The big debate in our house, as we are currently bringing our home into the 21st century – nothing to do with the decorating or furnishings, thank god – not even the wife getting her way ( as usual ) and puchasing a new sofa and matching carpet, but which TV are we going to choose.

Some people tell me to get a Plasma TV while others lament on about the benefits of a LCD TV! Is there any difference? Apparently so! BIG differences. As with everything in life, size matters, so why should your TV be any different. In fact, with a TV, this has to be the first thing you think about. A good guide to perfect viewing is your TV should be about 5 times your height away from your viweing comfort.

If you have HD ( High Definition ) this drops to around 3-4 times your height, (for example a 50 inch is no good in a box room). So, on this advice alone, should we decide on the type of TV to purchase on the size of our room as the best measurement as to which format we should choose : Plasma or LCD. No way. Here comes the science part…

For close viewing Plasma Screens are seen to work better as, the screenis made from individual pixels which sit in front of chambers filled with a gas, which is a mixture of neon and xenon, each pixel is then broken down to 3 sub-pixel cell : each with coloured phosphors red, green and blue, which means it has the ability to create billions of different colours.

LCD works in a very different way, thin-film-transistors ( TFT’s ) supply power to liquid crystal cells sandwiched between two sheets of glass, this enables colours to be produced from pure white, by the manipulation of light waves from a constant backlight. This gives a duller effect on colour.

So far, Plasma has the better colour quality.

That’s the science bit over. I want to know about the picture quality… I was told that plasma was the better as this can follow fast objects on the screen without any distortion, this is called the response time. LCD has to turn pixels from active to inactive then back to active this will cause distortion although LCD’s are improving all the time. One of the down sides of plasma is screen burn this occurs when a channel’s logo is on the screen for a long time it will tend to mark the screen, once it’s marked there is no way of getting rid of it.

The manufactures of these TV’s have somewhat made this better by applying screen savers. Another advantage of Plasma I was told was if you invite a few people round to watch the big football match and some of your guests are seated at the side of the Plasma TV they will still manage to watch it. Plasma, seemingly, gives a far superior contrast ratio viewing angle.

Overall, both Plasma and LCD TV’s have their good and bad points. Manufacturers low light and natural sunlight differerations just add to the impossible task between choosing a plasma or LCD make. Eventually, I went for the LCD TV, which was more about the brand and the way it functioned in the showroom plus the most important factor of all was the Wife liked it.