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Originally Posted by JiM P 2001
I just stumbled upon this, but I'll chime in with some pros and cons...
First off let me say that if you went out today and bought a TV that IS NOT 1080p, you're wasting your money.
DLPs have the best picture by far, but the screens are subject to vibration from nearby subwoofers, and you can't hang them on a wall. If you want big, cheap(compared to wall mounts), and a great picture, go DLP.
Plasmas have a crisp picture with a high contrast ratio, but not a long life compared to LCDs and DLPs. If you want to watch movies and enjoy a quality picture, but dont plan on using the TV all the time, go with a plasma.
LCDs have a tremendous life expectancy, a crisp picture, and a great refresh rate (new LCDs are doing 120hz), unfortunately you can lose pixels and it may not be covered under warranty unless you have a certain number out within a certain square area. If you want a TV that looks great, that you can use everyday without issues, buy an LCD.
On another note... You can get MASSIVE DLP TVs for way less than what you'd buy a 50" LCD or Plasma. Keep in mind, when TV shopping, that a 50" widescreen doesn't look anything like the 50" Big screen you had in 1995. You are changing your picture format from a 4:3 screen to a 16:9 screen. To give an example... a 50" 4:3 TV screen is ~30" tall, while a 50" 16:9 is ~26" tall.
If you replace a 50" 4:3 with a 50" 16:9, you will have a smaller picture. Will you notice it? Absolutely. Going with my previous example, I would replace a 50" 4:3 with a 63" 16:9 to retain the same height of the image, and simply making the screen wider. This is where a DLP makes sense. You will see a DRASTIC price jump in any LCD/Plasma TV abo andve a 50".
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Good Post. I prefer everything in widescreen, so even at 32" I think it's a more comfortable aspect ratio. I've had our current TV at our house for like 4 years now, and I got it at the time for $1000, open box. It's a panasonic 53" hdtv rear projection. Only does 1080i and I'm not even sure what the actual res of the TV is. To compare, we just bought a TV for the conference room at the office for $1000, and that is a 42" LCD, but only has 1366x833 or whatever for resolution. Hence, it's only 720p. The next TV I'll buy is a either 1080p LCD or just a smaller 42" LCD for our house here, once I decide how to set up our living room. I <3 wall mounting.
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Originally Posted by Shawn96VR-4
Also, big empasis on components. Spend the money on a nice surround sound speaker setup and receiver. You can do it on the CHEAP for like $500 for *BOTH*. 6.1 DIGITAL receivers sell for under $200 if you look. Don't skimp on the cables. you don't need monster, go to Blue Jeans Cable--Quality Cables at Reasonable Prices or eBay or something. It makes a difference. |
I wouldn't say there needs to be a big emphasis on components at all. I would consider any home theatre in-a-box great by any means. For the conference room, we used the onkyo HTIAB, which is 7.1, sounds great and was only $500, but if I were building a home theatre, I'd probably look at something from Outlaw audio.
Outlaw Audio
Only cables carrying an analog signal really make any difference, and it's unlikely that you will see that difference at the level of packaged systems. I replaced the speaker wire that came with the kit with some belkin pure-av simple because the stuff that comes is REALLY small, and the belkin was cheap for a spool. For cables, however, I would look into AudioQuest. They are some of the best cables around, but not cheap at all. I think the 75 ohm coax digital cables that I have for my studio monitors were like $75 each for 2m.
Remember HDMI carries a digital signal, so don't waste your money on a monster or anything special. I bought HDMI cables for like $3 a piece from firefold, and they'll work fine.
www.firefold.com