TV OVERLOAD.

Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

The images are seductive, strong, crisp, bright with a lot of depth. And big, really big.

Walk into any appliance store and the new large-screen TVs will stop you in your tracks.

But the variety of technologies - to say nothing of the expense - often sends shoppers into a stupor of confusion.

"A lot of times, it's just a meltdown," says Ryan Salerno, a salesman at Bradford's Home Entertainment in Eugene. "They'll see all these choices and say, 'I'll go home and think about it.' '

No need to hyperventilate. You don't need a Ph.D. in engineering to pick out the best television for your needs. But before you buy, you do need to do some homework. Here are the basics to get started just in time for the fall TV season.

Two essential rules come straight from David Heim, deputy editor of special sections at Consumer Reports, the general public's product-testing bible.

People should pick the right technology for their needs and then avoid spending more than they need to, Heim says. And that can be harder than you think when the seductions of a big screen grab hold of a shopper, he says.

"There's a Best Buy in my neighborhood," Heim says. "You come down the escalator and the TV department is right in front of you. The first thing you see is this drop-dead gorgeous, 32-inch plasma TV set with a sofa in front of it and everything but a maid to serve you. That's all well and good, but not everybody's got three large in the wallet."

So, here's what you do.

Before you go shopping

To avoid the temptation to overspend, start with a little analysis at home.

Ask yourself: Where will the new television go? Will it be sitting on a stand in a tiny apartment living room or anchoring a home theater system in a spacious great room?

If the room is small, the television should be, too. That's because the bigger the screen, the farther the viewer should sit from it.

The rule of thumb for determining that distance, Bradford's Salerno says, is to figure about 1 1/2 times the size of the screen, which is commonly measured on the diagonal.

If you want a 36-inch TV screen, you should be able to comfortably sit 4 1/2 feet away from it. Harboring 63-inch screen fantasies? You'll probably need to sit about 8 feet away.

Measure the space where the TV will go, so you don't end up buying one that's too big or small for the designated location.

For some shoppers, this is where complications can set in. Many people have invested in home entertainment cabinets that accommodate the dimensions of the once-standard, boxy CRT television.

But that horizontal-to-vertical ratio of 4-to-3 is being supplanted by televisions with a 16-to-9 ratio, meaning the screen is much wider than it is tall. Those dimensions make watching movies more pleasurable, but the new TVs won't necessarily fit in the old armoire.

Don't forget to consider the television's depth in these calculations. A fancy new plasma screen television may be 5 inches deep, but a rear projection CRT television can take up a whopping 2 feet.

Once the size and location questions have been considered, buyers must assess their viewing habits and choose appropriate technology, Heim says.

"The more you're interested in watching DVD movies or movies-on-demand from your cable service, the more you're going to want a big-screen, good home theater system," he says.

The new crop of TVs offers various options for dealing with different formats, squeezing or stretching the image to fit the screen or framing it with black bars. Problems can develop because some technologies - plasma, for example - suffer from burn-in of static images, meaning those black bars become a permanent ghost image on the set.

Televisions also respond differently to the source of the broadcast signal, Heim says. Some do better with satellite, some with cable and others with home antennas.

The Oct. 5 issue of Consumer Reports goes into detail about which sets match up best with which signal sources, but researchers found that the standard CRT televisions consistently performed the best, regardless of the signal source, Heim says.

Do your own testing

When you're ready to go shopping, expect to spend some quality time in a TV showroom, Salerno says.

The screens are often set up in stores to broadcast the stuff they do best, so a store will show a colorful movie such as the animated feature "Finding Nemo" on its plasma or LCD screens. Viewers will be less likely to notice that these televisions don't reproduce black as truly as CRT or digital light processing TV screens can.

Ask the salesperson to show you how the television does with cable or antenna signal broadcasting. Bring a DVD or video from home that you're familiar with and watch it on different screens.

Take time to view the screens from different angles. With LCD screens, for example, images may grow faint as you move away from the center.

Ask about maintenance, Salerno says. With digital light processing televisions, the interior light bulbs might need replacing. Find out how much they cost and how available they are. With LCD screens, individual pixels - or spots on the screen - may die. Find out how the warranty covers such failures. Ask about the projected viewer hours - in other words, how long the screen will last - for plasma TVs, what kinds of things can go wrong with them and how difficult or expensive it will be to fix them.

"Some of the parts can be completely obscure and hard to come by," Salerno says.

Buyers also want to be prepared to talk about the other appliances that will be hooked into the television - DVD players, VCRs and video cameras, for example.

"It's good to come in knowing the current capability of your components," Salerno says. If you don't know, bring the manuals with you.

And come prepared to talk about installation.

Plasma TVs look compelling in magazine advertising: a streamlined screen mounted attractively on a wall.

But those pictures don't show the wiring. To get that wireless look, you may have to punch a whole in the drywall and run the cables to outlets and other components, a task that may be beyond the average homeowner. In that case, buyers will want to figure out the cost of a professional installation.

If it's all a bit too much, take comfort from this last word from Heim.

"One of the things we've found is that in terms of good picture quality and good reliability at a good attractive price, the plain old conventional TV set wins," he says.

And Salerno seconds that. For people who don't want to think about the new technology but who still want to buy a new TV, all is not lost.

"You can get a gorgeous set for $400," he says.

MORE ON TVs

TV technology: howstuffworks.com/tv-buying-guide.htm

Digital switch: The FCC explains the transition at www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.html

Consumer Reports: The Oct. 5 issue has 25 pages on the current crop of televisions (also available to subscribers at www.consumerreports.org). Not a subscriber? The magazine is available at the Eugene library. The March 2004 issue explains digital TV and rates the available technology.

CAPTION(S):

Ryan Salerno, a salesman at Bradford's Home Entertainment, says buyers should spend some quality time in the showroom to see what they like. Consumers also should be prepared to ask questions about maintenance, availability of parts and installation, he says. INSIDE Going digital: Will we all need new televisions for the switch? / F2