Surge Protector
With HDTV slowly becoming the norm for many households, questions are beginning to arise such as is a surge protector a necessity and how do I properly connect an HD television to an outlet to avoid power surges. As you may know, modern technology is filled with tiny chips that aren’t built to sustain high currents, so a power surge infiltrating your line will most certainly affect the components of an HDTV negatively.
Surge protection is vital for this application more than most others because there are so many variances to consider, the most important among them being protecting the electronics and preserving picture quality. LCD, RPTV and Plasma television technology is still relatively new on the market, but surge protection has been evolving for several decades. Knowing how to choose the best surge protector for your HDTV will set you on the path to confidence.
With picture quality, High-definition television frequencies run higher than standard televisions. Standard television frequencies are about 40 MHz, whereas an HDTV frequency can soar above that number. Because of this, your AC lines can get suffused with the extra frequencies, causing degradation in your picture quality. With an HDTV surge protector you will find that most carry low-pass filters to shunt excess signals away from the AC line while maintaining normal AC line current. This produces clarity of picture and eliminates line noise.
Line noise is a growing problem in urban areas where the sharing of power lines is common. Large appliances generate EMI (electromagnetic interference) and RFI (radio frequency interference) waves that introduce line noise into televisions. You may notice your picture getting fuzzy when you turn on your dishwasher. That’s line noise. On a large scale where you can’t control these factors, your HDTV experience can be more than lackluster.
For this, you will need more than a single surge protector for plasma TV and home theater equipment. You will want a unit that incorporates coaxial cable protection along with outlet surge protection. One thing to note is power surges can infiltrate your coaxial line as well as your power line. Although you need your coax cable through a surge protector, you don’t want the coax cables running in to your HDTV. This will definitely let in line noise. Either purchase a separate cable box coaxial surge protector or purchase a unit that allows you to separate these items. Otherwise, you will experience a breaking of the picture as the signal is interrupted.
Aside from the nuisance that an interrupted signal can cause, line noise is actually more damaging than power surges, but they are easier to prevent. Another issue is power sags. Your outlet is supposed to run at a steady 120 volts. Sometimes the current can dip. This is a power sag. Power sags can cause your Television to shut off unexpectedly, leaving the fans unable to cool down the HDTV properly. Remaining heat can overload the electronics causing premature failure of your television.
A home theater surge protector should have some kind of line conditioning. This will keep the flow of power even and eliminate fluctuations so that there are no sags. Look for something like the Tributaries Surge Protector for HDTV, which has three-line surge protection and line filtering, rotating 8 to 12 outlets for home theater protection and AC adapter use, coax cable connectors, everything you need for total HDTV surge protection.
Some people will advocate using a UPS surge station for your HDTV. This is unnecessary. A surge station will not improve quality. A decent surge protector will cover all issues that arise from a power surge or power failure. A UPS may give you time to shut down the HDTV but unless you are running a lamp-based RPTV, you do not need a UPS surge protector. Another thing is a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) is not cost effective for use with a plasma TV or LCD unit. These surge stations require battery replacement once a year. While they are recommended for computers and other data storage equipment, it will not benefit you here.
While nothing is absolute with surge protection, in the end if you really want to protect your HDTV, purchase an HDTV surge protector with the highest Joules rating you can find. And to further protect your equipment, unplug it in the event of a storm.
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