Once you have made the decision to upgrade to a flat panel television, either plasma or LCD, the next step would be deciding how to mount or display it. Once you start looking at all of the options in choosing a mount for your tv, you will soon discover that there are mounts specific for your model tv, and mounts that fit all tv's in a certain size group. These mounts are known as Universal Mounts, and they can become a more practical solution to the mount question. Here's how this works.

Like almost every industry, electronics has an organization that comes up with and sometimes develops standards and best practices for the mount industry. In this case, those standards cover things like how much weight a mount can handle, or the size of screw holes for tv's to be mounted.  VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) has a Flat Panel Monitor Physical Mounting Interface Standard (FPMPMI). Most manufacturers comply with this standardized and industry wide “hole pattern” on the back of their displays for mounting purposes.

 Thanks to VESA, just about any flat panel tv you can purchase today will conform to the VESA mounting standard. Universal mounts also conform to the FPMPMI standard, which makes them compatible with most flat panel tv's. So before you splurge on a custom mounting solution, take a look at the universal option when choosing a flat panel tv mount.