Who would have thought from viewing those early images of shadowy wriggling fingers broadcast in 1925 in the earliest TV sets that television would eventually become the multi-dimensional, full colour systems that Liquid Crystal Display /Flat Screen TV provide today. The many benefits that most people derive from TV have made it indispensable in their lives.
So having established where and when television arrived in our daily lives, just what exactly is TV and how does it achieve the things that it does do if that is not too technical a description (joke)? From a grammatical derivation originating in a mixture of Greek (�tele� meaning far�) and Latin (�visual� meaning �sight�) the word television roughly translates as meaning �far sight�.
Television has problems that are similar to most emerging and developing technologies in that one of the problems that most people have is a total misunderstanding of the majority of the jargon and terms in use.
Perhaps it would be best now to move on to the latest developments within the industry and concentrate our coverage upon digital television, what it actually means; formats, bandwidth and an explanation of the technical jargon and terminology used.
So then the question is what 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.
How does Digital TV differ from an analogue 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 Fujitsu P42HTA51ES Plasma TV.
When considering a new Digital TV it would help if you were familiar with the following items of information.
Firstly we have to understand the phrase Screen Resolution and all of that implies. Here we refer to the exact number of pixels that can be displayed in each dimension.
Next up is whether the TV is Hi-Definition Ready and what does this mean? By Hi Definition Ready we mean that is the TV is ready and suitable to take advantage of the latest Hi Definition TV pictures that more and more programmes are being broadcast in.
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 P42HTA51ES is a 42in Plasma TV and currently these TV's can be found for 2000 pounds sterling or 4000 US dollars. The screen resolution is 1024 X 1024 and with regards to being HD Ready the answer is yes. The Fujitsu has 3 (3 RGB) scarts and the type and number of Multimedia interfaces the P42HTA51ES uses is HDMI and DVI (I each). The type of Tuner for this TV is Analogue and the Fujitsu is available from limited outlets only.
So given this information, what would be our view of the Fujitsu P42HTA51ES?
First up, we would look at the picture quality and our score here would be 4, next we would look at the sound quality and our view of this would be 4. Another useful aspect to review is the availability and number of relevant connections and our score here would be 10. As far as overall features are concerned we would give it 8 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 4 respectively.
Finally our overall opinion would be that this TV might have impressed the guys in the Office if it was a budget or mid priced TV but for the price quoted we expected a whole lot more
With regards to the prices in this article we have tried in all cases to take an average across the industry from a number of well known web sites and so we ask you to bear this in mind and treat these prices as advisory only rather than absolutes.
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 
