WHAT IS A SMART TV?

More than that, the television sets have become increasingly sophisticated, offering cinema-quality sound and showing Ultra High Definition (also known as 4K): pictures of such crystal clarity that you can see the individual blades of grass on the wicket at Lord’s during a Test match, or the teeth of an orange- dotted tuskfish as it swims along the Great Barrier Reef in Blue Planet II.

But with each revolution comes confusion – and an awful lot of hype. And that’s where our guide comes in. For those who are still unsure about these new developments, we will help you to decipher LCD from OLED, and Netflix from Sky Q.

In our guide to choosing the best television set, we have a range of options from the very reasonable £330

Essentially, a smart TV is a television that, as well as connecting to your Sky, Virgin or other set-top box, can also access the internet.

When you switch on a smart TV you should see a row of apps such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All4 and My5, which will look similar to those on your smartphone or tablet.

With your smart TV you can watch hundreds of channels, record programmes, catch up on the soaps on services such as BBC iPlayer, watch thousands of old movies from an online library, and binge on all those fashionable new shows on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Sky Atlantic. You don’t need a satellite dish, in many cases you don’t need a set-top box. You could even survive without an aerial. All you need is a smart television, an internet connection and a plug socket.

Before you get started, you must ensure that your house is wi-fi connected, and this means signing up with a broadband provider. Many big companies, such as Sky, Virgin, BT and Talk Talk offer a range of options, with the most popular being the ‘bundles’,

a combination of TV services, broadband and telephone. Offers differ from region to region so it’s best to go to a comparison website like uswitch.com to find the best deal in your area.

Then to connect to the internet you can either plug your TV directly into a broadband router with a cable, or connect over your home’s wi-fi network. Make sure you check with your provider that you have decent broadband speed. This is essential if you want to stream video.

The key advantage of a smart TV being connected to the internet is having access to a vast array of films and shows. Most of these are watched via apps like those mentioned earlier. So, when you first set up your TV, after you’ve

connected to the internet, you’ll need to download apps such as BBC iPlayer, All4, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Depending on the TV and the

broadband provider, some apps will already be there – you’ll just need to sign up to them or log in.

It’s important to remember that

it doesn’t matter if you’re streaming live TV or watching on catch-up, you need a TV licence to use BBC iPlayer. Confusingly, when it comes to the

ITV Hub and other non-BBC catchup services, you need a licence only to watch or record live programmes but not if you’re only ever going to watch on catch-up.

Smart TVs are the future and you can pick up a decent one for as little as £300. Overleaf we show you the best ones on the market.