Since I’m an audio guy at heart I like to be able to relate concepts to their audio equivalent. Brightness and contrast are the bass and treble knobs of the video world. To get the most from your display device (tv, projector, plasma, etc.) you must properly set the video controls. The wrong settings will create silly-looking images that don’t seem real. The right settings will provide a natural picture that shows you what’s actually on the media you’re viewing. Read the rest of this entry »

You may have noticed that the frequency of my posts has dropped a bit. I do apologize for the lack of enjoyable reading, unfortunately my full-time job has become a bit more than full-time lately. I should be back at full speed in a week or two. In the meantime, enjoy this educational write-up on Plasma displays:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_display

When you’re shopping for video components, especially an LCD or Plasma display, you will be inundated by marketing messages telling you how great 1080p is and how un-cool you will be if you don’t get it. Before you buy anything you need to figure out if you will even notice the difference.

The reason that question matters is because you will likely not notice the difference if you’re not using a projector. The pixels (the tiny colored boxes that make up the picture) are so small on a 720p display that you may not even see them, so 1080p would be a waste of money (assuming all other factors are the same with the displays). Below is a chart that shows the various options and Read the rest of this entry »