Painless Man Cave Television Upgrade Guide

Are you still using a dated, clunky, energy sucking tube television in your Man Cave? Sure, those old CRT tubes have a ridiculously long lifespan, but they're also energy hogs, take up lots of space and are really heavy to move to another location if you decide to change the layout of your room. If your TV is ancient and has a bulky tube screen it's probably time to upgrade to a current model television. Don't worry though, upgrading isn't painful at all and you'll love saving money on your electric bill, too. Here are some of the basics things to think about when seeking a replacement TV.

The first thing you need to figure out is how big of a screen you want. A good thing to note here is that televisions are measured diagonally from corner to corner across the screen. This might make it a bit more difficult to figure out if a particular TV set will fit where you want it to. Luckily, you can usually find the height and width measurements of any set on the manufacturer's web site.

Once you figure out the size screen you want, you also have to think about what type of screen you want. The three technologies you want to focus on are plasma, LCD and LED. Each have their good and bad points which I'll briefly touch on below.

According to cnet.com's AV Home Buying Guide (link below), plasma screens have the best black levels on the market, producing a picture worthy of a home theater. They also display excellent color and have a wide viewing angle. On the downside, though, plasma screens have a slight potential for burning a static image into the screen and they have a lower native resolution than LCD and LED screens of a similar size. LCD screens on the other hand have a higher resolution than plasma screens with no danger of image burn, but the black level quality and viewing angle are generally not as good as plasma. Lastly, LED TVs have plasma-like black levels, higher resolution, no image burn potential, they're better for the environment (LEDs don't contain mercury) and they're ridiculously energy-efficient. The downside is that LED TVs are more expensive and have a relatively narrower viewing angle. (Cnet.com's Home AV Buying Guide )

TIP: One common pitfall to be aware about when upgrading to an HDTV from an old-school analog set is that you also need to upgrade your cable or satellite plan to one that supports Hi Definition broadcasts. Without the upgraded signal, your new HDTV's picture will look like garbage and you'll be left wondering why you spent all that money.

A quick note about 3D TVs:
There certainly has been a big buzz this year about 3D TVs and it seems that every manufacturer has put a 3D ready set out in the market already, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the technology is mature enough to buy into right away. My advice is to stay away for now while manufacturers develop a glasses-free 3D system (Toshiba is apparently working on it already).

So, as you can see, at first glance upgrading your television might seem really complicated, but after you know the basics, it isn't all that mystifying after all. No matter which type of TV you end up choosing to buy for your Man Cave, it's important to remember that you really can't go wrong because any current model TV you buy is an improvement over an outdated model.

Televisions aren't the only must-have items for a sports themed Man Cave. After all, what would you do without any sports gear to adorn your walls and display shelves? If you have a Man Cave that you're looking to upgrade this football season, swing by SuperiorSportsBar.com and check out our selection of NFL Merchandise

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Neville_Menday

View the original article here

Winter Fortification For Your Outdoor Television

Looking back over the past 5 months we will have had some fantastic times in the backyard, sharing time with the relations and acquaintances, spending time over meals and if you have been lucky, you have had a Flat screen outdoor so you can view the match.

Nevertheless now, with the day light hours shortening, it seems to be as though we will be banished from the garden until next spring, just hold it there! What do we require to get pleasure from our deck in the winter? Just because it is colder there is no reason why we even now cannot use our garden.

Well we can make use of the BBQ that has been well employed all over the summer to offer warmth as well as baking the spectacular food, if you have a fire pit this too will add to ambiance of the meal and add some supplementary heat. But much like if you where to eat in the open in winter you would not go out in the clothes you were togged up in the summer, would you?

Now what about the Television that was fitted outside? Are you going to take it down, pack it away and store it beneath your deck or veranda? Or are you one of these forwarding thinking people who decided in the spring to put the TV into an all year-round outdoor LCD housing, that had the ability to heat as well as cool the inner recesses of the enclosure stopping the monitor from freezing.

If you one of the many who are packing away the display for the winter, just think you will be repeating this process twice a year from now on, compare this to the value of an enclosure that is certified for 7 years and if you calculated the cost you would charge for put the Television up and taking it down at $50 every hour you would be in profit by acquiring a weather proof LCD casing.

A water-resistant LCD enclosure offers fortification all through the year from rain, sleet, snow and extreme temperatures, these are not just for the well-heeled they are for everyone, specially the working man (and woman), so that they can increase the quality time they have with kin and contacts.

View the original article here

Basic Construction of a Plasma Television Display

In a plasma screen, there are over sixteen million pixels making up the display. Each of those sixteen million are made up of three pixel colors of blue, red and green phosphors, which are evenly distributed across the screen. The entire screen which you view, or rather the picture you watch is made up of a combination of these three colors.

The plasma itself sits and operates between two thin glass panels. Millions of tiny images (made up of the greens, reds and blues) are made by the illumination of fluorescent lights put through them. And the plasma is made of a gas made up from electrically charged atoms and negatively charged particles. Then electricity is passed through it, which starts the 'lighting' process, or what we see on-screen.

Plasma TV's are at the top end of the scale, when it comes to price compared to other types of flat screen. But is there an advantage we clearly see with a plasma TV, compared to LCD?

Because of the flat screen, there is no edge distortion which you sometimes get on normal or CRT TV's.

View movies made in widescreen or 16:9 format as they should be - in widescreen, not with half a picture cut off! And you know how annoying and frustrating that can be, when you get half the picture cut off or you can't see the subtitles at the bottom of the screen!

With a plasma, brightness of the display is uniform from one corner to the other. With conventional TV's you get bright and dark mixed colors, but you don't have this problem with a plasma display. All sixteen pixels are illuminated evenly.

A major problem with the old type televisions is the huge amount of space they take up in your living room, but this problem is non existent with a flat screen. Because of the slim design, plasma televisions give more options when it comes to mounting them. Be it eye level height, or up higher you can mount a plasma on the wall or it can sit on a normal TV stand.

Another thing which is great about plasmas is that magnetic fields do not interrupt the screen. Plasma displays work completely different from conventional televisions, which uses electron beams, which as you know can be affected greatly by magnetism.The advantages of a plasma can easily be seen here. So you know that sound system you wanted to plant right next to your TV set? With a plasma, you can have the speakers as close as you like without it affecting the picture.

View the original article here