Today almost everywere you go you see an HDTV. They have become common and almost everyone have one, either for gaming for watching movies. I don't remember clearly but years ago when they began to get famous everything that matter the most to buyers was the number of contrast. I remember when i was researching before buying my HDTV worrying about this little number that right now is mostly a marketing schem.
Now in this age and time eveything have gone out of control. Now there's contrast, dinamic contrast, dual image processor, number of speeds, this are just some of the many new things used to sell them.
Contrast - This is supposed to be the difference between the brightes white and darkess black. Before HDTVs this number wasn't mentioned on laptops, monitors and handhelds. It became to apper on TV boxes like a competition starting from 800, 1000, 2000 and some at 3000. Companies continued to up this number thousands and thousands of times, and seriously now this is looking like a marketing tool. I don't trust it that much.
Dinamic Contrast- Now this one is replacing the marketing strategy of the normal on screen contrast. This one have to do with the ligthing ajustmen, or something like that. I don't know for sure but it started on the thousands and some TVs are now said to have millions. Seriously! as months keep passing the keep getting millions and millions and millions. This clearly looks like a another marketing tool that at some point began to lose credibility.
120Hz, 240Hz, and up- This is the frequenzy and speed in wich the TV changes an image frames. This feature is good and bad, but mostly bad. Games look like garbage with this option on and some movies look somewhat weird with it on. In the end this is more than a gimmick and adds hundreds to the cost of the tv. If you're not going to use it, stay away from it.
3D- Everybody should know what 3D is, and many will agree this is just a gimmick that adds nothing special but higher cost to the TVs. For this tech you even need a pair of glasses that cost hundreds.
The so called smart tv- Smart? Give me a break! A tv with software to enter to Youtube, Netflix and going online. Can't you just hook a PS3, or 360 for this instead of paying hundreds or thousands more.
Wi-Fi antenna- Haha! a couple of hundreds more just so you can connect your tv online wirelessly.
Light sensors on Sony TVs- Turned it on and if there's light in the area around the TV it will lower the backlight. Wow!
LED- This one is promoted like some kind of new tv when in reality it is just a LCD that the Backlight is composed of little LED lights. These TVs look brighter and are slimmer but cost you hundreds more.
Image engine- This one is looking exaggerated. When i bought my Sony HDTV every single tv had a so called Bravia engine 2. After some months some of them had a Bravia engine 3 supposed to have better colors. Now they have a so called X-Reality engine with single and dual core which according to Sony will reproduce life like image by optimizing every pixel. This so call dual core engine comes in a $3700 something model. Wow that the price or almost the price of a car. A tv reaching a car price. What the?
Tha above mentioned thecnologies are just a little example of how many unnecessary things are companies adding to HDTVs. Are they just adding this to find an excuse to sell overpriced TVs? Are contrast and dinamic contrast marketing tools? Choose for yourselft.