As my wife and I watched the Jayhawks playing in the first round of the NCAA basketball tourney, I saw my opening.

“Remember when you told me I was right about everything?”

“What?”

She looked from our living room TV over to me, both surprised and a little suspicious. I moved in.

“Yeah, you said I was right about getting this recliner sofa and lots of other things …”

“I never said you were right about every–“

“Well, anyway, you know how I’ve been saying we should get a 42-inch-wide, flat-panel TV?”

“No.”

“Just think of how it would look over there in the corner.”

“No.”

The crowd cheered. Both of us looked at the screen as Jeff Graves rejected a layup.

I hoped it wasn’t an omen.

Picking a technology

I checked with Greg Schroeder, one of the top television experts at Kief’s Audio-Video in Lawrence, to get some flat-panel buying tips.

“First of all, there are various kinds of flat panels,” Schroeder said.

He went through an acronym list: LCD (liquid crystal display), DLP (digital light processing), LCOS (liquid crystal on silicone) and plasma.

“Of those technologies, plasma is the only one that is truly flat, once you get above a 30-inch (screen width) size,” he said.

According to Home Tech Advisor (http://doc.advisor.com), plasma screens run hot and can burn in an image, such as the small graphics used by TV news shows. The screens also fade over time.

Home Tech Advisor says LCD screens, which are used on most laptop computers, don’t provide a picture like the best plasma screens and have an “image smear” when switching scenes. However, they don’t lose brightness and burn in images, and they run cool.

DLP screens, which were developed by Texas Instruments, are considered to have the most promise for large screens. They use micromirrors that are one-fifth the width of a human hair to produce plasma-like quality images at a lower cost. DLP screens don’t burn in or smear images. But they aren’t yet thin enough to hang on a wall. However, technology is expected to improve and prices are expected to come down as more people buy them.

Screen resolution, size

Schroeder said one of the biggest issues to consider is screen resolution.

To be considered HDTV (high-definition television), the resolution has to exceed 720 progressive. If not, it’s merely a digital EDTV (enhanced-definition television).

“You have to be cautious because there are a whole breed of enhanced-definition TVs that can take in an HDTV signal and then dumb it down to enhanced-definition quality,” he said

For reference, an analog TV has 480 interlaced lines of resolution, which means half the screen gets a new picture at a time. Digital TV brings in 480 progressive lines, which means the entire picture is refreshed at once.

The most popular flat-screen sizes being bought for living rooms are those in the 42 inch- to 50-inch ranges, Schroeder said. The most popular for bedrooms are in the 32 inch- to 42-inch range, he said.

“You won’t find high-definition in plasma until you reach about $5,000,” he said.

For DLP and LCD screens, high-definition is available in the screens larger than 30 inches, with those larger ones beginning at just under $3,000, he said.

Still in the dance

As my wife and I had dinner at a local bar and grill, I pointed to a flat-panel screen on the wall.

“Which one do you think would be better in our living room, that 42-inch one over there, or the big one?” I said, pointing to a projection TV that was about six feet across.

“I could see that one,” she said, pointing to the smaller flat panel hanging on the wall. “The other one is too big and it’s not as clear.”

Hmm. She didn’t say “no.”

I sipped my drink and pondered my next move. It was March, tourney time and anything could happen.