Choosing between LCD and plasma is the first step down the path to lounge room nirvana.  If you're shopping for a slice of big screen goodness, the first challenge is to choose between Plasma and LCD televisions.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) televisions range from 17 inches to around 55 inches, while plasmas start at 32 inches and go up to around 65 inches.Of course you can get monster televisions measuring up to around 110 inches, but they're really designed to claim bragging rights at trade shows.

Plasmas tend to be more expensive and consume more power, but the general consensus is that the best plasma televisions look better than the best LCDs. LCD screens have a bright backlight with millions of tiny crystals in front of it. They create an image by using an electric field to manipulate the crystals, with the backlight shining through them to create various colours. Plasma screens don't have a backlight, instead they use an electric charge to turn gases into a plasma which then excites phosphors to emit light.

As LCD screens work by blocking the light, they struggle to produce really dark blacks. In a black scene you can sometimes see the light leaking through around the edges of the screen. Plasma screens don't have a backlight, so they can produce much darker blacks and greater contrast with more fine detail in the shadows. The trade-off is that plasma screens are not quite as bright as LCD and look their best in low-light conditions, although you're unlikely to notice unless you sit them side by side.

Early LCDs had narrow viewing angles, which meant the picture appeared to fade to black if you weren't standing directly in front of the television. They also suffered from terrible motion blur as objects raced across the screen, due to high response times (the time it takes a pixel to change colour, measured in milliseconds). There were also problems with manufacturers refusing to replace LCD panels with dead (broken) pixels.

The latest generation of LCD televisions have all but eliminated these problems. Viewing angles should no longer present a problem and dead pixel policies have also improved, but it's still worth reading the fine print. You'll still notice a slight blur on all but the best LCD screens as text scrolls across the bottom of the picture - something you don't see on plasmas and old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) televisions. LCD response times are down to around 2ms, but some vendors use voodoo mathematics here so judge with your own eyes.

High-end LCD televisions have introduced a range of new technologies to close the gap on plasma. Some LCDs use LED (Light-Emitting Diode) backlights, which respond faster than old CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) backlights. LED backlights are brighter but can dim further, letting the screen produce blacker blacks to improve the contrast. "Edge-lit" LED backlights allow manufacturers to build thinner televisions. Meanwhile  "Matrix-lit" LED screens (also known as "local dimming LED") offer a better contrast than Edge-lit LED by offering the ability to vary the backlighting in different areas of the picture. The use of RGB Dynamic LED - employing a mix of red, green and blue LEDs to create the backlight - allows for more realistic colours than using white LED backlights.

Some LCD televisions also smooth out fast-moving action by boosting the refresh rate from 50Hz to 100Hz or 200Hz. They analyse each frame of video and create extra "in-between" frames, so fast-moving objects such as footballs move smoothly rather than jumping across the screen. The jump from 50Hz to 100Hz is more noticeable than the jump from 100Hz to 200Hz.

Like CRTs, early plasmas were prone to image burn - which meant if you kept the same picture on the screen for too long it became etched into the screen. For a good example of image burn, look at the CRT screens in train stations. Early plasmas also had significantly shorter life spans than LCDs.

Image burn shouldn't be an issue with the latest generation of plasma televisions, although take care when playing computer games that have static components such as menus across the bottom of the screen. Today's plasmas can also match LCD's theoretical lifespan of 50,000 hours - which is 22 years at six hours a day. By then you'll probably be ready to upgrade anyway.