Blacks will be blacker and refresh rates will hit 120Hz, delivering a crisper and clearer picture. We will also see several vendors introduce large-screen LCD technology that will deliver to consumers a wide array of choices ranging from a 15-inch LCD TV to a staggering 108-inch behemoth from Sharp. So who will win the flat screen race?

The old analogue TV is dead, however it leaves behind a legacy of delivering high quality TV via a cathode ray tube packed into an oversized box. It was also cheap. However when Philips introduced the first flatscreen TV, the battle for supremacy in the market kicked off.  

Both plasma and LCD TVs represent attempts to solve the same problem: how do you make a big, flat screen without forcing a very large and very heavy bit of glass – a cathode ray tube – into an unnatural shape? Of course, both solutions have their own problems.

Plasma screens work by lighting up tiny cells of rare gases (xenon and neon) sandwiched between two plates of glass, so it is fairly straightforward to make large screens. These screens are very bright and have good contrast with deep blacks. They also have wide viewing angles, so you still get a good view from the side.

LCD screens use columns of liquid crystal molecules controlled by a matrix of transistors (in TFT or thin-film transistor designs). Some of these transistors are likely to be defective, which leads to dead pixels. The larger the screen, the harder it is to avoid these dead pixels.

LCD screens are lit from behind, so they are not as bright as plasma screens, and may look less bright if you are off to one side. Nor do they offer the same levels of contrast as plasmas. Also, they don't react as quickly as plasma screens, and may ‘smear' fast action.

However, LCD screens have made dramatic progress during two decades of laptop PC development, and these problems have largely been overcome.

LCD screens also have some useful advantages over plasma screens. They are thinner, lighter and more robust, which makes them much easier to move around. For those with ecological concerns, LCDs use little power, whereas plasma screens use a lot. Furthermore, an LCD should last roughly twice as long as a plasma screen, which may have a ‘half-life' of only 30,000 to 40,000 hours. (The half-life is when the screen has degraded to half its brightness, and you may as well throw it away.)

As always, different buyers value different features. If you want a really big wall-mounted screen and money is no object, go for plasma. If you want a small or medium-sized screen that you can move around, go for LCD.

Either way, look for a High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) and a logo indicating the screen is HD ready, so you will be ready for high-definition TV.