LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display. LCD TVs have a slightly longer life span and can use less power than Plasma screens. They can also double as computer monitors with their ability to display very sharp images.

Plasma TVs are very large and thin, with high contrast ratios, smooth images and superb colour reproduction. With a HD ready display you can watch films in movie theatre quality.

Performance and Picture quality compared:

Screen Brightness: LCD TVs can appear brighter than plasma TVs, but both technologies are capable of producing a level of brightness that is in excess of what is necessary in normal viewing.

Contrast ratio: Historically LCD TV panels have had a poorer contrast ratio than Plasma TVs. Although new advances in technology have improved the contrast ratio on LCD, they are still lagging behind what is available on Plasma.

Colour : Plasma TVs have very high colour saturation, and images will appear more vivid and vibrant than on an LCD. Higher range and more costly LCD screens are now claiming to show a spectrum of colours as close as Plasma screens.
 
Screen surface: LCD TVs are available with matt finish screens which reduce glare whereas Plasma TVs have a reflective screen.

Screen Burn-in:  for Plasma tvs a prolonged displaying of non-moving images, graphics or text, such as a menu bar, channel logo, or news scroll a permanent ghost image can be permanently burned on the screen with a darkened appearance. LCD screens aren’t affected by burn-in.

 What is the difference between 1080HD and standard 720 HD TV

The key difference with these models is the screen resolution: the more pixels used the better the standard of picture. There are two different types of 1080 HD TV – 1080i and 1080p.

• 1080i televisions use an interlaced scanning system meaning each odd line of the picture is displayed, followed by each even line, and the resulting image is not as smooth as a progressive feed.
• 1080p televisions use a progressive scanning system which display each line on the screen simultaneously. As a result the image displayed suffers less apparent flicker than 1080i.

1080p, which is sometimes referred to as ‘Full High Definition”, offers the best picture available however requires a 1080p source such as Blu-ray to achieve this picture. The current highest broadcast standard available is 1080i, and this is set to be the case for the foreseeable future.