Why LCD and Plasma? 37

When I posted this last night I was about to go to bed and should have taken time to further mention that my "main" TV is DLP and I have been quite happy and find SD to be acceptable as well.

When I was at CC yesterday I asked if I could watch a particular TV in 4:3 and the answer from the young salesman was "no", this after explaining what 4:3 was. I went there with intent to purchase a 32" Panasonic (TC32LX70), but as I suspected, I questioned if I would regret the size. This same salesman highly recommended I consider a particular Samsung, I believe it is model LNT3242H; he was high on Samsung. I recall reading that it is a safe bet to stay with the P's, Panasonic and Pioneer, yes/no?

He also highly recommended I purchase the extended warranty due to pixels burning out on LCD models, which he showed me some floor models with some out, although it was a brand I would not consider. Is this a common issue with LCD's? The guy clearly didn't know a lot, but this issue did raise a concern for me.

55dok, do you have a model number for that 42" Panasonic plasma?

Too funny about wives, my wife does the same thing and also doesn't care.

any rear projection TV will need light bulb replacement over time. what bothers me most is the fact that you can't watch it in complete darkness, at least for me, because I can see the "light bulb" in the screen that projects right into my eyes and very uncomfortable.

I was a Bestbuy the other night. standing in front of zillions of LCD & plasma, I can easily pick up which one is LCD and which one is plasma. plasma still wins for picture quality overall.

as an owner of 42" EDTV plasma, 37" LCD, 60" LCD RPTV, and 1080P LCD projector, I will buy a 100" plasma when I can afford one some day.

That is interesting Semi; I suspect I need to spend more time looking at TV's next time. I had my wife and son with me yesterday and my wife is not patient in these things, I was very pressured.

I know that the DLP TV I bought a few years ago was a very nice one and I starting to think it is superior to most or I am less sensitive than others, because I don't have the issues some mention about it, such as Semi seeing the bulb and bothering the eyes.

If you are happy with DLP, there are good buys out there. I think that there are several reasons why SD looks crappy on HD sets-
1. Crappy tuner.
2. Oftentimes, stretched picture to fill screen.
3. Analog to digital conversion
4. Larger picture, which magnifies all of the above defects.

I have a very high quality (Loewe) CRT EDTV, that looks like crap on analog channels. It looks good with digital channels and great with DVD. Higher res sets emphasize defects of incoming signal, same as high res audio system will emphasize upstream warts.

Swampwalker, I am happy with my DLP set, and I wouldn't rule DLP out for the bedroom set we are looking to replace.

I went to town last night considering solely LCD and plasma and after looking at that Sony 3LCD rear projection TV I started wondering if I had gotten caught up in marketing, LCD and plasma being THE only real options, and maybe they are, if so, I am fine with that. Thus far, it seems the main issue for most is with bulb replacement in rear projection TV's.

I did look (rather quickly) at a DLP set at CC, but its picture quality was not as good as mine, so I didn't give it much thought.

What sucks at CC is they play a video loop that is fast moving so it is hard to view one TV to another.