Looking for a LCD TV

Zolgar

Basically, I'm about to purchase an LCD TV and I'm looking to see what brands offer the best quality, as well as getting some questions answered.

 

Is there any major difference between LED backlighting, and CCFL backlighting? From what I undertsand CCFL offers overall better picture quality, but LED consumes less power, makes the TV slimmer, but can cause "clouding".

 

Also, are HDMI ports standard on TV's now, or is that something you have to specifically look for?

 

Finally, I'd like the TV to be 42" or so, 1080p (actually, what's the difference between 1080i and 1080p?), and I prefer it to be around $500 (excluding tax, but if it is of great quality I suppose I could go as high as $600).

 

Thanks much,

Z

Grunty

http://www.consumerreports.org

You can read all you like but until you're in front of one you wont know if it is the one.

I means interlaced, P means progressive. Usually interlaced is on a CRT type TV. Progressive is always on flat screens, All CRTs display use analog. Most flat screens use digital.

Interlaced can be a digital or analog signal within the TV. Interlaced means every other line of an image is drawn during one refresh pass across and down a screen. It requires two refresh passes to draw the entire scene. The entire image is also usually limited to being refreshed 23 times per second.

Progressive is a digital signal. Progressive means every line of an image is drawn during every refresh pass across and down a screen. Progressive images are currently being drawn on screen up to 120 times(120Hz) per second. 24Hz is standard, 120Hz is expensive, not currently supported by the TV industry and is usually only used in 3D videogames.

1080p is currently the standard for wide screen TVs. Its image is displayed at 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high.

 

Edit: corrected progressive scan rates to show the correct current standard in the U.S.