You probably, without thinking about it, use items containing an LCD (liquid crystal display) every day. Every day items like notebooks, your digital watch, cell phones, microwaves and many more electronic gadgets use LCD technology. LCD displays hold many benefits compared to various other display technology available. In a Television, they are thinner and lighter and draw much less powers than the older style cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions and produce far less heat. You may know that a traditional CRT TV uses three electron guns to produce its picture. They are the equivalent to three very fast, accurate paintbrushes that flash back and forth, painting a moving image on the back of your screen that you see when sitting in front of it. Like computer screen and even digital photo frames, if you get in close to a flat screen television you will see that the image is composed of millions of minute squares, known as pixels. Each one of these is, in simple terms, a separate red, blue, or green light that can be flicked on or off at incredible speed to make the moving color picture. In an LCD television, the pixels are switched on or off using liquid crystals that rotate polarized light. Take 2 pairs of polarized sunglasses, they must be polarizing in order for this simple test to work. When the two pairs are at 90 degrees to each other, you won’t be able to see through them at all. Using the sunglasses trick, LCD televisions are able to switch the colored lights of pixels off and on at high speed. A big bright light emits light out to the viewer. The pixels are in front of this, each pixel being made up of red, green and blue sub-pixels. A liquid crystal is positioned between the filters and this is switched on and off electronically. When it’s on, the light that passes through it is rotated through 90 degrees therefore the light is passing through the filters and making the pixel bright. The transistors that control the pixels switch on and off very quickly, many times a second in fact. So, unlike traditional and Plasma televisions, there are no phosphors that light up, less power is needed for operation and the light source in an LCD television generates less heat than a Plasma or traditional television. Another big plus is that LCD technology emits no radiation from the TV screen. Upon their initial release, LCD TVs were generally in a higher price bracket than Plasma models. Prices are however much more on a par today and considering the lifespan of LCD TVs is typically much longer than an equivalent Plasma model plus they use much less electricity to operate, an LCD TV is in my opinion a great option.