge LED" TV.
The LED lights can also be placed on the back of the LCD display panel array, but this will make the LED TV thicker than the Edge lit LED TV. This arrangement can result in a new type of LED TV called 'Local Dimming' LED TV. In a 'Local Dimming' LED TV, the individual LED bulbs behind the 'LCD Panel' can be dimmed in dark areas of a TV picture and lit bright in areas where there are bright scenes. This arrangement will improve the 'Contrast Ratio' of the LED TV and make blacks appear darker and whites brighter. One problem which can be caused by this arrangement is called 'Blooming'. Blooming in LED TV is a problem where light from brighter areas of the TV picture bleed into darker areas of the picture and makes a halo effect on the adjacent black areas of the picture. Some manufacturers are even trying to put different color (red R, green G and blue B) LED bulbs, instead of pure white bulbs (you get white light if the 3 bulbs, RGB are lit at the same time). This arrangement is being used to light the back of the picture with the same color light and thus improve the colour and thus the picture quality. More on our page 'LCD LED Plasma Compared'.
Plasma TV
Plasma and LCD TVs look alike but they have totally different technologies under them. A plasma TV has thousands of gas filled cells, each containing a mixture of rare gases (neon and xenon). These cells glow when charged with electric voltages to produce different colours. Each of the plasma cell pixels light up individually to varying colours depending on the electric charge applied to them. Thus plasma TV usually has a much higher contrast ratio than an LCD TV which has a back light applied to the whole back surface.
Plasma TVs has other advantages over LCD TV like, better Viewing angle (clearer picture from the sides of the TV), fast motion picture without blurring of fast moving objects and is usually cheaper than LCD or LED TV. The disadvantages are that it is usually heavier and may be subject to 'Burn-in'. More on our page 'LCD LED Plasma Compared'.
CRT or 'Cathode Ray Tube' TV
These were the TVs our fathers and grand fathers watched. You can still see some of these TVs, but they are becoming rarer. In US and Europe they have stopped production and sales of these types of TVs completely. CRT TVs disadvantages are that the maximum size normally available is only 29 inches, the picture quality cannot be compared to modern LCD and Plasma Televisions and they are bulky and heavy.
Since this site is to help you to buy the best TV, we will restrict discussion of the CRT TVs. For historical interest, CRT TVs were the first Televisions to be invented. In 1934 'Telefunken', a German Company, was the first to produce commercial Televisions using Cathode Ray Tubes. These were black and white TVs, colour TVs were commercially available from early 1950s.
What to look for when buying a TV
When you are shopping for your TV the Sales persons will always volunteer to help you out. We will not say that the Sales persons are crooks, but they will try their best to convince you to buy TVs on which they get the maximum commission. They are normally not bothered about you getting you the best TV within your budget. The tricks the sales person plays could range from showing high quality Videos on the TVs they get maximum commission. The TVs he gets the least commission could be the best TV for you, but you are steered away from that and most probably that TV will be showing bad video quality pictures or may be, the TV settings are intentionally set as to show bad quality pictures. So do not fall for the Sales Persons tricks. You must be educated on TVs and you should be able to pre-select the TV or TVs you want, before going to do your TV shopping. We do not promote any brand, our aim is to give you unbiased info and tell you how to decide on buying the best TV for you.
Once you go through this site, the question: Which TV should I buy? will become an easy decision. You will be able to decide for yourself on which is best: LED LCD or Plasma TV. Questions like 'Difference Between LCD and LED TV and Plasma TV' or 'Plasma vs LCD vs LED vs 3D' will be easy for you, because you will learn how TV works.