Samsung LN52A650

Wide-screen televisions showing high-resolution content and HDTV look better than regular sets, allowing you to sit closer and experience a more immersive, theaterlike picture.

With wide-screen television sets showing DVD, Blu-ray or HDTV, you can sit as close as 1.5 times the screen's diagonal measurement and still not notice much of a loss in quality, while sitting farther away than three times the screen size means you're likely to miss out on the immersive feel. Here's a rundown of minimum and maximum recommended viewing distances for wide-screen sets.

Size and your room

Generally, 32-inch and smaller television sets are great for bedrooms or guest rooms but too small for the main living room. Television sets with bigger screens are large enough for the whole family to enjoy and will probably be too much for most small bedrooms.

If you're mounting the set inside an entertainment center, be sure it fits in every dimension; also, leave an inch or two on all sides so that the TV has enough ventilation. If you're getting a bigger set, you may want to consider a dedicated stand; many TV makers sell matching stands that increase the aesthetic appeal of their hefty boxes.

For additional information on screen sizes, please see CNET's Ultimate Buying Guide

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In addition to considering screen size, TV type, and available features also consider ways to conserve energy. Below are a few energy consumption tips for your HDTV:

Turn the TV off when not in use.

Turn on the power-saver mode
Many TVs these days come with a power-saver mode that's designed to cut down the power consumption. Performance of this mode varies from model to model, with the effect sometimes being drastic and other times providing only a slight savings. The only downside is that the power-saver mode usually makes the TV less bright, but we've found that sometimes this has a beneficial effect on the image quality, especially with the room lights turned off, in which case it's a win-win situation.

Turn down the LCD's backlight
Many LCDs give you the ability to control the intensity of the backlight in the TV. By turning down the backlight, you'll lower power consumption, but also make the television less bright. While retail stores love to turn the backlights up all the way for their displays, we find that we get the best image quality when we turn down the backlight significantly.

Control room lighting
Reduction in the intensity of the backlight is going to make the TV less bright, but that can be compensated by controlling the light in your home theater room. While this may be a little overboard just for power consumption, limiting the light in your home theater also goes a long way toward creating the "theater" experience, as well as getting the most out of your TV.

And beyond TV concerns, good-quality blackout shades offer thermal benefits that keep other energy costs low; they keep heat in during the winter and keep it out during the summer.

Watch TV together
Having multiple televisions in a house is more of a norm than a luxury these days, but that also means your power consumption is going to increase as well. You can cut that power consumption by watching with your family or housemates. You might need to make a few compromises on what you watch, but sometimes it's more fun to watch with friends and family.

Don't forget to properly recycle your old model
If donating or repurposing your old TV is not a viable option, CNET encourages households to recycle their electronics. Please explore the following websites to find a recycling center in your area Electronics Take Back Coalition or Earth 911.

Beginning November 1, 2008, the EPA and Department of Energy proprietors of the Energy Star logo have established more stringent guidelines for TVs in standby and active modes in an attempt to reduce power consumption. Before you buy your next HDTV, review CNET's comprehensive Quick Guide to TV Power Consumption which includes scores, annual energy cost, wattage used in standby or active modes and much more.

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HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, and that's a pretty good description of what it is. In layman's terms, HDMI is a type of digital connection that's capable of transmitting high-definition video and high-resolution audio over a single cable. To do the same thing with analog cables, you'd need to connect three component-video cables plus six analog audio cables--that's a whole lot of cable clutter.

HDMI can deliver the best image quality of any of the cable types available today. It can handle high-definition video of up to 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, which is the most bandwidth-intensive video format currently available. The older PC-based DVI connection offers equivalent quality, but it is rarely available on HDTVs or video components these days. Component video is found on nearly all electronics that output high-def video, and its image quality is slightly lower than HDMI, but it's really difficult for most people to tell the difference. Many viewers are probably familiar with the quality associated with the various standard-definition video cables--namely S-Video, composite (the yellow video cable), and RF--and HDMI provides a potentially huge improvement over all of them. As always, however, the biggest factor in video quality is the source; a low-quality source delivered over HDMI will still look worse than a high-quality source over S-Video.

For audio, HDMI is the reigning king of quality as well. It supports the ability to carry eight channels of 24-bit audio at 192kHz--enough to handle even the highest resolution audio soundtracks such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. The only other connection type that can deliver the same quality are multichannel analog audio cables, but you'd need to run as many as eight separate cables to get the same quality. Digital audio cables--both optical and coaxial--can deliver multichannel audio, but are limited to lower-resolution audio signals.

For more information on HDMI, please read HDMI Quick Guide

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