This article was excerpted from: Hdtv For Dummies

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When looking at HDTVs, keep the following buying criteria in mind:

• What size do you need? No, bigger is not always better. You can have a TV that's too large for your space or too small for your usage.

• What do you plan to do with it? Are you going to be watching a lot of sports events? Movies? Video games? Believe it or not, certain types of HDTVs work better with certain types of content. Sports fanatics probably find a big, bright DLP projection system perfect for their tastes, while people who watch CNN all day long may want to avoid plasma screen displays in a big way because to the burn-in effects of static images.

• What do you plan to hook up to it? If you already have a decent investment in A/V gear, then that gear may dictate certain types (and numbers!) of interfaces or ports on your HDTV system, like these:

• If you have an entertainment system designed around centralized video switching - using a receiver to switch among video sources and destinations - then you need a receiver that can switch HDTV content. That may mean you need a new receiver, which can be pricey.

• Do you need a tuner or just an HDTV-ready display? You may be able to get your HDTV tuner from your cable or satellite company.

• What neat features do you want? You may find yourself easily swayed by neat features, but in a lot of HDTV versions, you can't access those features for various reasons. You need to know what features you want (and can use) when you go HDTV shopping.

Finding the Right Size

With your HDTV, you can be too close to the image (or have the image too large), and you can be too far away (or have the image too small). You definitely know you're too close if you can see the individual pixels on the screen. You need to find "Baby Bear's Just Right" size.

In general, experts determine the optimal size for your HDTV set by dividing the distance you're going to sit from the TV set by 2.5. Table 1 gives you the experts' recommendations for common screen sizes, based on your distance from the screen. (Table 1 is for widescreen - 16:9 - HDTVs.)

Table 1: Viewing Distance and Screen Size

Matching Your HD Needs

You need to match how you plan to use the HDTV with the right kind of HDTV for that use. While you can use any HDTV type for just about any TV viewing scenario that you can think of, certain types of HDTV work better for particular uses. Different types of HDTVs use different underlying technologies to create their pictures, which often match up better with some uses than with others.

For instance, if you pack a lot of friends into a wide room to watch movies a lot, you may want to consider a plasma or direct-view CRT (a tube HDTV) display, instead of a CRT rear-projection TV or LCD flat-panel. That's because plasma and direct-view CRTs have the best viewing angle (picture quality when viewed from the sides). You can find some other common examples of the right HDTV for the right job in Table 2.

Table 2: Finding an HDTV for Your Needs

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