Looking To Buy Wide Screen TV

I did some looking this last weekend at a local high end audio store that carried many of the more popular brands.

I looked at Pioneer, Sony, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Panasonic and the new Sharp DLP projector. I was really impressed with the new flat tube Sony Wega 40" (currently the largest tube TV). For rear projection (50" and above) the Pioneer looked the best to me.

All of these new TV's have capability for HDTV. Some have tuners built in, some leave it to the buyer to decide. These are purchase decisions that only you can make, depending on what you watch, what else you own and where you live.

When you go look, take a DVD that you are familiar with. Do not depend on the "canned" demos the stores use. Even if you must look at more than one location, a direct hook up will at least make the comparison on somewhat even ground.

Spending this much money, a salesman should not object to spending 15 minutes plugging in a DVD player for comparison. The only thing you would not have control over is individual TV adjustments (possibly correct, most likely NOT), and room viewing conditions.

I know if I were spending several thousand dollars and considering I would have to live with the decision for several years, I would do tests whether they were happy with me or not.

This is the cable forum!

Tekunda, It's ok.... we'll talk anywhere :)

Maybe he subscribed to cable and looking for a better picture? :^)

There is a good sony available(model number slips my mind), it retails for around 12k and will smoke every Rear projection out there, it is 65" is completely ready for HDTV(including the 'tuner', which is like $499, up here any how), and has the best finish I have ever seen on those card board cabinets they use on rear projection. The pioneer is the runner up, by a long shot, but the sony is much better, I don't like the high gloss cabinets on the pioneer but it is all personal preference. I personally use a front projector(Sharp Vision XV-s55U, shot onto a 100" 4:3 ration fixed frame screen) and love it, when I need a new one, I will get another front projector, it takes up NO floor space and has a very good picture(about the same as the pioneer elite rear projections, but not as good as the high end sony), one of my good friends has the Sony and neither of us can decide which we like better, yes he has a better picture, but I have more flexibility and a larger picture. There are great deals to be had on both rear and front projection set up's here, the best advice I can give is by it used! for some reason Home Theatre stuff takes a huge drop in value quickly, way more then stereo stuff. I have under 2k into my 1000" screen and a manufacturer waranty(dealer demo unit, projector is $8600 new and the screen is another $899-which I had to buy new) and my friend bought his 12k sony rear projection here for 4.5k from a dealer(again a dealer demo, with the waranty of a new product). Mine is close to a year old and I have had NO problems at all, his is about 4 months old(well when they became ours, plus the store use too) with NO problems, buy from a dealer and get deal of the century!

Tim