Speaker 1: Hey, folks Brian Cooley here at CNET Gotham.
This is our holiday showcase here in New York City.
We're in the CNET living room behind me believe me you would wish this is your living room because we're surrounded by the best of this season's televisions and the hot trends this year are LED LCD, 3D, Connected TV, and of course we're all looking for best value TV, that one is hot every year so dial in on some of those.
Who else do we go to, the man, the boss, David Katzmaier Mr, Television.
David, all these technologies LED LCD, 3D, and Connected TV, I think a lot of folks are kind of most in the dark about Connected TV.
What is that?
Speaker 2: It's the ability to connect directly from your TV to the internet to stream video like Netflix, Amazon Video on the manual so get (Pandora?) some audio services and even some apps on TV.
Speaker 1: Can I go and cut the cable to my cable provider now and say good I'm getting everything on the internet?
Speaker 2: Well sure, as long as you don't care about sports or the news, you're good.
Speaker 1: Pretty decent size car out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Yeah, that's really what cable operates is sports because those things are really exclusive and it's really hard to get.
Your local teams on the internet packages like MobTV or a football.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Of course, there's a lot of those available on the air on local areas so if you combine an over the air antenna plus these internet services, then you're talking.
Speaker 1: Okay David, here is 1 of your favorite TV's that we're showing this holiday season and 1st of all it's a big TV.
It's apparently a good value.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a 50-inch Panasonic Plasma, it's the ST30, it's about a grand and it's their least expensive TV with their connected services.
It comes with WiFi download for free, it also comes with all the major services YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Video on demand, so you get all that stuff right into the TV.
Speaker 1: The Plasma still provide the best screen size for the (??) that's changing you know, it's really, really good inexpensive LCD TV's but at the end of the day, the Plasma is gonna give you the best home theater picture quality.
If you have a lot of reflective room, you have a bright room, you're watching windows behind the screen for example.
I recommend getting a matte screen for an LCD and there's a lot of LCD's out there that do have matte screens though.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now moving from Plasma, the other big picture technology folks you're hearing about is LED LCD.
So what does that mean?
What is an LED LCD?
Speaker 2: It means that the widening mechanism behind the screens is actually LED as supposed to florescent lights which it was before.
If you look at this things from the side, they are really razor thin.
The Plasma is actually get really thin these days too but they really can't get as thin as these LCD's.
Some of them are less than an inch thick and they really have a pretty cool look when you 1st walk in to the room.
Of course, we always say people don't watch TV from the side, so it really matters on 1st impressions.
Speaker 1: Give me an example of a really good buy right now or a favorite pick of yours an LED LCD.
Speaker 2: Well my editor's choice this year is the Sony KBLNX720 series.
Great picture quality for an LED TV, really nice deep black, the style is great.
I mean, it's got this really thin vessel around the edge of the screen so it's almost all screen, it's also really flat look on the front, so 1 of my favorites.
Speaker 1: If I'm going to look for getting a TV that's very green like energy efficient, a lot of folks are into that these days.
Who's the winner there though?
speaker 2: LED by a mile.
LED is definitely over the course of the year maybe 12 or 15 bucks you're gonna spend a pound on LED versus 40, 50, 60 for a Plasma, that's a big difference.
Speaker 1: And the last technology, maybe the 1 that has the most buzz because it's been our culture for decades is 3D.
3D TV which has been hit and miss in the market with a lot of our users an viewers.
What is the idea behind 3D?
Speaker 2: Well the 1st thing you know about 3D TV is that it's not a new kind of TV.
It's just a feature that they're adding the current TV's.
All the 3D TV's out there actually really good at 2D as well.
So at the end of the day you know, you're buying a TV to be a good 2D TV, I'd like to think of 3D as just an added feature.
Glasses free 3D TV is a long way from being affordable and actually working well.
So if you want 3D, you're gonna wear glasses for the future.
Speaker 1: All right, Katz.
Thanks, great information on what to buy and what features to look for and what not to worry about so much, that's almost as important as what does matter.
Make sure you check all our reviews from Katz and his team at CNET.com click on television.
It's got all of his favorite picks for the holidays and all year long.
Thanks for watching.
