Flat TVs ( LCD, Plasma, Rear-Projection etc. ) are becoming quite common and mainstream home appliances these days and consumers should be aware that their technology is quite different from the traditional CRT based TVs and require much more care and maintenance to ensure it performs optimally well in the years to come. Flat high definition televisions are costly investments and wrong settings and uncalibrated use may harm your flat panel seriously.

Unlike CRTs, flat panel TVs are prone to dead-pixels at manufacturing level. Dead pixels are nothing but non-functional display units or “dots” which remain black or lit up with a particular color for the life of the display. Most manufacturers have a certain permitted dead-pixel limit; but who knows if a non-conforming unit slips through and ends up with you? Flat panels also susceptible to pixel-burn due to same image being displayed for long time (eg - channel logos), ghosting, bad alignment, sharpness problems which require correct tuning, calibration, setup and frequent maintenance so that they function well and entertain you with high quality pictures.

I found that Pixel Protector ‘The ultimate companion to your Plasma, LCD, DLP or Projection Television screen on DVD’ is a very good and cost-effective solution for fixing the above inherent flat panel TV problems. All you need is a DVD player and the PixelProtector DVD. It allows you to remove screen burn, test dead pixels, recalibrate the pixels uniformly, various test patterns (remember professional computer monitor calibration?), setup screen with optimal settings and image sharpening so that you get the best possible picture quality from your device. It comes with an essential guide and is ED/SD/HDTV ready. Moreover, you get 3 cool screen-savers to run on your flat panel from this DVD.

Cleaning your valuable TV screen with low quality solvents and detergent can damage it permanently. The PixelProtector Advanced Screen Cleaning System is also available at their website which makes cleaning your Flat TV screen a breeze with the bundled anti-static microfibre cloth and high-quality cleaning fluid.

The PixelProtector DVD can be run on any DVD player and it supports fixing and calibration of flat panel TVs from almost any brand including JVC, Philips, Panasonic, Hitachi, Sony, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Toshiba,etc. I think every consumer concerned about their flat TVs will find PixelProtector a good solution and a must have tool. I highly recommend it.