Archive for July, 2008

LG Plasma HDTV Review

Friday, July 25th, 2008

LG Electronics 50PC3D Plasma HDTV review

The LG Electronics 50PC3D Plasma HDTV with the 50 inch plasma screen is an average product when it comes to HDTVs. Although it received an satisfactory score at the tests, it has a good design and the price is low.

When speaking about the color quality, tones and brightness this HDTV manages to make them look ok. Although when you look at the skin color you may notice some pixelation, the overall quality is good and the skin looks quite real. When watching something that shows light and strident colors, the LG Plasma HDTV manages to polish them and brings out a nice combination without hurting your eyes. Also, the night scenes are really fantastic as this HDTV has good quality when it comes to black or darker spots in movies.

This LG Plasma HDTV also comes with many connections like three HDMI inputs which are similar to the ones found on the Pioneer Kuro PDP-5010FD. Keep in mind that it comes with a nice USB port that lets you use a flash card reader or a thumb device. You can also see high quality photos on the TV.

Another great feature of this Plasma screen is the remote control which has controls for any slide shows and lets you manage your photos manually. So if you simply want to view some photos get comfy and operate everything with the remote control.

The swiveling technology is like the one on the Samsung FP-T5084 but easier to use. Make sure you loosen the little bolt from the back if you want to swivel your TV. When reaching the back of your TV you can see the plastic half loop which ensures that your cables are packed together. An eye catching feature is the design of the display setting buttons, which is very elegant and futuristic. The buttons will only become visible when you touch the pad under the bezel.

Although this TV is rather average in quality, it has an organized structure that makes it very easy to use. You can adapt the colors and harmonize the aspect by using the on-screen display menu. The adaptable features are the red, green, and blue colors which can be found in the color temperature menu.

You can also choose from the predetermined settings if you don’t know how to adapt things manually. The options are: Standard, Mild, and Dynamic. They change to different levels of contrast, brightness and vividness. Although the Dynamic color looks most appealing, it makes things look a bit unnatural, so you might opt for the other two predetermined settings which look more realistic.

The option that lets you choose two customizable setting could prove useful if you want to switch from one to another without manually choosing all the settings. All of these can be made by using the touch pad or the remote. The remote’s design is not very eye catching as the buttons may seem a bit uncomfortable to use and it has no light (this will also prove uncomfortable in the dark).

The audio quality received a good score during the tests. Also, keep in mind that the speakers are on the sides of this TV and will make the panel design a little bigger than others from the same category. This will usually give a false view that the TV is bigger than others of similar size and shapes. The sound is very good and the LG Company guarantees your parts and labor warranty for two years, which is a good deal as most of the other producers offer less.

The LG Electronics 50PC3D Plasma HDTV has standard quality and may be a good TV for someone who doesn’t want to spend large sums of money on HDTVs. The sound quality may be a great advantage when choosing this product. However, if you want something extraordinary, you may be a little disappointed. So if you are looking for ok quality and not for best quality, this might suit your taste.

To compare other plasma HDTV’s click here.

Video Conferencing Set Up

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Video Conferencing Setup 101

With the rising price of oil in the world market, companies have to cut down on certain expenses in order to show a profit. You can cut down the number of times that an employee travels on business trips and instead have a video conferencing facility setup that accomplishes the same objective.

But how do you setup video conferencing? The easiest way of saying it is simply by buying the equipment, having it installed and letting someone in the office take care of it. But it is not that simple. There are things you have to aware of first so you are able to purchase the right system.

Let’s first talk about the devices that are used to make this work. There are three types namely desktop, small group and learn group. Naturally, the prices of each one varies but the common denominator is the fact that they can be used over ISDN or IP.

When you have chosen which of the three you want, the next hurdle is to work on the bandwidth. A T-1 for instance fives you only one line of communication. What if you need to speak with different offices simultaneously? For that you will need a T-3 or higher.

If you are having problems with your IP network since it is not able to handle the additional traffic, the best thing for you to do is to get circuit switched networks or to deploy additional IP bandwidth capacity.

Earlier, we mentioned ISDN and IP networks. What is the difference? ISDN stands for integrated services digital network. IP on the other hand stands for Internet protocol.

Video conferencing through ISDN happens as you are able to integrate both analog or voice data together with digital data over the same network. This means you are able to encompass frame relay service for high speed data in large bursts.

This can also be done using your IP network which is very similar to how you are able to browse the web. In the US, more people use IP’s compared to ISDN but in Europe, this is the exact opposite because it happens to be much cheaper than IP’s.

When you are budgeting how much will be needed for video teleconferencing setup, you have to break down the fixed acquisition costs from the recurring costs. The fixed cost depends largely on how many units you will be ordering. There is also the license that you have to get that is $250 to $40,000 each and if you are a very large company, you might just exceed $100,000 per package since you also have to consider the hardware and software components needed.

Is it worth all that just to have video conferencing? A lot of people say yes because their employees are more productive, decisions are made quickly and the company saves money.

In fact, private companies are not the only one using it as the government, the education and the healthcare sector have also taken advantage of this to conduct hearings, teach children and help patients.

If you want to know more about video teleconferencing setup and how much it will cost, go look for vendors and ask them for an estimate. After comparing the quotes from various companies, surely you can find the right one that fits within your budget.