With Jumbo screens and high-quality images, whybother with a theater?   TVs can enhance your furniture.

Theater audiences have been on the decline during the last decade or so, and the trend is expected to continue.

With today’s jumbo-sized TV screens and high-quality images, it’s easy to see why people aren’t heading to the cinema. It’s never been easier to enjoy a theater-like experience from the comfort of home, without the overpriced snacks, disruptive kids and inconsiderate people chatting on cell phones.

Yet with all the choices and high-tech advances, buying a new TV can often be a daunting and confusing process. Nearly all of today’s new top-of-the-line televisions are high- definition-ready — HD meaning a digital TV broadcasting format that produces crystal-clear images. As the format has become the new industry standard, the top-performing HD-ready televisions on the market are LCD and plasma.

Plasma TVs have big, bright screens that measure anywhere from 42 to 103 inches. They produce rich, life-like images by using millions of red, green and blue pixels that are sandwiched between layers of glass. The screens are thin and light enough to be wall-mounted. All of the industry experts we talked to agreed plasma TVs have the best overall picture quality.

Ryan Coalson, store manager at Zobo TV at Northlake Commons, explained that plasma TVs have “super-deep” dark levels. “That means that colors are replicated very accurately, and there’s a sharp contrast between each one,” he says. Coalson adds that plasma’s superior picture quality is especially noticeable when it comes to handling motion without blurring the image. This comes in handy while watching sports or action movies.

In addition, a plasma TV’s picture quality doesn’t deteriorate when you watch the screen from off-center. Most LCD sets look their best from a limited “sweet spot” in front of the screen. If you angle away from the screen, the picture quality deteriorates and loses some of its crispness and vibrancy.

According to Jeff Harrington, president of Integrated Home Solutions in Statesville, many of his customers shy away from plasma in favor of LCD TVs because of “burn-in” images. This occurs when fixed images, typically from a video game, are displayed for a long period, and the image is permanently “burned” into the screen. However, Harrington says this is no longer a problem, as newer plasma TVs have anti burn-in technology.

Crystal clear

Liquid crystal display TVs are similar to flat-panel computer monitors. They produce images using millions of tiny red, green and blue pixels that close and open, allowing or blocking light and creating colorful images.

Coalson says LCDs are popular with consumers because they are resilient and user-friendly. If you’re leaning towards buying an LCD, Coalson suggests selecting one with 120Hz processing. “That’s the latest and greatest LCD feature,” he says. “Just like with your computer, it’s faster, and it refreshes the images quicker, so you get a really crisp and clean picture.”

Mike Dawson, president of Home Innovations in Denver, says that while he prefers plasma TVs, LCDs might be the best option in some cases.

“LCD TVs are less reflective and have less glare than plasma TVs, which are basically glass,” he says. “So if you know your TV is going to be in a room with a lot of light, you may want to go with an LCD.”

And all our experts stressed that regardless of whether you’re looking at a plasma or LCD, if you want the best possible picture quality, buy a TV with 1080p (as opposed to the 720p) — the number denotes the lines of resolution that scroll horizontally across the screen. This is the latest in HD resolution, and it is also the standard being implemented by BluRay and HD DVD. Eventually cable and satellite providers will broadcast it as well.

Breaking down the price

While LCD TVs typically cost a little more than plasma sets of comparable size and quality, the price difference is shrinking. “On the real large units, LCD is still more expensive,” says Eaton of Home Innovations. “But in most popular sizes they’re comparable.”

Yet inch-for-inch, plasma still offers more bang for the buck than an LCD TV. Many of the top-rated 50-inch plasma sets are in the $1,500 to $2,500 range. Similar-sized LCD sets cost between $2,000 and $4,000, although prices are constantly fluctuating. Still, with LCDs, you’ll usually find a wider choice of 1080p sets as well as wider variety of screen sizes compared to plasma, including sets smaller than 42 inches — typically the smallest size for a plasma. So it really depends on how much you want to spend and where you plan on viewing TV.

The good news is that even as high-end TVs continue to come out with bigger screens and ever-sharper images, prices are expected to drop. And our experts agreed that while each type of TV — plasma or LCD — has its own advantages and disadvantages, it’s easier and more economical than ever to find a set that delivers exactly what you’re looking for.