TV & Audio Buying Guide - Heathcotes.co.nz

Home entertainment is bigger than ever before with so many technologies and products available on the market, it can be difficult to know what TV and audio product will best suit your lifestyle and home. From 8K TVs to soundbars, smart speakers and wireless personal headphones, the options to create your perfect home entertainment space seems endless.

To help you navigate the overwhelming number of products, technologies and terminology, our TV/Audio Buying Guide will guide you through the considerations required to build the home entertainment system of your dreams.

Audio

When you’re buying a new TV, it’s important to think about how you use your TV and how often you’re viewing TV content. Where will your TV be placed in your home? How do you use your TV, do you only watch free-to-air TV or do you also stream the latest TV shows from popular streaming services? Do you need a TV that can help find you answers or one that’s easily controlled by your voice? Whatever you need from your TV, we’ll help you find the perfect fit.

· Bedroom/small room/kitchen

· Medium lounge room

· Large lounge room

· 40-inch and smaller

· 55-inch and larger

· 70-inch and larger

· 1 – 1 ½ metres

· 1 ½ – 2 metres

· 2 metres +

Standard High Definition TV, also known as HD TV describes a clear picture quality on the TV or monitor. HD TV features a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels.

Full HD gives you up to five times sharper an image than a standard HD TV. Full HD content is commonly found on Blu-ray DVDs and on digital television content. The resolution for Full HD is 1920 x 1080 pixels.

8K has double the pixels of 4K with a resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels. 8K provides incredible depth and detail allowing for better immersion. While there is very little 8K content available, processors can upscale your content to 8K.

Quantum dots are simply, nano-sized particles which turn light into a billion colours. TVs using this tech do not use traditional filtering that can ‘dull’ the brightness of the image creating more vivid colours.

This stands for organic light emitting diode, they don’t require back lighting and are thinner than LCD TVs. They give you even greater life-like image quality with richer and more vibrant colours.

TVs with full array include a series of LEDs behind the TV panel which are lit depending on need. Full array typically produces the best images possible on an LCD TV.

These are thinner than back-lit LED TVs as they use a panel of LED edge lighting. The power consumption of edge-lit LCD TVs is much lower when compared to back-lit models.

HDR or High Dynamic Range refers to technology that allows a greater range of contrast and colour. HDR enables brighter whites and darker blacks. The result is a more realistic and natural image.

Dolby Vision is technology that masters and delivers incredible colours and brightness similar to HDR. Dolby Vision is a certification issued to TVs that meet strict minimum specifications for amazing viewing.

These TVs are an evolution of the QLED technology, enhanced by Mini LED Technology allowing for improved contrast and deeper blacks giving picture quality on par with OLED

Mini LED is a display technology that uses miniature versions of the regular LED (light-emitting diodes) to provide improved contrast and deeper shades of black. with screen quality similar to OLED

Local dimming is specific to LED TVs and refers to the dynamic brightness adjustment of an image. It allows the screen to show a dark image in one part of the screen and a bright one in another

Direct dimming uses dimming blocks which enhances contrast and intense colour representation.

A Smart TV is one that can connect to the internet. They usually have an interface on the TV to navigate to various options including Netflix, Facebook, YouTube and browsing the web

Measured in Hertz, refresh rate simply refers to how many times the picture is refreshed per second. Standard is 50Hz, higher rates are available. Higher refresh rates are better for rapidly moving objects.

Processors in the TV reads content you’re watching and enhances it. Commonly found in 4K Ultra HD TVs, upscaling technology will upscale Full HD content to 4K Ultra HD. Many 8K TVs feature AI upscaling

This provides high-definition input to your TV from another HD device. TVs have approximately 2-4 HDMI ports.

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