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While there is nothing to compare with the pristine quality of High Definition pictures on your LCD or Plasma TV, the fact is that for most of us the majority of our viewing schedule will still be Standard Definition (SD) quality.
Having seen a HD demonstration at their local electrical outlet, many consumers have been disappointed when the same TV displays SD pictures.
While the choice of TV is a very subjective and personal choice, we can make some observations on SD/HD pictures and offer some suggestions for TV's that in our opinion perform well with SD material.
We have to point out that here at HDTVorg we are Plasma fans when it comes to SD pictures. We like the 'softer' pictures a Plasma produces, although we realise that there are many of you out there who simply prefer LCD, and there are in fact a few LCD TV's that have made it into our top ten that fully deserve to be there.
We strongly recommend that you compare as many LCD / Plasma TV's alongside each other with SD and HD material on screen. Any retailer worth their salt will go out of their way to help. Also remember;
(i) Viewing distances usually differ with SD and HD for the same screen. HD will invariably be better viewed close, while moving away from the screen will produce better results for SD.
(ii) Generally, but not always, smaller screens make for better SD viewing, and Full HD (1920 x 1080) screens sometimes struggle to handle an SD source because more upsacling is required for a lower quality SD source to 'fit' the extra resolution.
(iii) Ultimately, the picture processing technology employed on a TV will be the single most important factor which determines how good the SD and HD picture is - again, we would like to stress how important it is to compare as many TV's as you can with SD and HD material.
Note: % scores represent the overall performance of each TV
The Top Ten SD Plasma / LCD TV's
