A/V guys, need advice for new TV

TortoiseAWD said:
LightningSVT,



If you haven't already, you might try poking around at http://www.avsforum.com, too.



Tort
Click to expand...





Ditto that. Lots of good info. there.



I'm a huge Sony fan when it comes to TV's. The 50 inch SXRD-HDTV has a silicon reflective display coating, which a few years ago was very $$$$ (well over 10K). What this amounts to is a superior picture across the board (cable, sat, dvd, etc..) I believe this unit it also set up to take advantage of the new HD-DVD formats coming out in early 06. I believe the 50 inch model is in the 3500-4000 range.
 
Have you considered buying a projector and drop-down screen option.



The simple fact is that people can give you general leads on the quality televisions, but you're not going to get the best TV unless you spend a great deal of time going out and looking at them yourself.



A few things to consider:

Do you notice the "screen door effect" on many lcd's

How does the TV perform with action sequences

Will you need a higher contrast ratio due to brightness of the room (sunlight)
 
I disagree there.

The only consideration is that whether you can get it oked by your better half.

Possible responses from her:



1. What tv? Did you see our credit card bill last month! You busted our budget

on stupid things like PC, steamer, extractor, latest lines of products from Zaino,

Wolfgang, Chemical guys, Pinnacle, 4 stars, Optimum.

You are sleeping in the doghouse, buster!



2. What tv? Are you telling me that you would be watching tv all day Saturday and

Sunday!

You are sleeping in the doghouse, weenie!



3. What tv? You are not getting that black/silver monstrosity into our house, are you?

You are sleeping in the doghouse, loser!
 
My "better half" is on board with the purchase. Neither of really wanted to spend the $$ with what we are spending on our new house soon, but thanks to the builder we have to or A) Buy new furniture, B) Get rid of our 5' 100 gallon tropical fish tank, neither of which is going to happen. The builder gave us a roughly $4000 credit today due to their mistakes.



I havent considered the projector yet, I always thought to get a decent one they were very expensive? Arent they very sensitive to lighting in the room? Our TV will be "in front" of about 8' of windows so we will have back lighting, not glare to worry about. I think we ruled out LCD due to the cost and most only come up to 40", we want 42" or 50".
 
Do some research. The last couple of years they have made advances in plasma and LCD and the price is dropping. From the little i have read "they" have said plasma is better for bigger screen size and LCD is better for smaller.
 
So I went and visitied a few stores today. I kind of like the Panasonic ED-TV Th42-pd50u, the picture isnt that much worse than many of the HD's and seems it could be had for around $17-1800 with a bit of haggling. Cant argue the value on this one, especially if it'll end up in the BR someday. Best Buy has the Panasonic HD-TV TH42PX50U on sale for $2199 after $400 mail in rebate and said we could work out a better deal if we made other purchases at the same time. So Im leaning towards the HD for a few hundy more. Im pretty sure that one of these 2 will be the TV we purchase.



The BB guy was trying to tell me that power surges and dips are what cause the most harm to plasmas and that we would need to buy a power conditioner to protect the TV. Of course these ran from $200-500 extra, plus $250 for the tilt mounting bracket for the TV. Is this true and should I buy one with a plasma? Oh and BB will install it all and hook up my home theater system for a measly $500!?!?!?!!? Other than being 110lbs I cant see what should be so hard about installing the TV (other than running the cables through the walls? Have any of you installed you own plasma's?
 
i can't figure installing would be that hard - and definetly not worth $500, but I didn't mount the tv on the wall at my parents house. the power issue is a big deal, but I don't think more than other electronics - a good surge protector and a small UPS could do the same thing a power conditioner for much cheaper I'd think.



take a look at walmart before you buy from BB or CC. If you're getting a warranty for the tv, there was a recent article in business week that said the waranty from walmart was much lower cost than the others even through they used the same company to manage the claims and their terms were more generous - it won't start until after the manufacturers warranty so you're covered for longer.
 
They this caliber of TV set at Walmart? I never go there I always figured they were low-end merchandise, kind of like KMart. We already have a $100 Monster Cable surge protector for our A/V gear and I have a few small, computer UPS's around the house. So that would replace a power conditioner, I didnt think they did anything to even out power distribution?
 
Wow, $2100 for the px50u. They are in stock?

Can't believe it was over $3000 just a few months ago.

Do it, man!



I personally don't think you would need a $300 line conditioner.



The tv should come with the stand. If you want to mount it on the

wall then you would need a wall mount. Get them from internet place/ebay.

Should be under $100.
 
Yes they had them in stock, the price was after a $400 mail in rebate. My local store said they got 150 in stock and as of Sunday they only had 40 left, but they could order more if they run out. Said price is only good until tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.
 
Well the search is over, we brought home our new TV tonight!!! We were out Christmas shopping and looked at TV's, I cant say where we ended up buying from but we ended up getting a Sony KDE-50SX955 50" plasma TV. It was a floor display model, but they took it iff the mounts while we were there, so Im sure it wasnt abused. We paid $2350 for the TV plus $850 for the 5 year Sony warranty and the (retail) $350 tilt/swivel bracket ($3200 including 6% tax and everything). So overall I think we got a killer deal, there are a few on EBay going for $3500-5000 for the TV alone.



We checked it out and its in mint condition, We got the manuals and everything, there was no burn in at all and no dead pixels (even if there were we are covered). We werent really planning on buying until the new house is done, but couldnt pass up the deal and Ill probably end up hooking it up in our current family room and moving out the current 57" projection. Funny thing is that this plasma (with speakers) is almost 1" wider than our current TV and this thing is a TANK at 150lbs!!!!
 
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