Each viewing taste has its own screen

I’ve heard the type of TV programming you watch should influence the type of HDTV you purchase. As a sports fan, I keep reading that I should purchase a plasma over an LCD. Is this true? If so, why is this the case?

Sports video tends to have fast action on screen, so you’ll want a display that has the technology to draw the screen quickly to keep up with the speed of the action on the screen. When a display doesn’t have the capability you’ll see blurring or what’s called ghosting. So a puck in an NHL game may appear to have a blurry tail on some HD screens.

As a sports fan, you’ll want to look at a plasma
or DLP (or other rear-projection TVs). They have faster refresh rates than LCD TVs, so, they are ideal for watching sports or playing video games. You’ll also want a TV that has a 720p specification. 720p or 1080i are two high definition standards that broadcasters use for their HD broadcasts.

720p means that 720 lines of video are drawn all at once. 1080i means that of 1080 lines of information in a picture, 540 odd lines draw first and in the next split second, 540 even lines draw.

Technically, there is more information in 720p HD content. So that’s why sport broadcasters like to use 720p. It does a better job of capturing fast action.

No matter what TV you buy, however, it’ll take any HD source (either 1080i and 720p) and display it just fine. Newer TVs are also 1080p-compliant, meaning they can display 1080 lines of information at a time. No broadcaster uses 1080p at the moment. You’ll get that HD content from Blu-ray or HD DVD discs.

And finally, if your TV is 720p or 1080i-compliant (but not rated for 1080p), it will still show that 1080p content but downgrade it to 1080i or 720p HD quality.