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HDTV (high definition television) is a television display technology that provides a picture quality similar to 35 mm. movies with a sound quality similar to that of today's compact disc. Some television stations have begun transmitting HDTV broadcasts to users on a limited number of channels. HDTV generally uses digital rather than analog signal transmission. HDTV provides a higher quality display with a vertical resolution display from 720p to 1080i. The "p" stands for progressive scanning, which means that each scan includes every line for a complete picture, and the "i" stands for interlaced scanning which means that each scan includes alternate lines for half a picture. These rates translate into a frame rate of up to 120 frames per second, two to three times a (CRT) television.
The initial HDTV market was plasma technology. Plasma technology uses an ionized gas and electrical fields to change the color of each pixel and, like CRTs before it, had an unquestionable advantage when displaying fast-moving content like action movies and sports. This advantage is still present but is shrinking as LED technology improves. TVs are self-lighting pixels, which means that when the display is showing dark colors or black, the colors are richer and the contrast ratio is better. As lower-priced LED screens have hit the market, plasma TVs have begun the end of thier life cycle and have been eliminated from many manufacturer product selections.
An LED TV is an LCD TV with an array of pinhole-sized light emitting diodes behind the display. Depending on the manufacturer, each pixel may have anywhere from one to nine unique LEDs behind it, and each one can have its brightness adjusted individually. This allows the same digital signal processor that sends the image to the pixel to adjust the brightness of the pixel to match what's intended for the media being played. Based on the high-end televisions offered by major manufacturers, LED TVs appear to be the technology that's winning the HDTV wars in the marketplace today.
An LCD TV is a laptop screen enlarged. It uses a film of liquid crystals to form the image and has a compact fluorescent backlight. This backlight means there's always some light coming from the screen, which washes out blacks and dark colors. Backlights also age; it's not uncommon for one edge of the display to become noticeably brighter than the other. LCD TVs quickly came to dominate the low end of the HDTV market. They used to have problems with ghosting brought on by slow response times, but now LCD TVs have a fast enough response time that ghosting and screen artifacts, like smearing comet-tails after sporting figures, are a thing of the past.
Passive | Active To view 3D TV, you need a high-definition (HD) TV equipped with what is known is passive or active 3D technology. Passive 3D technology relies on polarization, or the creation of rays of light that exhibit different properties in different directions. Polarized filters in the 3D TV display and polarized 3D glasses worn by the viewer create separate, polarized images in each eye and the brain amalgamates the images to create a 3D effect.
Passive | ActiveTo view 3D TV, you need a high-definition (HD) TV equipped with what is known is passive or active 3D technology. Passive 3D technology relies on polarization, or the creation of rays of light that exhibit different properties in different directions. Polarized filters in the 3D TV display and polarized 3D glasses worn by the viewer create separate, polarized images in each eye and the brain amalgamates the images to create a 3D effect.
Passive | ActiveActive 3D TV technology works slightly differently, in as much as the TV screen displays left and right images that rapidly alternate back and forth. The viewer, in turn, wears powered, or active, 3D glasses, which receive infrared signals from the TV. The glasses are synchronized with the images displayed on the screen, so that an image intended for the right eye cannot be seen by the left eye and vice versa. The images alternate very quickly—typically at least 50 times per second—so the brain merges them together.
4K is a new video format that uses an image with a resolution comprised of roughly four thousand vertical lines, hence the acronym 4K. In actual fact the precise resolution of 4K video is 4096 x 2160, which is why it also sometimes referred to as 4K2K, offering over twice the number of vertical lines compared to standard high definition video and effectively creating an image with more than four times the resolution. To put this in perspective, a standard high definition image has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and is capable of delivering an image comprised of just over 2 million pixels. However a 4K image, with has resolution of 4096 x 2160, can deliver an image that is comprised of a whopping 8.8 million pixels.
OLEDs are solid-state devices composed of thin films of organic molecules that create light with the application of electricity. OLEDs can provide brighter, crisper displays on electronic devices and use less power than conventional light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or liquid crystal displays (LCDs) used today.
