You have probably heard these two terms before and been clueless, well it’s not that difficult to understand, basically these refer to a LCD TV’s refresh rate: 60Hz means 60 frames a second; 120Hz means 120 frames a second.  Video is filmed at 24 frames a second and since 24 does not divide evenly into 60 the even frames are shown twice a second and the odd frames are shown three times a second. What this means is that to the trained eye 60Hz LCD TV’s will appear to drag or stutter.

If you go with a 120Hz LCD TV this eliminates the odd ratio because 24 goes into 120 evenly so all frames are shown five times a second. In all honestly the dragging / stuttering on a 60Hz LCD is only really noticeable if you are looking for it, otherwise it’s not very evident at all.  It all comes down to how much you want to spend and how much of a critical eye you have.

This concludes our Television Buying Guide, stay tuned for our laptop buying guide coming right up.

Unlike what most people think, there isn’t that big of a difference between these two, it all depends on how far away you sit from the television and what size of a television you have.  For example, a 32” HDTV with a 1080p resolution isn’t even noticeable for people sitting more than 6 feet away…and if you have a 42” inch HDTV the benefits of 1080p don’t even come into effect unless you are more than 8 feet away from the television.

Although this CNET article is about 2 years old, it still holds very true today and explains the difference much better than we here could ever do…read about 720p VS 1080p (update, the article has been rewritten for 2009).

The general guideline we like to go with is that if your TV is less than 42” than there is no need to pay for a 1080 resolution since the normal viewer will not be able to tell the difference. However if you plan on using the TV as a PC monitor part or full time then you should definitely go with a 1080p.

Our main focus with this guide is value is to bring you up to speed on the best HDTV offers on the best performance relative to the price they will cost you.

PLASMA VS LCD….THE BIG QUESTION.

We won’t get into all the nitty gritty technical differences between LCD and plasma tv’s, the differences and similarities have already been addressed many times including in the following two articles: Plasma vs LCD: Which is right for you? and LCD vs. Plasma.

When flat panel televisions first started gaining popularity there were many differences between the two technologies which made the choice much easier. These days however, the two HDTV camps are very similar in performance and price and in reality you can’t go wrong with either choice unless you are purchasing your TV from the back of a van on skid row.

Important to note is that although burn-in is not even close to the problem it use to be with earlier generations of Plasma TV’s, the fact of the matter is there still is an outside chance that it will occur.  The way to prevent this from happening or at least limit the chance of this happening is to really limit the amount of time static images are present on the screen, essentially this means if you are a gamer or plan to hook your computer up to your TV then do not get a Plasma.  One good thing though is that burn-in most likely occurs in the first 100 hours of use.