Planet TLLTS

So I’ve been wanting to upgrade the tv in the family room to an HDTV for some time now.I was ecstatic a couple weeks back when my wife gave me the green light to start seriously shopping for a new tv. The family room is right next to our kitchen and is only separated by a half wall. It’s also the room where we tend to do most of our tv viewing. Previously I had a 32″ inch SD CRT Panasonic that served us well for the last 10 years. Now the room isn’t terribly huge and the couch is about 8 feet from the tv. Based on the that a 40-42 inch tv was in the size range I was shopping for. The price range I was looking to hit was around $700-$750. After taking a look at a lot of online reviews and talking to several people I narrowed the choices down to the Samsung LN40B550 LCD and the Panasonic TC-P42S1 plasma. Both are really nice TVs. While some people are really opposed to plasma tvs because the they consume slightly more power than their LCD counterparts. Honestly the power consumption difference is pretty negligible. The plasma would of consumed about $15 more electricity in the course of the year than a similarly sized LCD. I showed my wife both tvs and she liked the LCD a little bit more. The picture on the LCDs tend to look better in bright rooms than plasmas. The color tones on the plasmas look a bit more natural to me, less washed out. The family room is a fairly bright room so the LCD was more of an appropriate choice. The thing that sealed the deal for me was the Samsung had more input connections. Definitely a nice thing to have considering I have 3 devices that use HDMI (cable box, Zotac Ion MythTV frontend, HD-DVD player). Oh I also paid $682 at 6th Avenue Electronics. So far I love this tv. It looks great with any HD content I’ve thrown at it. The blacks especially look very good for an LCD. I had zero issues with my Zotac Ion box connected via HDMI. No overscan whatsover and the default Mythbuntu theme looks absolutely killer on it. The handful of HD-DVDs I own simply look amazing (Transformers, 300, Bladerunner). The upscaled standard definition DVDs look pretty good too. I highly recommend the Samsung line of LCDs.

It’s been too long since I posted last. I got the approval from the boss (aka the wife) to start shopping for a new HDTV for the family room. I’ve checked out some HDTVs yesterday at one of the electronics stores near my office. Honestly I was most blown away by the Plasmas from Panasonic. I know they consume more power than LCDs but the difference in picture quality compared to 60 & 120 Hz LCDs were very noticeable. I was impressed by the latest 240 Hz LCDs but they tend to be a couple hundred dollars more in price than their 60 & 120 Hz brethren. Speaking to several people I hear that if you go with an LCD Samsung and Sony are currently the way to go. Plasma TVs seem to be only pushed by Panasonic and have some sort of stigma attached to them by the tree huggers because they’re “less green”. Honestly I’m not opposed to Plasmas. I want the best bang for the buck and I’m open to all options. Right now I’m leaning towards getting a plasma tv. I was very impressed with the OLED TVs they had. Ultra thin and with an excellent picture. Unfortunately they’re still relatively expensive as any newer technology tends to be in it’s infancy. I can see OLEDs becoming the norm in the near future. They didn’t have any 3D tvs on display yet. Honestly I can’t see myself sitting in my living room watching the big game sporting 3D glasses. It just seems too gimicky. But hell, I’m all for it if it drives down the prices of 2D televisions. More to come.