Bigger And Better Tvs -- Big-Screen Sets Are Much Improved And Cheaper, Too

Turning heads in the TV business requires a fashion model's unrelenting obsession with size and image.

Bigger and brighter is always better. To that end, screen sizes are growing to gargantuan proportions.

This year's crop of fresh faces includes a one-piece model that measures 80 inches on the bias. That's the equivalent of having a 6-foot-8 basketball player standing spread-eagled at a 45-degree angle in your living room.

If you've got the space and the money for a custom home theater - a two-piece setup in which the screen and projector are separate - viewing sizes can be twice that size, reaching 200 inches and more.

"The only real limit today is the size of your living room," says Mitsubishi's Marty Zanfino.

With a larger-than-ever selection on the market today, retailers are almost giddy with anticipation.

The Olympics, for one thing, represented a key sales opportunity, because big-screens do some of their best work for spectator sports. Not only can the viewer pick up incredible detail with near life-size images of athletes, but most big-screens can display two video inputs at once.

But even without the Olympics, big-screens are on a roll.

Better quality, better prices

Not only have these massive sets gotten a lot cheaper - with starting prices in the $2,000 range - but image quality has greatly improved, even before the much-touted digital signal television has begun to make any kind of headway.

Each manufacturer has its own version of an improved big-screen. What works best for you largely depends on how you'll use it.

For starters, no matter what anyone tells you, there's no better image quality than a traditional direct-view TV. Direct-view color TVs have been around since the '50s and manufacturers have perfected the art of making them.

The problem with direct-view - the name for traditional cathode-ray-tube TVs - is they can only get so big. Most manufacturers offer them in sizes approaching 35 inches and stop there; the glass tubes just won't accommodate a larger design.

Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics, which makes many of its TVs in Santa Ana, Calif., offers the only exception. It was among the first to come out with a 35-inch tube TV and in 1993 it broke records with a model that measures 40 inches diagonally. These models will set you back about $3,500 to $3,800 depending on the features included.

The problem with traditional tube TVs is size and weight. Because of the direct-view design, they are often deeper than a projection TV. The 40-inch Mitsubishi is 27 inches deep, compared with 21 or 22 for a similar-size projection TV. And they are hefty, weighing in at as much as 240 pounds in large sizes.

Any TV that measures more than 40 inches uses projection technology. While these sets are much bigger and thinner, their weakness is in image quality and clarity.

Regardless of what manufacturers say, projection TVs do poorly in a bright room. The image gets cloudy and diffused.

These sets also are designed to be watched from the center of your living- room couch. The picture quality suffers from all other angles - from the side and from above and beneath.

Projection TVs are so named because they use color-light guns to produce an image on the screen. The technology was introduced in the '70s but has improved greatly in the last few years.

If you're looking at an all-in-one TV that measures more than 40 inches, chances are it uses rear-projection technology, so called because the image is being produced with guns that sit behind the screen.

Rear-projection TVs range in size from about 40 inches to 80 inches. Their advantage is they come in one piece, so they don't require specialized installation.

Most come on rollers, so they can be easily moved. And they are skinnier than their smaller cousin, the direct-view TV.

One retailer in Southern California says that one of his biggest sellers is a 50-inch projection TV that's only about 20 inches deep. "Picture quality on these sets is much better than it was even a year ago," he says.

Bigger systems available

Picture quality is better in these sets because manufacturers are using larger cathode-ray tubes. In the smaller rear-projection TVs, tube sizes are as much as two to three inches bigger. For 80-inch TVs, CRTs are as large as 9 inches, or nearly twice the size of older projection TV tubes. With larger tubes, the TV has a greater light output, which makes for a brighter, clearer image on the screen.

For screen sizes bigger than 80 inches, manufacturers use front-projection technology.

Used most often in custom home theaters, front-projection TVs come in two pieces. They have a screen that hangs on the wall and a projector that can either sit in a cabinet on the floor or hang from the ceiling, depending on the room setup.

While projection TVs offer size, they are much more costly to install, starting at about $6,500 and ranging as high as $10,000.

Like rear projection, they also cannot compete with direct-view TVs in terms of image quality. And the bigger the screen, the more likely brightness and clarity will suffer.

Several companies - such as Sharp Electronics, Sony and Texas Instruments - are introducing variations on the projection-TV aimed at correcting these weaknesses.

A common theme is to abandon the light guns. To illustrate why, think about a flashlight. At close range, the flashlight produces a ring of light with a clearly defined edge. The farther the light travels, the less distinct the line.

As an alternative, Sharp introduced an LCD, or liquid crystal display, TV. The LCD technology works by projecting light from an LCD panel that operates much like a color slide projector.

What's best for you?

The key to getting the right big-screen TV is not necessarily understanding the technology they use, but instead what you want it to do.

Before you head into a store and get all starry-eyed for an 80-inch model, take a reality check on what your house will accommodate.

Gary Barnhill learned this lesson the hard way. He spent years looking at big-screens and was finally convinced last year that the picture quality was good enough to make the investment.

Even then, he spent two months exploring his options and testing TVs. When his research was complete, he settled on a top-of-the-line 61-inch Sony that he figured would fit nicely in a 15-by-30-foot room in his Newport Beach, Calif., home.

"It was like trying to fit an elephant in your living room," Barnhill said. Eventually, he converted his dining room into a home theater and solved the problem.

Retailers go about helping you find the right TV in a variety of ways.

One way is to find a retailer whose setup looks like your living room.

Other retailers emphasize comparison shopping. There are many TVs sitting side-by-side.

While prices on big-screens have come way down, what shoppers often forget is the set is just the starting point.

To get the most out of a set, you'll need to ensure that the programming coming into it is also high quality.

Any flaws in reception will be magnified at large sizes.

Many big-screen aficionados end up investing in additional accessories such as a digital satellite dish, which offers better picture quality than regular cable TV. And a laser disc player for movies, which offers a much better quality picture than a videocassette recorder.

"If your source of TV programming is a coat hanger on the garage," Barnhill said, "don't bother."

--------------------------------------- SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER, BEFORE YOU BUY ---------------------------------------

A television set is the centerpiece for any home theater, so choosing the right one is important. Here are some tips:

-- Don't overestimate room size. While big-screen TVs have gotten skinnier, they still overwhelm most rooms. It's like trying to put a refrigerator in the corner of your living room.

-- Be wary of unrealistic claims. Projection TV sets won't do well in bright rooms.

-- Think twice if you're a technophobe. Most big-screens are feature-packed. If you don't like tweaking electronics, this might not be for you.

-- Get to know the remote. With more features, a remote is more than an on-off switch. Find a model with a remote that's easy to use.

-- Price the accessories. The set is just the beginning. To maximize the benefits of a big screen, you'll need high-quality input such as satellite television or a laser disc player for movies.

-- Don't be fooled by a spectacular display. Most retailers show big screens in a dark room with a laser disc movie on the screen. Watching broadcast television in a bright room will make the screen look completely different.