Thoughts on Plasma, LCD, DLP and which way to go

The other interesting thought I have is; " Why would anyone buy a plasma and watch 4;3 stuff on it? At least I might consider a zoom mode to maintain the aspect ratio yet minimize the bar area; it is after all a widescreen display- however, I have no doubt that you could get burn in if left in 4:3 viewing mode for days and days on end.

Thanks for the info about altitude & plasma sets - the noise problem is what I was thinking about - and using the set at high altitude, not how it reacts to being shipped by jet. :-) I live in Colorado so the altitude question is important to me. It is good to know that the plasma screen makers are making improvements. Here is a link to some info about high altitude and plasma screens:
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasmatv/plasmatv-altitude.html Note that this was written in mid-2004.

Holly

With modern plasma sets, I don't think you would have problems with high altitude/noise. Just one proviso, be sure to provide plenty of ventilation space around the set. The people that seem to have problems with premature death of their sets, that I've seen, have compromised cooling of their sets -- placed set in an a cabinet, built into a wall without forced air ventilation, installed a curtain to hide the set that covered the sides even when open.

Holly. Thanks for the link. originally there were far greater concerns about plasma and altitude. And in fact some folks report buzzing plasmas even today, although I havent seen it connected to altitude in those posts on avsforum.com ( just plug in buzzing plasmas into a search).

What I would say is that when these type of threads come up ( meaning this one) all kinds of stuff like the altitude thing, burn in, high power consumption, and other pseudo-myths are mentioned regarding plasmas, but in reality none of them actually occur for like 99.9% of in home residential users

Rysa4 is right about these plasma myths...

I have a neighbor that refused to buy a Plasma because "they only last a year and you have to recharge them with gas every few months". When I told him that was absolutely untrue, he said he believed otherwise becuase 2 home theater salemen had told him the "truth".

So these bozos sell him this giant ass CRT rear projection set, which he brings home and raves about. I go over to check it out and the upconversion is for shit and the guy has no plans for Hi-Def Satellite because he's "a cable guy- cables better". I inform him he can get hi-def through his cheesy cable provider and he responds "why do that? Look at that picture man".

I gave up. Drank a beer, went home.