Given the speed and rapidity of technological advances nowadays think carefully about whatever purchase you make and try and ensure within reason the future compatibility of your TV with industry standards.

The latest telecommunication system for broadcasting moving pictures and sound is known as Digital television (DTT) and as the name implies this relies upon the transmission and reception of digital signals as opposed to the more conventional analogue formats. With DTT, viewers are limited to whatever channels the antenna picks up. Signal quality will also vary.

The purpose of this article is to take a look at what is on offer with the new generation of Flat Screen Televisions available and in this case the television in particular is the Panasonic TH-37PE50.

The TH-37PE50 is a 37in Plasma TV and these TV's at present can be found in the region of 1250 pounds sterling or 2500 US dollars. The resolution of the screen is 852 X 480 and with regards to being HD Ready the answer is no. The Panasonic has 3 (2 RGB) scarts and the type and number of Multimedia interfaces the TH-37PE50 uses is HDMI and none. The type of Tuner for this TV is Analogue and Digital and the Panasonic is available from limited outlets only.

So how would we rate the Panasonic TH-37PE50?

The most obvious place to start with as far as TV's are concerned would be the picture quality and our score here would be 10 out of 10, and for the sound quality we would rate it at 10 out of 10. Another useful aspect to review is the availability and number of relevant connections and our score here would be 8 out of 10. If we take a look at the overall "featureability" our score would be 10 out of 10 and the final individual verdicts would relate to the ease of use and overall value for money and our scores here would be, 8 out of 10 and 8 out of 10 respectively.

Finally our overall opinion would be that this Plasma TV is almost perfect and has to definitely be on any shortlist for those not completely into HDTV but the only thing preventing us giving this almost a perfect rating is that it is not HD-ready.

The fact is that given the wide variety of models and makes available today you should find something that suites your needs as well as your wallet. The choice, as they say, is completely down to you to decide whether to stay at the forefront of what are rapidly changing technologies and fashion or to remain part of the safer but perhaps better developed mainstream. Either way we hope that by reading this short article you should have a slightly more informed view of the options available to you

With regards to the prices in this article we have tried in all cases to take an average across the industry from a number of well known web sites and so we ask you to bear this in mind and treat these prices as advisory only rather than absolutes.