[cheshirenc]

our rear projection tv is having convergence chip issues.  Due to where we live (edge of the earth) and  how close the nearest repair center is to us, the repair is going to cost almost 700.00, with parts, labor and travel figured in.

DH, is edging to the verge of replacing it. (it is also 8 years old).  We are looking at the options.  We are thinking we will not go with another rear projection due to the weight and size issue.

Can anyone give us insight of what to go with, look for and the various reasons why?  We are looking at a 46 to 50 inch size.  We'll be looking in the following brick and mortar stores:  Bestbuy, Sears, Walmart and Sams (closest retailers to us) and have also looked at amazon.com.

thanks for all help!

 

[rho]

I'll be checking in here to see what people say too - we will be in the market soon most likely also - my question is which one is the one that doesn't reflect the light as much? 

 

[pidgeon92]

Unless you are a real videophile, just pick the least expensive set you find with a picture/profile that you like. I got my 42" Vizio LCD from Sam's in November. I haven't updated to the hi-def satellite receiver yet, so the vast majority of what I watch doesn't look that much better than a standard TV right now....

The other day I put a hi-def version of a CSI episode on my Apple TV, and the picture on the Vizio looked amazing; it was significantly sharper than my standard TV viewing.

Plasmas have the shiny surface, and tend to have much richer black tones and a nicer picture overall; but once again it's all a matter of personal preference.


Vizio 42-inch

 

[sebat]

Here's an article that lists the pros and cons of both....

http://www.hdtv.ca/plasma_lcd_projector/lcd_tv_versus_plasma_tv.php

 

[stitch]

i don't know much about the TV's other than which picture looks best to me when I see them in the store  but my neighbors had bought a plasma and had nothing but problems with it.  the set would burn out quickly.  this happened 4 different times and the wait for repairs was atleast 3 weeks each time.  After the last time that it happened they ended up going out and buying an lcd.  The repair men that were working on their tv did mention that people were having tons of problems with their plasma's. 

Hope this helps and good luck with the tv search.

 

[VictoriaP]

I spent eons researching this one. LOL What it boiled down to was that the Panasonic Viera line had the best ratings & reliability for the price point that I could find anywhere. I went back and forth between LCD & plasma, but the images on the plasma were still so much better to me that that was ultimately the way we went. (I used to do photography professionally, so there were highlight, contrast, and blurring issues driving me crazy on most sets, problems that my husband couldn't even see. I was definitely the picky one in this case.) While glare can be an issue with plasma screens, we've had very little problem with the Panasonic. It even gets direct sunlight at times with little to no problem. Very deep blacks & nicely saturated color without a whole lot of adjustment needed.

And holy cow, going from a 32" to a 50" was insane. I didn't appreciate it one bit (girl, not big TV user) until baseball season. Now I'm in love.

This is what we bought: Panasonic Viera TH-50PZ85U 50

While I'm typically an advocate for buying online, we didn't even consider it in this case. Returning something like this would be a nightmare if something went wrong. And besides, I had to go & look, several times, before I was willing to commit! LOL

My biggest complaint is that all the manufacturers right now are framing their flat panels with glossy black frames. Not only do you get glare off these from any light source at all, but every single damn speck of dust in the house is attracted to it.

Good luck!

 

[Thumper]

IIRC, when we were shopping for a TV, we were told that basically, an LCD has a brighter picture and is better if you're going to be watching in a dark room. A Plasma has truer black and is better if there will be light in the room (window, etc.) But I think the best advice we got was from a sales guy at Best Buy who looked as if he was about 13 years old: "Buy the one that floats your boat, but don't buy the cheapest."

In checking out reviews, we found Samsung was rated best in customer satisfaction on both LCD and Plasma.

And in screen size...if it's under 40", save money and get a 720p instead of a 1080. The human eye (supposedly, there will always be those who swear they're the exception) can't tell the difference on the smaller screens.

We wound up with a 52" Samsung LCD, and holy carpoli... amazing. We just close the curtains if we're watching during the day and have had no problems with reflective light.

 

[Atunah]

We got our first HDTV for Christmas, until then we had a panasonic 35 inch tube. A heavy beast.

It took us a while to research and make our mind up, there are AVS forums out there with lots of info and we settled on a Phillips HDTV 47-inch 120 hz and we love it. Blacks are black and in store looked as good as the sony's and even some of the plasma's that were next to it. Just have to calibrate it right. We got it at SAMS as they have super return policy, just in case and they had 200 dollars off the TV at the time.

We also weren't sure if we wanted LCD or Plasma, but after researching LCD was better for us. We use the TV as a computer monitor so it had to be 1080 and the LDC works better for that too. I also tend to leave the TV running for backround news and Plasma we were told can burn in.

We only have a small selection of HD channels and we were concerned how SD would look on an HDTV, but its pretty good for me.

Best thing, I can stream Netlfix movies now on an 47" TV in widescreen and also my online tennis subscription works great, no more crouching in front of the computer.

Oh and Wii bowling is a lot more fun now too in widescreen

 

[marianneg]

I bought an LCD 3 or 4 years ago, but if I were buying today I would go plasma.  As others have mentioned, blacks are much better, and there are some good quality plasmas available now.  Either way, though, I'm sure you will enjoy your upgrade

 

[farmwife99]

We bought our LCD @ christmas time and really like it. We were told by the sales person since we leave our TV on 24 and 7 and never turn it off we should not buy a plasma TV because it would put out too much heat.
Just thought I would mention this in case you have your TV on all the time like us. OR are we the only people that leave our TV on day and night??

 

[drenee]

Farmwife, just curious, why do you leave your TV on all the time?
deb

 

[cheshirenc]

I'm glad I went with DLP. Doesn't hang on the wall, but I have been really happy with the picture.

That's what went wrong with ours. We have the 3 chip DLP rear projection. The red chip is bad. Found another place closer to us that quoted a $340.00 to $440.00 to repair.

We are still on the fence about repair vs replace.

If we replace I think we've narrowed it down to an LCD screen. We have a 12 foot 9 inch window in the room without any shades or curtains and have read in a brightly lit room the lcds work better I think we have also narrowed the brand down to Sony or Samsung.

Thanks for all the information given. We also found out buying a TV is similar to buying a mattress. The manufactures send different stores different models so it is hard to really do a store by store price check. We have narrowed down what we are looking for as far as size, Hz speed, ms speed and number of inputs. We were told we can't compare contrast ratio between different manufacturers because each brand uses a different way to get the number, no market standard

 

[Sparkplug]

If we replace I think we've narrowed it down to an LCD screen. We have a 12 foot 9 inch window in the room without any shades or curtains and have read in a brightly lit room the lcds work better

We bought the LCD for the same reason -- at least that was my husband's reasoning. Our's is also a Sony, mainly because they were the only one to offer a model were the frame was a flat "titanium" finish instead of the black glossy finish, or piano black finish the sales guy called it. (Although we got a 40% discount from a friend who works for Sony, which helped us decide on a brand.)