CNET reader Ray asks: Will leaving my TV powered on (but on black screen) for an extended period of time do any damage or affect the picture quality? Good question. For reasons that made sense (but I left out for space), CNET reader Ray leaves his HDTV on 24 hours a day. The cable box …

Not all HD is the same. For that matter, just because you have an HDTV, that doesn’t mean you’re actually watching high-definition video. A variety of factors could be conspiring to create an image that’s not nearly as good as what your TV is capable of. Make sure you’re getting the most from your TV with this guide. Getting HD …

The other day I wrote an article titled “When should I upgrade my HDTV?” The general thought was that TV performance, while not exactly hitting a plateau, had slowed enough that TVs even a few years old perform pretty close to the new models. In the world of front projection, though, it’s an entirely different story. The level of performance …

CNET Reader Kato asks: I have speakers directly hooked up to my TV via the “speaker audio out.” It works fine. I then hooked up additional speakers I had from a computer. Upon doing so the volume on the original speakers went way down and I get even less from the new speakers. What am I doing wrong? Oh, so …

Geoffrey Morrison With all the incessant hoopla about the new iPad, the one comparison that keeps popping up is that its 2,048×1,536-pixel resolution is “greater than an HDTV!” or “1 million more pixels than your TV!” Not only is this irrelevant and a senseless comparison, but it has no bearing on the future of HDTVs, as some have implied. Here’s …

Audio is no less immune to the sort of mild lies and partial truths found in the HDTV world. As I discussed in the HDTV edition of MMM, cutting through these fabrications is the key to understanding what really matters. Before you spend any money on audio, check out this list for what’s important, what’s not, and what’s just total …

CNET Reader Dadar asks: Are the “lifespan” claims by manufacturers proper? I’ve read numbers ranging from 50,000 hours to 100,000 hours, often with plasma TVs at the higher end of that scale compared to LED and CCFL LCDs. I would have thought, being solid-state devices, light emitting diodes would have had a greater lifespan than their fluorescent counterparts. Hearsay also …

CNET Chris D. asks: I have a CRT HD TV that is 5 and a half years old (one of the last ones they made). In terms of picture quality, it still looks better than any of the LED, LCD, or plasma sets I’ve seen. Am I right? I watch a lot of 4:3 TV. I’m concerned that if I …

CNET reader “Nindevo” asks: In regards to your articles about the HDMI cables, I was just wondering why TVs have “noise reduction” settings. I thought digital signals (HDMI) couldn’t have noise. Interesting question. This is actually a pretty common mistake. There are actually three things going on: the cable, the signal, and the TV. 1) The cable The cable, in …

So you want to share photos, watch videos, or play computer games on the expansive screen of your HDTV? On one hand, this is a really simple how-to: use HDMI! That, of course, isn’t the whole story. Not all computers, and not all TVs, can output or input a signal via HDMI easily. There are also a few tricks to …