You can easily see with your own eyes the difference between good and poor picture quality. However, the technical definitions of image quality are rather complicated: image quality is a mix of contrast ratio, color saturation, accuracy and resolution.

Contrast ratio is the ratio between the darkest and the brightest color your HDTV can produce. Obviously, the higher the contrast ratio is, the better your system is. Low contrast ratio means washed out pictures, dull images and lost details. In the recent years contrast ratio had been greatly improved. Best contrast ratios have a price premium, but technology is getting cheaper. At this time, even the low-end HDTV’s have decent contrast ratios.

Black levels are also very important for good picture quality. Good black levels mean you see absolute blacks, not greyish blacks. Poor black levels can be especially annoying in dim light conditions, because this is when your eyes are very sensitive about blacks. Lot of people achieve absolute black by setting the black levels too low: by doing this you may have absolute blacks, but black shadow details will be lost. Another important aspect of picture quality are the high white levels.

High white levels make images vivid and lively, and it is also makes daytime viewing more pleasant. Just as with the blacks, it is not a good idea to set the white levels too high, because details can be lost.

Color temperature, saturation and accuracy are important characteristics of the images on your display. The standard for color temperature is 6500K: this is the equivalent of daytime illumination, in other words, this is the natural light temperature. Color temperature above this is bluish, and below this is reddish. Setting the color temperature correctly is important because if there is any problem with that, every other color will be bluish or reddish.

The color saturation of your HDTV can be adjusted by using the color patterns that come with calibrations discs or TV channels. Color accuracy is a function of how your system decodes image data. Color accuracy is a wide topic: if you don’t want to be a pro, it is enough for you to know that the color reproduction is accurate when the color encoding used in film production match the decoders of your HDTV.

Color reproduction is also affected by factors like greyscale and the display characteristic (gamma) of your TV. But this is beyond the beginner-level image calibration. If you find this is an important issue, you will have learn about image calibration, or you will have to pay a specialist to do this.

The best HD resolutions today have 5 times more pixels than the old Standard Definition. The old format can not be compared to HD images: today, every detail of the image can be seen sharply. If you want to have the best technology available today, buy a 1080 capable HDTV.

Percieved sharpness also relates to resolution, and is similar to the edge contrast concept used in photography. Users can artificially sharpen the image by creating a crispier edge along the image border: this gives the impression of better image quality. Oversharpening is a mistake, because this creates halo artifacts around images.

Edward McKellen is an HDTV expert who writes HDTV reviews for HDTVreviewlab.com. To check out the latest Panasonic HDTV reviews or learn more about HDTV visit HDTVreviewlab.com