Viewing television nowadays is certainly different from the humble experience it was in the early years under John Logie Baird to the vast array of images now viewable on the amazing Liquid Crystal Display /Flat Screen TV sets of today. Ask most people to list their most essential item or possession and a large number will list their TV as very high up on the list.



Much like the conventional approach to driving a car and our understanding of how the Internal Combustion Engine works (or not depending on your point of view) very few people understand entirely what happens behind the screen of a TV or do they? The term television can actually be quite confusing because it can quite easily be used to refer specifically to a television set, programming or television transmission.

As in most industries, along with technological development and innovation has arisen a large range of technical descriptions and phrases that if the truth be known confuses most people.

Perhaps it would be best now to move on to the latest developments within the industry and concentrate our coverage upon digital television, what it actually means; formats, bandwidth and an explanation of the technical jargon and terminology used.

So then the question is what is Digital TV? Digital Television very much came to the fore in the late 1990s and is a technology that appealed to the television broadcasting business and consumer electronics industries as representing opportunities for increased financial development whilst at the same time providing a much cleaner and faster product and service for the end user.

So in basic terms, how does a Digital TV differ from a more conventional one? Let us look at this whilst analysing one of the newer LCD TV�s available.

The LCD TV that we shall use for our illustrative purposes here is the Hitachi 26LD200 Flat Screen TV.

The following items of information have to be understood before you can make a proper valued judgement regarding your new Digital TV?

The Screen resolution of the TV is possibly the most obvious place to start. In this case it refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed.

Whether the TV is Hi-Definition Ready would be the next thing to look at. By Hi Definition Ready we mean that is the TV is ready and suitable to take advantage of the latest Hi Definition TV pictures that more and more programmes are being broadcast in.

The next item that we would need to look at is what types of connectors are used between the peripherals used alongside the main Digital TV?

In this case we mean SCART Plugs and sockets and their usage. SCART stands for �Syndicat francais des Constructeurs d�Appareils Radio et Television (SCART).

Lastly on the technical side we would need to look at what types and what numbers of High-Definition Multimedia Interfaces (HDMI) are being used. Here High Definition Multimedia Interfaces (HDMI) refers to the audio/video connector interface that transmits the uncompressed digital streams of information between two or more digital components such as a HD DVD Disc player, a Blu-ray Disc player, a Personal Computer or Video Console.

The 26LD200 is a 26in LCD TV and currently these TV's can be found for 550 pounds sterling or 1100 US dollars. The screen resolution is 1280 x 768 and with regards to being HD Ready the answer is no. The Hitachi has 2 (1 RGB) scarts and the type and number of Multimedia interfaces the 26LD200 uses is none at all. The type of Tuner for this TV is Analogue and the Hitachi is available from limited outlets only.

So given this information, what would be our view of the Hitachi 26LD200?

The most obvious place to start with as far as TV's are concerned would be the picture quality and our score here would be 8, and closely tied in to the picture quality is the sound quality and our score for this would be 8. With regards to the availability and number of relevant connections, our score would be 8. If we take a look at the overall "featureability" our score would be 6 and the final individual verdicts would relate to the ease of use and overall value for money and our scores here would be, 8 and 10 respectively.

Finally our overall opinion would be this set is amazing for the price and outperforms much more expensive competition with ease which means that we can recommend this as a good buy for almost everyone.

It is essential to remember that the prices we use in these reviews are guides and are taken as an average across the industry and it is entirely conceivable and possible to find an occasion when you could be met with prices that are cheaper but also on occasions more expensive.