A couple salespeople described these as “microdisplays.” The moniker seemed more than a bit outrageous given the large screen sizes, but the part of the TV that generates the actual picture is about the size of your thumbnail and is broken down into a grid of even smaller elements called pixels. An industrial-grade lightbulb illuminates the image and will eventually need to be replaced. Longevity varies, with bulbs lasting 2,000 to 4,000 hours and costing a few to several hundred dollars to replace. We had to decide what technology we wanted first, though––as there are a few advantages and drawbacks to each–– before looking into other features. Most of the salespeople I spoke to could hardly describe the differences, let alone how each technology worked. Fortunately, you don’t really need to know either, and can just look at the picture.

Liquid Crystal Display - A TV  that uses LCD technology is usually inexpensive and often has great color fidelity, but sometimes has a high black level, which means that dark portions of the picture will be slightly gray. The crystals in an LCD TV can also be more noticeable than other technologies.

LCD displays, for example, are the least expensive type of digital RPTV. The models I saw also seem to have more natural colors than other technologies, though none of the salespeople could explain why. The dots that make up the picture in an LCD TV are slightly more noticeable than with other technologies, which makes it look like you’re watching the image through a screen door. Black portions of the image also don’t get as dark as they do on DLP or CRT-based TVs, which makes shadows easier to see in bright rooms, but flattens or washes out the image in a dark room.

DLP technology, on the other hand, creates darker blacks than LCDs and has a similarly bright image, creating excellent contrast or depth to the image no matter what the room lighting. The DLP’s pixel structure is also more closely packed together than an LCD’s, rendering it nearly invisible. DLP TVs use color filter wheels to create the color in the image. This process can create rainbowlike trails of colors behind moving objects for a small percentage of viewers. It didn’t for me, but then color accuracy on less expensive DLP televisions didn’t seem as good to me as from LCD TVs. Some expensive DLPs, like RCA’s 7-inch deep model, looked outstanding.

Last but not least there’s LCoS. The salespeople were the least knowledgeable and most skeptical of LCoS technology, despite some of the great pictures I saw. My go-to guy, Carlos, explained that numerous manufacturers—including chip giant Intel—have tried and failed to make LCoS work economically, pulling products from the market as quickly as they introduce them. Others, such as Sony and JVC, have been more successful. LCoS is an advanced form of LCD that is similar in quality to DLP.