Bigger is not always better

The size of HDTV you buy should very much depends on where you will watch it. There is no point having a massive 1080i HDTV set if you are going to sit so close that you can see every line and pixel. A good rule of thumb is do not sit closer to a HDTV than twice the length of the screen diagonally. Saying this, the other deciding factor on just how good an HDTV picture looks is the human eye. At a distance of 10 feet the naked eye cannot detect pixels smaller in size than 1 mm, therefore at this distance you will not be able to notice any significant difference on a 37 inch screen between standard definition television (SDTV) and HDTV.

Burn in will ruin your Plasma screen

Those days are long gone, advances in technology incorporating gases and phosphors within your HDTV set make burn in a thing of the past, some sets even have software that prevents it. A high quality plasma HDTV set has an estimated life expectancy of around 60,000 hours and that is longer than you will ever watch it - even if you had it switched on 8 hours a day, every day of the year for 20 years!

LCDs use much less power than other types of HDTV

Research undertaken by Japan's Green Purchasing network concluded that CRTs, Plasma sets and LCD HDTVs used roughly the same amount of energy as each other in normal use. Just to put another nail in the coffin of this particular myth is the fact that the next generation of LCD HDTVs, incorporating LED back-lighting to improve colour will consume twice as much energy as traditional LCDs!

My old TV will be useless after the digital switch-over

More of a digital television (SDTV) concern than High Definition but nevertheless a myth that needs debunking and quick, before the landfills overflow with perfectly fine equipment! Contrary to popular belief analogue TV sets will work fine after the digital switch-over as long as you invest a digital to analogue converter. Of course, it will not allow you to see HDTV programming but that is not yet planned for Freeview anyhow. The important thing to know is that no one is forcing you to buy new a new TV set.

Normal TV is unwatchable on HDTV

More of an exaggeration than an outright myth. Yes, when viewed on an HDTV set normal television's imperfections are inflated to a size where they are clearly visible to the naked eye in a way that they were not before. However, the industry is already addressing this problem and newer HDTV sets are showing a marked improvement in this area - the trick here is to try before you buy.

As long as it's broadcast in HDTV the programme will look amazing

Careful with this one as there is high definition and high definition, if you know what we mean. The HDTV signal is bandwidth intensive, that is - it is large and every station has only so much space to go around. To get around this problem, broadcasters compress the signal, this results in a loss of quality and to what extent they do this is largely up to them. Over the air broadcasters are likely to compress less than cable companies who have to send out many programmes in addition to services such as Internet and telephone. Some stations use a single channel to send more than one broadcast - this is known as multicasting and results in further compression. So finding out whether or not your intended HDTV provider multicasts is a good indication of the quality of their HDTV programming.