Now available in all types (and colours), television sets have certainly changed over the years moving on from cathode ray to digital and now LCD TV sets that we assume to be the norm today. The television has now become one of the �must haves� in almost every household, certainly within the developed world.
Highly complicated yet when reduced to its basics quite frighteningly simple in execution the process of the television broadcast is one that very few people actually understand entirely or do they? The term television can actually be quite confusing because it can quite easily be used to refer specifically to a television set, programming or television transmission.
The one aspect of modern day television that if the truth be known completely confuses most people (yet most would try not to �let on�) is the amazing array of technical jargon that surrounds the everyday television set.
Now would be a good idea to concentrate purely on the digital aspect of television, its latest developments formats and bandwidth issues in use and exactly what all this technical jargon and terminology actually mean.
So what exactly is Digital TV? Digital television is much more flexible and efficient than conventional analogue television and digital signals provide a much clearer picture, much better sound quality and a far greater choice and availability of programming.
So in basic terms, how does a Digital TV differ from a more conventional one? Using one of the newer LCD TV�s available will help us actually go through what all of this terminology actually means.
The LCD TV that we shall use for our illustrative purposes here is the Hitachi 26LD200 Flat Screen TV.
Now the key items of information that we need to be familiar with are as follows.
The first item we need to consider is the Screen Resolution of the TV In this case it refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed.
Next up is whether the TV is Hi-Definition Ready and what does this mean? Hi Definition TV essentially makes a TV picture in a quality format that is at least four times better than conventionally available at present.
The next item that we would need to look at is what types of connectors are used between the peripherals used alongside the main Digital TV?
In this case we mean SCART Plugs and sockets and their usage. Here the definition of SCART refers to �Syndicat francais des Constructeurs d�Appareils Radio et Television (SCART).
Lastly on the technical side we would need to look at what types and what numbers of High-Definition Multimedia Interfaces (HDMI) are being used. The High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a licensable audio/video connector interface for transmitting uncompressed digital streams between digital audio/video sources such as set-top box, HD DVD Player etc.
The 26LD200 is a 26in LCD TV and currently these TV's can be found for 550 pounds sterling or 1100 US dollars. The screen resolution is 1280 x 768 and with regards to being HD Ready the answer is no. The Hitachi has 2 (1 RGB) scarts and the type and number of Multimedia interfaces the 26LD200 uses is none at all. The type of Tuner for this TV is Analogue and the Hitachi is available from limited outlets only.
So given this information, what would be our view of the Hitachi 26LD200?
The most obvious place to start with as far as TV's are concerned would be the picture quality and our score here would be 8, and closely tied in to the picture quality is the sound quality and our score for this would be 8. With regards to the availability and number of relevant connections, our score would be 8. If we take a look at the overall "featureability" our score would be 6 and the final individual verdicts would relate to the ease of use and overall value for money and our scores here would be, 8 and 10 respectively.
Finally our overall opinion would be this set is amazing for the price and outperforms much more expensive competition with ease which means that we can recommend this as a good buy for almost everyone.
Remember that all the prices we use in these reviews are very much designed for illustration purposes only and in some cases you may well find the actual price cheaper but also in some cases, more expensive.
Scott James writes quite regularly on the Internet about TV and Home Entertainment issues and more on the above can be found at
sony flat screen tv and also at
http://bestflatscreentv.biz 
