by Richard Pahl

Created on: February 13, 2009

The keyword here, I believe, is "Beginner". A beginner may not know what he/she needs to provide the end result they're looking for. I just purchased a flat-screen TV for my home. We live in a very small but comfy space, so buying a set over 26 inches was not in the cards. And we're on a captive cable system so we don't know if or when we're getting a high definition (HD) image. When we bought this unit, we purchased it at Wal-Mart, so of course the employee didn't know much more than we did about it. For example: There's a bunch of different inputs for this thing.

We have a basic 75 ohm cable input of course, and that the one we're using right now. The 75 coax is supposed to be able to deliver HD when the cable does. So why do we need to have HDMI inputs? Or why do we have standard RCA plug video and audio inputs? What the heck is S-Video? Did you know that component plugs are the same kind of plug as composite plugs? Would a beginner know the difference? We'll learn, of course, that all these are for different devices to be plugged in. Let's see. A HD-DVD player or a Blu-Ray? What's the diff, besides dollars?

There is one thing all these things have in common. Resolution. How many pixels per inch is resolution in digital-speak. In analog TV resolution is measured in lines. The more pixels or lines per unit, the better the picture. In digital, they talk about scans instead of lines. It's all very confusing.

So on an elementary basis, the bigger then number, the better the picture. The "later" the letter, the better the pic. 1080p is tops, 720i is not. As Jessica Simpson (dressed as Daisy Duke) said in a TV commercial, ". . . it has . . . 1080 ah. Ah don' know what that is, but ah want it."

The "i" or the "p" stands for the way the picture is presented in the screen. When the letter is "i", that means that every other line that the screen is getting is laid down in one instant, and the next instant, the other half is sent. this cycle occurs in a 30th of a second. Really fast. When the letter is a "p", it means that ALL lines are laid down at the same time. This means that the picture is much improved for anything that moves around quickly on the screen.

According to what I've read, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are the only components that can deliver 1080p. It will undoubtedly be available off cable or satellite sometime in the not-too-distant future, but right now, you're stuck with 1080i or 720p.

Earlier, we asked, "A HD-DVD player or a Blu-Ray?" Do you remember the food fight that VHS and Betamax had back in the early days of videos? VHS eventually won that battle, but not because of quality. It was because of manufacturing costs; and who was backing what. Sony was Betamax, and Panasonic was VHS. Now we're having the same food fight. HD-DVD disks are easier to manufacture, but the pic quality isn't as good as Blu-Ray Disks. The potential of HD-DVD is far less than that of Blu-Ray.

Our beginner is faced with all this information coming at him.her from a hundred different directions. If he/she has the room, it would be far easier to get a in-the-box home entertainment package. Just take it home, plug it in, attach the antenna coax, grab a drink and watch the sweat drip off some ice-skater's forehead. The most difficult part of the installation should be taking the box and packing out to the garbage.

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