Although they are darlings of media and generic for flat panel display in minds of many, plasmas are about to be in a serious fight with other technologies for flat panel crown.

LCD displays, seen on desktop for years as computer monitors, and commonplace in smaller flat panel TVs, are finally increasing in size to point they are becoming a rival to plasmas in 42" – 50” size range. Picture quality is similar to plasmas; however LCDs are immune to burn-in that can affect plasma displays. This burn-in occurs when plasma units are used to display static images such as video game screens and stock or sports tickers.

Plasmas generally have an edge in ability to produce deeper blacks and more saturated colors than LCDs. Plasmas are also better at producing full motion video than LCDs because of response time of LCD panels, although this difference is disappearing.

LCD TVs are a bit more expensive than plasmas at 42" and larger sizes, but they should last a while longer. Plasma displays should last 20,000 – 25,000 hours and LCDs should give 30,000+ hours of useful life. However, latest generation of plasma displays from NEC is claimed to have a 60,000 hour life. If that is an industry trend, traditional lifespan advantage held by LCDs may soon disappear.

Currently Sony has a 42", NEC a 40", Sharp a 45", and Samsung a 40" LCD TV or display. Samsung also has big one, a 46" that started shipping in early September of 2004. The Samsung 46" was first consumer LCD video display to have a 1080 line native resolution. This allows it to display 1080p native when that format arrives for HDTV.

Other technologies are on horizon as well. One that has shown great promise is OLED, for Organic Light Emitting Diode. Developed by Kodak and Pioneer, this technology has been used for a few years in car stereo and cell phone displays. It's just about ready for prime time. Philips has shown a 13" unit, Samsung a 17", and Seiko-Epson has shown a 40" prototype.

Many of today’s home theater receivers and surround processors come with a “smart” remote control. Some of these are actually pretty good too. B&K and Denon come to mind. If you know what you are doing, you can get one of these babies programmed to orchestrate your entire system pretty well. If you haven’t time or inclination for such a project yourself, hire a professional installer to bring everything together for you. A great place to start is CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association). They have member firms in every state, and many foreign countries, that are experts in making complex home theaters easy to use.

Remote controls come in several flavors. The one most people are familiar with comes with almost any electronic component you buy these days. For most part it does a pretty good job at making particular component do what you want. Some of these even let you control other components, especially if they are from same manufacturer. This way, for example, you can use your TV remote to also control your VCR or DVD player.

The next rung up remote control ladder is so called “smart remote”. This type of remote is able to control multiple pieces of equipment from different manufacturers. Some can control up to 8 or 10 different components. They are usually set to control each piece of equipment by entering a 3 or 4 digit code. Some of these units will learn control functions from other remote controls. This is helpful if unit you need to control is not in your remote control’s internal database. You usually accomplish learning by entering a “learn” mode on smart remote, pointing “teaching” remote at smart remote and pressing desired button. Viola! Your smart remote has learned command from original remote control.