Many of the advances made in the realm of consumer electronics have had to do with cramming more and more capability into smaller and smaller packages. HDTV is an exception to that. While there are extremely small HDTV screens, the whole point of high definition television is to get a theatrical movie and TV experience in your own home. For that reason, the entire goal of HDTV is to make the TV screens as big as is practical both in terms of the cost of the screen and the physical limits of the technology.



There have been TV sets with extremely large TV screens around for years. Most of these units have traditionally been projection screen TV's because cathode ray tubes would simply weigh way too much and take too much energy when they get to be too big. LCD technology was one of the first practical ways to create projection screens. These LCD screens, which are still around, consist pretty much of a normal TFT film which creates an image and a back light just like flat screen LCD screens. The major difference is that the distance between the light source and the element that produces the image is greater so that by the time the images have the chance to hit the actual screen they will have enlarged over that distance. Digital Light Processing, more commonly known as DLP is now a very common way to get a large image from projection screen technology, and DLP can also be used in projectors that can produce HDTV images that are so big that it's more practical to measure them in feet rather than inches. In fact, for the biggest screen size possible for the money, DLP is the technology of choice.

Of course, DLP projectors are still expensive and projection screen TV sets take up a lot of space, so flat screen TV's are the technology of choice for a lot of people. Flat screen TV's come in two major varieties: LCD screens and Plasma screen TV's, and LCD screens are increasingly becoming the technology of choice because of their energy efficiency and their ability to display high quality images in a variety of different light levels. Flat screen TV's are a good choice because they can provide extremely large images in relatively small spaces and can be hung on walls for a stylish look.

One part of HDTV technology that is still focused on being relatively compact is the receiver equipment, and even though minimizing the size of the receiver equipment is a factor in fitting it into your home entertainment center, Dish Network still builds a lot of big functionality into these smaller units. For example, the top of the line HDTV satellite receiver offered by Dish Network is called the ViP622 DVR and it has a lot of extra features built in. In addition to the ability to display HDTV resolutions as well as standard definition TV programming, the ViP622 has a digital video player built into it. A digital video player makes a great addition to any home entertainment center.

Even if you want a much more basic model, there's also the option of the ViP211 which has a lot of built in functionality of other Dish Network satellite receivers. High quality HDTV receivers are just one of the many ways that Dish Network can help provide you with the best HDTV possible.