<a href="http://prolost.com/blog/2011/3/28/your-new-tv-ruins-movies.html" source="Prolost">Your New TV Ruins Movies</a> is a wonderful, eye-opening article about flat-panel TVs. If you care at all how your television looks---and whether it all matches the original intent of the director---it's well worth your while to read the whole thing (it's not that long). However, here are the main points: <dl dt_class="field"> Plasma > LCD If you don't have a flat-panel television yet, or you're in the market for a new one, strongly consider buying a plasma screen instead of an LCD. Why? Because <iq>plasma TVs can render much darker black levels than even the best LCDs</iq>. Don't trust your eyes---or the TV's in-store settings If you're buying a television, use consumer reviews and ratings (e.g. Consumer Reports in the States) to guide you rather than going to a store. The settings in the store vary wildly and are almost always blown way out to catch your eye; once you get a TV like that home, into your much darker living room---which is unlikely to be lit by fluorescent bulbs---that TV may or may not hold up. If you're buying for price, you're buying for price---and the best of luck to you---but if not, trust ratings from qualified judges more than your own subjective opinion drawn in the most non-cinematic setting. Turn off motion-smoothing <div>If you do have---or decide to buy---an LCD, <i>turn off <b>motion-smoothing</b></i>. Motion-smoothing explains why some HDTV looks almost more real than real-life. In short, the movie was likely shot at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24p">24p</a> and your LCD has a refresh of 120Hz or 240Hz. Instead of just showing the same frame for 5 cycles, the TV interpolates new frames instead, <i>smoothing</i> out the roughness of the original film.<fn> The article explains: <bq>24p film, by showing us less, looks somehow larger than life, like a dream, like a story being told rather than an event being documented. This seemingly technical issue turns out to have an eno[r]mous emotional effect on the viewer.</bq> The article provides handy screen-shots and guides for how to turn off this feature on models from most major manufacturers.</div> Extra credit: calibrate your TV While the steps outlined above should guarantee that you have a great cinema experience at home, if you're really, really interested in an authentic experience---the most true to the original intent---you can even buy a disc that will walk you through calibrating your TV to set up brightness, contrast and gamma levels for your lighting environment. This is similar to the walk-through included with most computer monitors, which most people also tend to ignore. </dl> <hr> <ft>A good friend has a lovely HDTV---huge screen---and the image is, at first, enthralling. I noticed, after a while, that something was disturbing me about the picture---watching movies felt kind of like watching soap operas. I attributed it to a lack of familiarity with the HD format. Now I know better.</ft>