There are a few different ways to connect your TV to the various sources out there. When you pick out a TV you should keep in mind what other types of components you have as well as any you are thinking of buying later on.

Component Video inputs are made up of three RCA type plugs and are the highest quality inputs. They actually bypass the comb filter, because the signals are already separated into the parts the TV needs to use. This gives great color separation and detail to your picture. S-Video inputs are small round plugs with four pins inside that work almost as well as component inputs. Regular video inputs (a single RCA plug) are only slightly better than cable TV as far as picture quality.

TVs with a lot of inputs will allow you to connect many different types of equipment to it. You can push one button to switch from the cable to the VCR to the DVD to the DIRECTV. And the higher quality these connections are, the happier you'll be with the end result.

The problem: a great movie on one channel, a great game on the other. The solution: picture-in-picture or P-I-P. Most people are familiar with this feature that allows you to watch a channel while keeping another channel in a box on the screen. You'd pretty much expect to get P-I-P when purchasing a rear projection TV. There are, however, superior P-I-P features to look for.

With a dual tuner P-I-P you don't need an external tuner such as a VCR to change channels. You just plug one cable into the TV and the TV juggles two channels at once. But you can also switch between sources, not just channels. Watch a DVD movie and your stock quotes at the same time. The choice is yours.

There are also TVs that will show the two different channels side-by-side so you don't cover the action from one channel with a small box showing the other. This is called Twin View P-I-P.

The cable you plug into the back of your TV contains all the necessary parts of your favorite shows. But, the sound, the color information and the brightness information are all jumbled together. In order for a TV to use this mess, it has to separate everything out. This is the comb filter's job, and a 3D Y/C comb filter is the best. If your TV does not have a good comb filter, then the edges of objects can become rough and start to move. This effect is called dot crawl. A good comb filter will also lessen the effects of something called moiré. Moiré happens when a finely textured pattern seems to move and ripple when it shouldn't be moving at all. This is easily seen when a television newscaster wears a herringbone jacket.

Most TV shows are shot on film at 24 frames per second. They're then transferred to video, which runs at 30 frames per second for broadcast. The picture quality loses something in the translation, creating distortions. Reverse 3:2 pulldown corrects those distortions through a series of reconversions. The result is the picture that is a lot smoother and cleaner.

Different TV manufacturers tend to use different terms to describe this feature. So it may take a careful eye to verify that a TV has reverse 3:2 pulldown.

The shape of TV is changing. TVs have always had a square-like 4:3 aspect ratio. Widescreen or 16:9 aspect ratio is more of a wide rectangle and it's similar to the shape of a movie screen. Someday all of the TVs available will be 16:9. It makes sense really. Movies are shot with a particular shape in mind. Our culture tends to not only go to the movies, but to also watch movies at home on TV or DVD or VHS.

When you watch a movie at home on a 4:3 TV set you have two formatting options. You can either add the black bars to the top and bottom of the screen or you can cut the edges of the picture off and not show them at all. No matter what option you choose there are drawbacks. Either you are not using the whole TV for the movie, or you are missing part of the movie. With a widescreen TV this isn't a problem. You get to see the whole movie and use as much of the screen as possible.

Widescreens aren't just for watching DVDs either. Right now, most TV shows are in the old 4:3 format. But HDTV shows are filmed and broadcast in the 16:9 aspect ratio just like movies. Some camcorders even allow you to film in 16:9. The widesreen aspect ratio is definitely the standard of the future.

A Flat Screen TV is a term used to describe any TV where the screen is a level plane. These TVs have a wider viewing angle than ones with curved screens. That means you can sit farther away from directly in front of the TV, and still see the whole picture. This term is usually used to describe Tube TVs. But even though the flat screen improves the quality of the TV, the total size of the TV is still the same as TVs always have been. Which is to say rather big.

Flat-Panel TVs also have flat screens, but that's not the really impressive thing about them. Flat-Panel TVs are called "Flat" because they are so thin they can be hung on a wall like a painting.

In all the ways that really matter, there isn't that much of a difference between the two. Both types of Flat-Panel TVs are thin enough to be placed virtually anywhere, and produce a picture that is startlingly clear, sharp, and bright. The only difference that really matters is the screen size. The majority of LCD TVs have a screen that measures 30" and smaller. TVs with a screen of 32" and larger are typically the domain of the Plasmas.

Technically, LCD and Plasma TVs are entirely different approaches to the same result, because they create images using completely different technologies.