An audiophile who know NOTHING about TV

Well, just went to a couple of stores. One was a local home theater store. Like most "boutique" retail stores, you get better service, might pay more, but less selection. I looked at a 50" Pioneer Elite Plasma(1120 I think). Price quoted was $7,100 free installation. They also had a 43" Sharp LCD that was playing a DVD ("Finding Nemo"). The LCD playing DVD looked amazing. I did as some suggested here and had him switch between HD and SD. The SD did not look terrible. The one question I had that he couldn't/wouldn't answer was how come some of the SD channels were taking up the whole screen, while others were "shrunk"? Is it the way they are broadcast?

From there I went to a best buy. Obvioulsy lots of choices. Does Best Buy not carry "Elite"? They had a Pioneer, but It was not the same. They also had a Sharp 43-45" LCD that looked great. Maybe a little better than the 50" Pioneer that was right next to it. I was a little disappointed in the SAmsung DLP. It seemed you really needed to be in the sweet spot for this to look good. It looked very dark as you moved from standing to bending over a little bit.

Still not any closer to making a decision LOL

One can not assume what you see is the best---I swear to God. You go in one store and a particular set may be the best looking.---Then you go to another store and the set you thought was hot;is not.--(Fact bassed)--- With regards to sd and it filling the screen, to full 16x9--I would assume the sales guy hit the button for it to stretch. Most displays will do it. Stretching HD material that is 4.3---some sets do that as well.--If you want Twiggy to look like Mama Cass.

Boy, do I feel your pain. I have owned a Pioneer Elite 50" CRT rear projection analog set for the last 5 years and have been looking at HD sets the last few months primarily because I want to watch football in HD and also because I want to be able to take advantage of the progressive scan output on my DVD player. I have not yet seen anything that makes me want to pull the trigger on a new set. DLP rear projection sets have the rainbow issue, rear projection LCD sets have poor blacks, and plasma sets are too expensive for my budget and also have poor blacks and the burn in issue with 4:3 material. I think that this is a really bad time to buy a television. The rear projection CRTs, to my eyes, still provide the best picture but many manufacturers have stopped making them and none of the high end A/V stores in my area carry them anymore. They say nobody wants them because they are too big and heavy. It seems to me that CRT technology, which still provides the best overall picture, has been prematurely tossed aside in favor of newer technologies that offer a smaller and lighter box. For 480i material my Pioneer Elite projection set is still better than what I have seen in the stores right now. I still am unsure of what to do but I think I may wait it out a couple more years and hope that Pioneer Elite plasmas come down in price and improve in picture quality and then get one of those.

When I was shopping for a direct view TV set, I went to best buy on a slow day (wednesday). We looked at a few TVs on display (playing the mega-split coax demo feed) and narrowed it down to a handful of TVs. I grabbed a display VCR, rabbit ears, and a DVD player.

Here's where I became an 'ass.' I started hooking them up to each display TV in turn, disconnecting the split coax feed. I would then try to fiddle with the brightness and contrast controls (turning them down until I got good blacks and close to more appropriate contrast/brightness levels). Most of these TVs are run in what I refer to as 'torch mode.' Of the TVs that had the best picture quality on DVDs, I then compared OTA broadcase TV (thru rabbit ears on the VCR) and also a VHS tape I brought from home. I also watched part of a DVD.

Surprisingly I wasn't bothered by store employees when I was sliding TVs out and unhooking them and autitioning them. I thought for sure I was going to get scolded! Though I figured it out after the second set of couples came by me asking about TVs. (I was like 'WTF?!' Why are customers asking me questions?) I was wearing a bright blue dress shirt, yellow tie, and some tan dress pants. between than and moving display merchandise I probably looked like a manager or someone who belonged there. FYI, this was at Best Buy and the store employees where these blue polo shirts and khaki pants.

In short I would have never made the IMO excellent decision that I did without being able to (somewhat) properly audition the TV sets. Granted the store lighting is nt really appropriate, but at least I was able to get somewhat of an idea. In the end she decided on a Toshiba 27AF41. I went back a week later and I got the Toshiba 36AF61. I was successfully able to negotiate about $100 (c. 10%) by talking with a manager. So yes, if you approach the right person on the right day, you can haggle at Best Buy! I thought these had the best standard def performance out of the flat glass direct view CRTs that also had great DVD performance. Had I not done that I would have ended up with the more expensive Sony WEGA which to be didn't have the nice picture the 'Tos had. YMMV.

Aaron

My $0.02 worth,

Most stores do not provide the same viewing environment as your home. Just because a set does not look fabulous in a store, especially one with glaring overhead fluorescent lights, does not mean it won't look good in your home. A good quality TV with proper ISF calibration would probably be extremely underwhelming on a Best Buy showroom floor.

A DVI/HDMI connection may not show much imporvement over Component connection for a CRT based set. A DVI/HDMI connection can show an improvement with a fixed pixel display, and it does provide improved PQ if a digital signal is fed to the TV at the TV's native resolution, and if the TV does not add additional D/A, A/D, scaling steps. One example where this does work, at least for me, is feeding a Samsung DLP TV a 720p DVI/HDMI signal from an upconverting DVD player.

The statements about each technology having plusses and minuses is right on the mark. There is no ideal answer. Each person will have their own preferences and priorities. For example, some like the blacks and continuous tone PQ of a CRT based set while I prefer what I consider the more detailed images on my Samsung DLPs.

Microdisplay technology continues to evolve while CRT technology is relatively mature. As described at www.avsforum.com, a new crop of 1080p native resolution microdisplay sets were announced at CES, in addition to the Sony 1080p set previously announced, and initial reports indicated very impressive PQ.

My recommendation is to video-audition TVs in as many stores as possible, since impressions of PQ vary from one store to another, and make sure you can exchange any set you buy if you're not happy with it after you get it home.

Bruce