Cutting-edge HDTVs are confusing enough, but vendors torture us further when they fixate on some ambiguous number and beat us over the head with it. In past years, they challenged us to parse sexed-up estimates of viewing angles and contrast ratios. Then they bragged about wide color gamuts that allow the TVs to distort what we’re watching by adding neon-like hues that were never in the original movies or TV shows.

DLP (Digital Light Processing), a low-cost leader in big-screen HDTV technology, uses a chip with thousands of micromirrors to display pictures. But there´s a limit to how small the mirrors can become and still produce a good image. Texas Instruments, which makes the DLP chips, maxed out with its 1,280-by-720 array, short of the highest-quality HD resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels.