Blogs

Gift Ideas for Girls (5-7 years)

She won't be shy about telling you what she'd really like, but if a pony is out of the question, then Getprice has some gift ideas for your little princess.

Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - November 18, 2009

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Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - November 11, 2009

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Gift Ideas for Boys (5-7 years)

He's just started school and is getting a taste for independence, and you have no idea what to get for him. Try our gift guide for some great ideas for 5 to 11 year-old boys.

Gift Ideas for Girls (2-4 years)

At this age, your baby is just starting to turn into a real little girl—or maybe a real little tomboy—so it can be hard to figure out what she wants. If you're not sure what gifts to give, then keep reading for some ideas!

Gift Ideas for Boys (2-4 years)

Choosing a gift for a boy aged between two and four years old? Need some ideas? Getprice to the rescue!

Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - November 4, 2009

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Tyagi 37-inch 1080p LCD Christmas has come early, in stock now! Purchase this amazing full HD LCD TV with HD Digital Tuner and you will receive not only FREE delivery but 3 years warranty!

Top 10 Gift Ideas for Babies (0-2 years)

Looking for baby gift ideas? Can't decide on what to buy for a small infant? Geptrice is here to help!

Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - October 27, 2009

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Roma Sofa Bean Bag Exclusive to Getprice users: save 10% on your purchase! Ambient Lounge bring GetPrice customers this exclusive offer, the first 50 customers to enter "getprice" when purchasing one of Ambient Lounge’s lush range of quality bean bag loungers receives 10% off their order!

Basic Apple iPhone Repairs & Troubleshooting

Drop you iPhone onto concrete? Accidentally put it through the wash? You may be careful but accidents do happen, and so here's a quick guide to how to avoid, what to expect and what to do about the unthinkable happening to your precious Apple iPhone.

Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - October 20, 2009

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ONIX 42-Inch HD Plasma 42" ONIX HD Plasma Panel with 3 years warranty, 2 HDMI Inputs, 1024x768 screen resolution, quality built-in speaks, on screen display, 500 cd/m Brightness, teletext and much more.

Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - October 13, 2009

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Sony PlayStation Portable PSP With high-quality graphics processing capability equivalent to that of PlayStation 2, in addition to rich stereo sound, PSP offers the joy of playing full-scale 3D-CG games and viewing high resolution video images anytime, anywhere.

Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - October 06, 2009

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Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - September 29, 2009

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ASUS Eee PC 1005HA Seemingly crafted by nature itself, the Eee PC Seashell draws its inspiration from seashells and its opalescent and glossy exterior is crafted by the innovative in-Mold Roller technology. With the Multi-Touch gesture input feature, you can easily zoom in and out to view photos or read documents by just moving two fingertips apart or together on the touchpad. You can also simultaneously slide two fingertips up or down the touchpad, making scrolling in a window easy without the use of a mouse.

Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - September 22, 2009

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Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - September 15, 2009

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Weekly Hot Deals Newsletter - September 9, 2009

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ASUS Eee PC 701 The Eee PC 701 is a 7-inch notebook, truly an ultra-compact mobile computer. In fact, its overall dimensions are somehow greater than 7". It's no novelty item, it's a fully capable PC that will perfectly fit into not only a briefcase or a backpack but also into a handbag.

ASUS Eee Top PC ET2002 - All-in-One Touchscreen Desktop

Want a slim all-in-one desktop PC that's as light on power as a netbook? ASUS is here with the Eee Top PC ET2002.

HDTV & Home Theatre Setup Guide

Connecting up your home theatre equipment is really a fairly simple task, but there are a few different ways of doing it depending on what components you have and what image and sound quality you want to achieve. This guide will help you get the best quality from the audio, video and hi-fi equipment you have.

HDTV Setup Guide - Surround Sound Speaker Placement

Positioning speakers is critical to the quality of your sound, perhaps more than any other aspect of home cinema setup. It's also critical to the look of your entertainment area and a cause of a lot of fights between partners, leading to what's known amongst enthusiasts as SAF, or Spouse Approval Factor. In an ideal world, you'd have the room, money and romantic carte blanche to have seven fridge-size speakers and a subwoofer capable of architectural demolition. In the real world, you want speakers and home cinema gear like Blu-ray or DVD players receivers and televisions that are unobtrusive and stylish enough to meet with your partner's approval and a sound that is convincing for a given budget. Let's look at the options.

HDTV Setup Guide - Blu-ray Player, HDMI Receiver & HDTV

Now we're talking. This is the easiest way to get the most from your BDs and DVDs. All you have to do is plug the Blu-ray player's HDMI output into your receiver's HDMI input, plug the receiver's HDMI output into the HDTV's HDMI input, and you're done! HDMI makes everything simple, and keeps the quality digitally perfect.

HDTV Setup Guide - Blu-ray Player, Non-HDMI Receiver & HDTV

If you're a Blu-ray convert (and if you have an HDTV, you should be...), and you have an HDTV but are using your old surround sound receiver, you're not really going to be able to use the S/PDIF digital connectors (TOSLnk optical or RCA coaxial electrical) to get surround sound. Blu-ray uses Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, neither of which are supported by older receivers. What you can do is use your Blu-ray player's six or eight analogue output sockets and connect them to the surround receiver's 5.1 or 7.1 analogue inputs. It's not as elegant as using HDMI, but if you have a good quality older receiver, the sound will be better than a cheap new HDMI receiver. You needn't worry about also connecting a separate DVD player, Blu-ray players play DVDs very well indeed and usually upscale them to match your HDTVs native resolution.

HDTV Setup Guide - DVD Player, Non-HDMI Surround Receiver & HDTV

If you already have an older surround sound system without HDMI ports and are incorporating an HDTV into the system, there are some minor issues that can pop up, but no fear, there's always a way to solve them.

HDTV Setup Guide - DVD or Blu-ray Player, Stereo Amplifier & HDTV

If you don't have much left for sound after buying your big TV, there's still a lot to be said for using your trusty old stereo setup instead of your TV's speakers. TV speakers are seldom capable of any dynamic range, bass weight or refinement, especially the tiny speakers hidden in flatscreens. Luckily, every Blu-ray or DVD player can be plugged into your existing amplifier and speakers in exactly the same way as a CD player.

HDTV Setup Guide - Blu-ray Player and/or Games Console & HDTV

If you have made the leap to high-definition Blu-ray discs, the only way to get the full 1080p resolution of the discs onto your screen is to use an HDMI cable. If your HDTV predates HDMI, use analogue Component cables, but it's not the best way to do things.

HDTV Setup Guide - DVD Player & HDTV

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Since pretty much every TV you'll have bought in the last few years is likely to be a flat, widescreen HDTV, either plasma or LCD, you'll want to get the best quality you can from your DVD player. We recommend you do not use a Composite cable. If your DVD player is an older, standard-definition-only model, use an S-Video cable or Component RCA cables to get the best picture. Use the setup or configuration menu of your DVD player to make sure the output is set to fit a widescreen TV's aspect ratio and set the TV to fill the screen, or you'll find the picture distorted and stuck in the middle of a mess of letterboxes and pillarboxes.

HDTV Setup Guide - DVD Player & TV

If you haven't yet joined the world of high-definition televison, connecting your DVD player to your TV is very straightforward. Simply plug the DVD player's "Video Out" and "Audio Out" RCA cables into the television's "Video In" and "Audio In" socket. While the basic yellow Composite cable is perfectly adequate, it is the lowest quality connector and you'll want to use either S-Video or Component video cables instead. S-Video cables are easily identified by a connector with a metal ring surrounding four small pins, and a Component connection uses three RCA or phono cables with red, green and blue connectors.

HD-Ready versus Full HD - What's the Difference?

HDTV, HD-Ready, Full HD, 720p 1080p... Which is is which and what is what? If you're about to purchase a plasma or LCD TV, you can be confronted by loads of confusing terminology. High-Definition Television can be bewildering to the newcomer, and sometimes even the more technically knowledgeable.

Which GPS Navigation Device For Your Car?

The Global Positioning System has made navigating the roads so easy that, for those who own a GPS Device, it's almost hard to imagine how we found our way around before. There are now so many devices that use the satellite navigation system to help you pick a route that it can be quite bewildering. So, we're going to do a quick roundup of some of the popular offerings, factoring in your budget.

Netbooks in Australia: What's Popular?

Netbooks are on the move! The first of the breed of mini-laptops was the ASUS Eee PC 701 in 2007, a tiny subnotebook with a 7-inch display. The hype for the little Eee PC spurred almost every manufacturer to produce their own devices within a matter of months, and there is now a bewildering array of the things awaiting your selection.

HTC HD2 Leo On The Way

Thanks to the fine bloggers at ai.rs, we have specifications and renderings of the upcoming hyper-smartphone, the HTC HD2 "Leo", and it looks like it's going to be a something of a beast.

Western Digital My Book Essential & My Passport Essential

One thing you can never have too much of is hard drive space. The average laptop tends to have about 160GB of space, and if you're using your Sony PlayStation 3 as a media player, you're probably stuck with even less. On top of the need for more space, there's also the need to back up your data. Store everything on one hard drive and a power surge or simple wear and tear can completely destroy your precious digital information. Western Digital's portable storage line has just been updated, and is looking even better than ever.

Pentax K-X DSLR Announced

Pentax has leaked an announcement of their new K-X DSLR digital camera. Offerings by Nikon, Olympus, Sony and Canon are generally superb, but sadly the unwieldy size and high price of DSLRs makes them an unlikely choice for average users. It's a little hard to carry a bulky DSLR camera around all the time. Luckily Pentax cameras generally leave enough change for a spare compact camera.

Apple iPod nano Fifth Generation

Apple's latest iPod nano, the new fifth generation model, lives up to its name. It's almost mystical how Apple has squeezed this much into such a small MP3 player. There are now so many features crammed into the new iPod nano, that one gets the feeling that the only reason Apple hasn't shrunk it any further is because it would become completely unusable to human beings—a bit like the last iPod Shuffle. The new nano is the same size as the last generation, but the storage has been bumped up to 8GB and there's much, much more.

B&W Zeppelin Mini - High-End iPod Touch and iPhone Dock

British audio firm B&W or Bowers & Wilkins are best known amongst audiophiles (sound enthusiasts) for their exceptionally high quality hi-fi speakers. Most specifically, they're known for their state-of-the-art (and state-of-emergency-priced) Nautilus speakers, shaped liked the eponymous coiled shell to absorb and isolate the rear radiation of the drivers without impeding their movement.

Nokia X6 - Media Smartphone and More

Nokia is not a name synonymous with "fun"; "durable", "functional" maybe, "sensible" or maybe even "conservative" are the words that normally spring to mind. The Nokia X6, the flagship of their new X-series, however, should have even the trendiest buyer salivating.

Nokia Booklet 3G - a Netbook by the Kings of Mobile

Nokia, the kings of the mobile phone world, have decided to finally join the mini laptop fray with the Nokia Booklet 3G. Since there are already an almost unfathomable number of netbooks out there, you might be wondering what Nokia have to contribute. Let's go through their claimed facts and figures quickly and let you know.

Nikon COOLPIX S1000pj - Camera and... Projector?

A camera with a built-in projector. Nikon has truly answered a question no-one had even thought to ask with the COOLPIX S1000pj—a point-and-shoot digital camera featuring the latest picoprojector to compete with those from Microvision.

PS3 Slim - The Sony PlayStation 3 Gets Cheaper And Thinner

The web has been crawling with rumours about a slimmer version of Sony's PlayStation 3 for months, and due to some cunning denial and obfuscation on Sony's part they have remained precisely that: rumours. Until now.

Western Digital WD TV - A Bargain HD Multimedia Player

Do you have a large collection of music, photos and movies on your hard drive? Do you have a high definition TV and comfortable lounge with no room for a noisy PC and no desire to have to use a keyboard and mouse to control it? Do you not feel like paying much for yet another HD gadget? Western Digital's WD TV is a simple and cheap way to connect a USB hard drive or thumb drive full of media to a high-definition home theatre setup.

Sony X-Series Walkman - Portable Media Showboat

About twenty years ago, portable music was dominated by the Sony Walkman to the point where "Walkman" was the generic term for any portable cassette player. Sony's monopoly on pocket audio prestige ended pretty swiftly when Apple released their now-ubiquitous iPod. While the iPod's reign of the MP3 player landscape is still largely unchallenged, Sony releases a steady stream of excellent little Walkman devices that often beat the Apple at its own game. The latest top-of-the-line Sony Walkman, the X-series, is out there to take on the iPod Touch. Whether or not it succeeds depends on what you want from a portable media player.

Samsung Jet - Australia's Secret Smartphone

Not heard of the Samsung Jet? It's not a mainstream product in Australia, but if none of the growing number of touchscreen phones on the Australian market has tickled your fancy yet, this Asian- and European-market import model ticks so many boxes that it might just be the one for you.

HTC Hero - Google's Android Grows Up

The HTC Hero is the latest touchscreen smartphone from HTC—the only phone company that's embraced Google's open source Android operating system. Here's a quick rundown of its features to see if it's the phone for you.

LG Xenon - The Fun 3G Phone

After our Apple iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre and Nokia N97 touchscreen smartphone articles, we thought we'd take a look at the upcoming LG GR500, better known as the LG Xenon. Aimed more at casual and younger users than the Blackberry or Nokia N-series crowd, the LG has features that should appeal to just about everybody.

Nokia N97: Smartphone or Smartest Phone?

If you've been waiting for a Nokia alternative to the iPhone, The Nokia N97 is it.

A feature-packed, high-resolution touch-screen smartphone running the Symbian S60 operating system, the N97 allows you to download software from the Ovi app store to customise your phone to your liking. The first thing you'll see when you pick up your phone is the home page, with various of your choice widgets giving you up-to-the-minute updates on everything from your e-mail to news and your facebook account.

Olympus PEN E-P1 - Rebirth of a Classic Camera

The Olympus PEN EP-1 is certainly causing something of a storm in the camera blogs with its retro/antique styling, compact size and interchangeable lenses. If you've been hankering for the image quality of an SLR camera in a convenient, small package that weighs as much as a regular point-and-shoot, the Olympus PEN E-P1 may be able to sate your camera desires. Using a Micro Four Thirds sensor that's much larger than the sensors in a point and shoot, the PEN E-P1 is a modern, digital update of the classic Olympus PEN SLR series from 1963—half-frame 35mm cameras renowned by photographers for their balance between compactness and performance.

Apple iPhone 3GS: New iPhone, New Features

The Apple iPhone 3GS has arrived! If you're wondering whether you should upgrade your current iPhone, or maybe make the leap to getting your very first smartphone, we're providing a list of changes it features over the previous generation. Let's take a look.

Is the Palm Pre an iPhone Killer?

If you're looking for a smartphone alternative to Apple's iPhone, then you might want to give the Palm Pre some consideration.

Is x.v.Color/xvYCC Important?

x.v.Color is a colour format supported by some high-end televisions and equipment that greatly expands the number of colours that can potentially be shown by the set. However, there is no consumer video that takes advantage of the format, and so as of this moment it is a largely unnecessary and only an extreme form of “future-proofing”.

Do I Need a WMV (Windows Media Video) Capable Player?

Windows Media Video is a set of video codecs used primarily for internet downloads. A WMV-capable player will allow you to play WMV-encoded video you have downloaded.

What Makes Windows MCE (Media Center Edition) Special?

Windows Media Center Editions are versions of the Windows operating system that allow you to create a very slick home theatre experience with a PC, right down to remote control integration. If you're building an HTPC, Windows MCE is an excellent upgrade to consider.

Why is Widescreen Important?

Widescreen refers to screen aspect ratios wider than the 4:3 of standard definition. In television and video, it most commonly it refers to the 16:9 aspect ratio of most HDTVs on the market. In order to make the most out of your TV screen, it's highly recommended that you purchase a widescreen TV. It's also the only way to really see most films as the director intended.

Is a Video Projection System a Good Idea?

In order to create a real home cinema, the only way to get a truly large picture is via a video projector. Practical concerns are the only drawback to projectors, as they require a darkened room and a new projector bulb after a certain number of hours, which can cost a surprisingly large amount of money.

Is VHS (Video Home System) Still Worth Buying?

It's old, it's fuzzy, and you need to rewind it to watch it: it's the ancient VHS cassette. You really don't need a VHS player unless you have a lot of precious cassettes that you should really investigate converting to a non-tape-based format at this point.

What Is The VGA/D-Sub/D-Subminiature Socket For?

VGA is the standard analogue 15-pin video connector (usually blue) found on computers.

What is VCD (Video Compact Disc)?

In the days before DVD, some video was distributed on VCD. Due to the lack of space, quality was very poor compared to DVD and so the format is now considered obsolete. Most DVD players are still able to play back VCDs, so if you have a stash of them lying around you needn't worry too much about not being able to play them.

What is VC-1?

Along with MPEG4 AVC/H.264, VC-1 is one of the two codecs used to store high definition video on Blu-ray discs. As with any technology there's some dispute as to which is the superior codec, but both offer picture quality that makes DVD look quite disappointing in comparison.

Does Upscaling Make DVDs High Definition?

High definition televisions are often ruthlessly revealing of the limitations of standard definition video. "Upscaling" is a technology that creates a simulated high definition picture from a standard definition source. This generally looks substantially better than simply plugging a standard definition cable into an HDTV. While upscaling does improve the picture quality of standard definition sources such as DVDs, it is not a true substitute for a high definition source such as Blu-ray or high definition television broadcasts.

Do I Need a Truecolor Monitor?

Truecolor, otherwise known as 8-bit colour, is the standard colour format for digital photographs. Simply put, colour information is stored as a combination of 256 values of red, green and blue respectively, which combined allow the creation of 16.7 million colours. Most photographs use the Truecolor format, as do PCs, but DVD and Blu-ray use Component colour and so Truecolor is only necessary if you intend on using your HDTV as a computer monitor.

Is TOSLink/Optical Cable Essential for HDTV?

TOSLink cables use optical fibre to transmit digital stereo or surround sound data. It is a standard digital means of connecting DVD players to receivers, along with digital coaxial RCA electrical cable. It is now being superceded by HDMI. TOSLink cables only use the S/PDIF protocol, and so cannot transmit the latest high-definition surround sound formats found on Blu-ray discs; for those you'll need to use HDMI.

Does My System Need to be THX Compliant?

THX is a set of standards for sound and video in cinemas, home theatres and video game equipment. Short for "Tomlinson Holman eXperiment", it was created by Lucasfilm to ensure faithful reproduction of film sound design in theatres. It is not essential for a surround sound setup to be THX-compliant, but the THX badge does at least ensure a minimum quality standard for sound and video given. If your entire system consists of THX-certified components and is playing a THX-certified movie, you will experience precisely what you were intended to experience.

Can S-video (Separate Video) Cables Be Used for HDTV?

Often incorrectly referred to as "Super Video", S-video is an analogue video cable connector that allows for much better quality standard definition picture quality than basic composite cable, but is inferior to component cables.

Do I Need Super-white Capability?

DVDs and Blu-ray discs do not use the entire range of the digital colour spectrum for reasons of compatibility with existing analogue technology. Some digital sources, however, do put out signals that are either darker or brighter than this limited range, and TVs that can display this are referred to as having "super-white" capability. Some DVD and Blu-ray players are capable of expanding the output signal to the same range, which is only advisable if you are plugging the device into a computer monitor not designed to properly display the limited range of DVD and Blu-ray discs. Super-white is not essential, but is yet another feature that will help to future-proof a TV.

What Does a Subwoofer Do?

A subwoofer is a loudspeaker designed to reproduce the lowest audio frequencies: the rumbles, booms, and thuds that give sound its sense of scale and power. Subwoofers are not strictly necessary if you have large, capable speakers, but are the most economical way of getting a big sound from a small system. In surround sound, subwoofers are represented by the ".1" in 5.1-7.1 channel surround sound.

Is Stereo Enough for Home Theatre?

Plain old 2-channel stereo is still the standard for music recording, and a sadly underrated way to get high quality sound from your movies. Stereo avoids the complexity and cabling of multichannel surround sound and allows you to spend more money per speaker to get better sound quality. If you are happy with your hi-fi, don't rush into surround sound. First try out your existing sound equipment with your movies and if you're satisfied, then there's little need to upgrade unless you really want those rear effects.

Is SECAM Compatibility Necessary?

SECAM is the standard definition French television broadcast format. Very similar to PAL, its presence on a device is of little concern to an Australian buyer unless he or she has a large collection of French video cassettes.

SD/SDTV (Standard Definition Television)

Standard Definition is the blanket term for all the television and video formats that preceded high definition, including PAL, SECAM and NTSC, ranging from 480 lines of resolution to 576 lines.

SCART/Euroconnector

SCART connectors are a European standard analogue television connector that is easily identified by its large size and multiple flat pins. It is of little use in Australia aside from connecting up older devices bought in Europe and for that purpose you can buy an adapter that allows you to hook up a SCART connector to RCA connector-equipped devices.

S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interconnect Format)

S/PDIF is not a type of connector, but rather a digital protocol used to allow the transfer of digital audio from one device to another. The two primary connectors used are the optical TOSLink cable and the electrical RCA coaxial cable, but the same information can now also be passed through an HDMI cable, so a DVD or Blu-ray player now needs only one cable to connect to the rest of your home theatre system. S/PDIF allows the transfer of CD audio, and DVD-quality Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound. S/PDIF connectors cannot transmit the new high-definition audio formats, Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio; you will need an HDMI cable.

RGB (Red, Green, Blue)

Red, green and blue can be combined to create any colour visible to the human eye, and so televisions use pixels consisting of these primary colours to create a picture.

Should I Use RF (Radio Frequency) Cables?

RF cables are the traditional means of connecting an antenna to a TV or video recorder.

Resolution

Resolution, in the simplest terms, refers to the amount of detail a TV can resolve. TV pictures consist of dots called pixels: the more pixels in an image, the better. High definition television refers to television of a higher resolution than standard definition television. Currently, the highest resolution video available to consumers is that of Blu-ray, 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels or 1920x1080. When looking for a television to display Blu-ray, be sure to buy a TV with a native resolution of 1920x1080 to get the best possible picture.

Refresh Rate

Refresh rate refers to the number of times per second a TV updates the picture. This differs from frame rate because a TV frequently repeats the same frame. For instance, if a video is shot at a frame rate of 24 frames per second, and a TV refreshes the picture at 72hz, the TV is showing each frame three times. In the past, using CRT technology, refresh rate made a large difference to the perceived headache-inducing flicker of the display: the faster the refresh rate, the less flicker. With LCD and plasma, flicker is no longer a problem and so refresh rate has now become important when considering how TVs handle motion and judder.

Rear Projection Television/RPTV

Rear Projection Televisions use a video projector inside a TV to create a very large picture for a comparatively low price. However, as flat screen technology like plasma and LCD has dropped in price and increased in size, the large bulk and relative picture quality of RPTVs has seen them mostly disappear from the market. RPTVs in the past have traditionally used LCD or DLP technology, but there is a new contender: Mitsubishi's Laservue which offers, as of writing this article, the most vibrant colour reproduction available.

RCA/Phono jacks

The standard means of connecting up hi-fi and AV equipment for the last few decades, the long-standard RCA connector is now being superceded by digital connectors such as HDMI. But, if you are considering the purchase of a new receiver, be sure to check the back for those old RCA sockets, as future upgrades to newer digital sources generally will not require a new receiver if you can simply plug the faithful old analogue audio cables in.

Rainbow Effect

Most DLP projectors (and rear projection TVs) create colour by consecutively flashing red green and blue images by means of a spinning colour wheel that filters the light reflecting off the DLP mirror chip. Depending on the sensitivity of the viewer, this can leave trails of colour as the eye moves across the screen. This is a subjective phenomenon, but not an inconsiderable one, as afflicted viewers can find the effect unsightly or in the worst cases, quite literally headache-inducing. Massive improvements have been made over the years by increasing the speed of the colour wheel, but to those who perceive the effect regardless, the only solution using DLP is a very expensive projector that uses three separate chips to create colour. If you are contemplating a DLP projector, be sure to audition it before buying.

PVR/DVR (Personal/Digital Video Recorder)

A modern replacement to the venerable VCR, the PVR or DVR records video on a hard disk drive instead of a videotape cassette. Benefits are much easier programmability, much better picture and sound quality and, best of all, no need to rewind.

Progressive Scan

Due to the technological constraints of the time, television was original stored and broadcast in an interlaced format. Interlaced video creates a picture by filling the screen with alternating scanning lines in fields that combined over time created full picture frames. Progressive scan video fills each field with the entire picture frame, thus offering a more stable, more natural, solid picture. By their nature, all LCD, DLP and plasma displays are inherently progressive scan, and so require a process call de-interlacing if the source is interlaced, but this is all done by the set and of little concern to the viewer.

Power Conditioning/Line Conditioning

In order to prevent interference from the wall socket causing unwanted noise in the sound and picture of your home theatre, it is possible to buy a device to clean up the current. There is a lot of dispute as to the effectiveness of this technology in the digital age, where things either work or don't, but if you are experiencing noisiness or interference despite your best efforts, it is advisable to discuss power-conditioning with an expert. Note: power conditioning is not the same thing as surge protection. Surge protection is an essential way of protecting your investment from harmful fluctuations in current.

Plasma

If you're looking for an affordable, huge screen with astoundingly accurate colour and black levels, a plasma display is the way to go. While the quality of the image is unquestionably better than that of LCD, there are numerous disadvantages which have contributed to the diminishing popularity of the technology. The first, and most serious problem is a phenomenon called "burn-in", where extended use of the TV results in degraded picture quality as the glowing phosphors that produce the image wear out, often unevenly resulting in patchy degradation. The other drawback is that plasma TVs use a lot more power than LCD TVs, and so are less desirable to the more eco-conscious consumer.

Pillarboxing

When a movie is shot in an aspect ratio that is narrower than the screen on which it's being watched, in order to display the whole image without distortion it is shown between two black vertical bars or "pillarboxed". This is the same principle as "letterboxing" but reversed, and is not a malfunction.

Pixel

The picture of your TV is composed of tiny dots of colour called "pixels". Every pixel consists of a red, green and blue sub-pixels that, together, are able to combine to create the full visible spectrum of colour. The more pixels in an image, the greater the resolution of the image and the more detail it is able to display.

PAL (Phase Alernating Line)

The standard definition colour TV format used by most of the Western world (except for North America) for colour broadcasting since the 1950s. It has a resolution of 576 interlaced lines at a refresh rate of 50Hz, and DVDs purchased in Australia are in the PAL format.

OLED/AMOLED

Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. A new technology that uses glowing plastic to create a picture. It offers substantial power savings over current technology by not requiring a backlight, and quite literally the best picture quality to date. The drawback is that, currently, the screens have a limited lifespan. So far, aside from a few extremely expensive (and tiny) screens manufactured by Sony, OLEDs are predominantly found on portable devices.

Ogg Vorbis

An open source audio compression codec. Similar to MP3, but not as widely supported by hardware.

NTSC (National Television System Committee)

The American standard format for colour television broadcast. Slightly inferior to the more widely-used PAL standard (used here in Australia), featuring only 480 lines of vertical resolution to PAL's 576. And, due to its 60Hz refresh rate, susceptible to an unfortunate effect called "judder" when trying to display media originally recorded on film.

Native Resolution

A plasma, LCD or DLP screen is composed of a fixed number of pixels. The number of pixels determines the resolution of the screen, and so the native resolution is the absolute highest resolution the screen is able to resolve. In order to display Blu-ray's full quality, you need a screen with a resolution of 1920 pixels in width and 1080 pixels in height.

MPEG-4 AVC/H.264

One of the two video compression formats (codecs) used to store video on Blu-ray, the other being VC-1. Both provide stunning picture quality.

MPEG-2

A video compression format (codec) created by the Moving Picture Experts Group, used in DVD, DVB (digital television) and cable TV.

MP3

The most common and popular form of audio compression codec, MP3 reduces the sound data on CDs to approximately one tenth of the original size with an acceptable reduction in quality.

Motion Blur

Purely as a result of the nature of the technology, LCD TVs are sometimes afflicted with a visual quirk that results in perceived blurred motion. This is caused by each frame of the video being held on screen for the entire 24th of the second, which is quite unlike the effect created by a film shutter opening and closing in the cinema. Some televsions counter this by inserting a black frame between each frame of the video, and some flicker the backlight on and off. Other televisions use "Motion Smoothing", which creates fake transitional frames between the original frames.

What is Mini DisplayPort For?

Mini DisplayPort is a compact form of the DisplayPort media connector.

Macroblocking

Macroblocking is a digital video artefact that's caused by lossy compression used in excess. You'll most commonly see it on digital TV broadcasts where the screen breaks up into a blocky mess during fast moving action scenes, but on DVDs it's also ruthlessly revealed by high definition TV sets.

LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation)

LPCM is something you will occasionally see on Blu-ray discs' audio options, but it's basically what you've been listening to on CD for all these years. LPCM is linear audio, which is to say that there is no compression at all used to store it. The quality of the LPCM that you'll find on Blu-ray discs, however, is many, many orders of magnitude higher than the quality of that on audio CDs. In addition, some Blu-ray players are able to decode audio compression and convert it to LPCM, which will allow you to send a new format to a old receiver that is incapable of decoding the new Blu-ray compression formats.

Lossy Compression

To save space, most media use data compression to reduce the size of the file. Lossy compression describes compression formats (or "codecs") that sacrifice quality to minimise the amount of space used for storage. MP3, for instance is a lossy compression codec.

Lossless Compression

In order to save space, media files are subject to a technique called data compression that reduces their overall size. Some compression places a priority on saving space, and so sacrifices picture or sound quality: this is called "lossy" compression. Compression that loses none of the original's quality at all is called "lossless" compression. You won't find any consumer-oriented video using lossless compression yet, but as storage capacity improves, lossless audio and lossless images are starting to become more common. Blu-ray, for instance, now uses two lossless audio formats: Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio.

LFE (Low Frequency Effects)

In a 5.1 channel surround sound system, the ".1" refers to the sixth channel reserved for the subwoofer. Subwoofers reproduce bass, or low frequency sound, hence the channel is called the LFE or Low Frequency Effects channel.

Letterboxing

Many films are shot in widescreen formats that are wider than the TV used to display them, In order to show the full picture, it is placed between black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. This is called "letterboxing". It's a common complaint of many viewers confronted with letterboxed movies that their screen is malfunctioning or not showing the full picture, but the opposite is true. In order to see everything that was photographed, you'll need the letterbox. Some televisions allow you to zoom into the picture, or stretch it vertically to fill the screen, but the former crops off the sides of the image, and the latter badly distorts the image.

LED (Light Emitting Diode)

A very power-efficient form of light bulb you're most familiar with from its use in switches and control panels. LED technology has improved dramatically over the year, and is now making inroads into LCD TV backlights. Some LED-backlit LCD TVs are edge-lit, meaning the light comes from the sides of the screen, and some are back-lit, meaning there is a large number of LEDs directly behind the LCD panel. The former's advantage is that it's cheaper; the latter's advantage is that it allows "local dimming", meaning that individual parts of the screen can be dimmed for better blacks.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)

One of the main technologies used in flat-screen TVs. LCD consists of a panel of liquid crystal shutters over a backlight that are capable of either allowing the light through or stopping it. LCD allows remarkably intense colours, and is more economical with power than a plasma TV. It's weakness is in its black levels, as the liquid crystal is never completely able to stop all the light coming through. To improve the contrast, some LCD TVs dim the backlight in dark scenes or, in newer, very expesive models with LED backlights, dim parts of the backlight.