Help deciding which brand of HDTV to buy

I'd have to recommend a Samsung as well. Given similarly sized sets, a Samsung will definitely give you better bang for your buck than Sony usually will, and you're by no means losing out in any way in terms of colour or overall picture quality.

Also, while more and more stations are broadcasting in HD/widescreen, remember that the majority of TV signals here in the west are still broadcast at standard ratio (4:3). With a widescreen TV, that means that you'll get the "empty" black/grey bars on the sides of the screen. With a plasma TV, every part of the screen is always "on" even if there's no signal. Prolonged use of the TV in this manner can, and has, lead to the image quality on many plasma TVs to get royally fucked (not just on the side parts, but on the entire screen). If you get an LCD screen, you've got nothing to worry about, as those pixels are simply turned off because they're not getting any signal. Since said pixels are just turned off, you don't have to worry about the rest of the image quality getting fucked.

LCD tv's are also better for long gaming sessions.

Thanks for helping me out, everyone, I appreciate it! :anime:

I went with Samsung. Eh...it's going to take some getting used to. No matter how much I mess with the colors, it's so bright! The images practically are burned into my retinas!

Movies on DVD look really nice, obviously, and I'm guessing that's basically what these flatscreen HDTVs are purposely made for. You're kinda screwed if you want to watch something that's full screen, aren't you, since it gets stretched out? Even though there's a 4:3 format option, the manual says that using that format could leave traces of borders displayed on the left, right, and center of the screen and can damage the image, so the 16:9 is recommended. :shrug:

Thanks again!

There are a bunch of resources online to help you correctly calibrate your tv.

Samsung 50" Plasma HDTV.

Best $1,200.00 I ever spent in my life and watching Tokusatsu on it is fucking incredible.

Forever Knight said:

Samsung 50" Plasma HDTV.

Best $1,200.00 I ever spent in my life and watching Tokusatsu on it is fucking incredible.

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Plasma tv's also only last half the time as LCD tv's. They also have problems with gamers that play games for long periods of time.

As KRBlack said, there are plenty of resources available to you to tweak your TVs settings to what you prefer. It's a bit of a pain and it's time consuming, but it's well worth it once you have it set just right. :thumbs:

Shougo B'Stard said:

Movies on DVD look really nice, obviously, and I'm guessing that's basically what these flatscreen HDTVs are purposely made for. You're kinda screwed if you want to watch something that's full screen, aren't you, since it gets stretched out? Even though there's a 4:3 format option, the manual says that using that format could leave traces of borders displayed on the left, right, and center of the screen and can damage the image, so the 16:9 is recommended. :shrug:

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There's always the "ZOOM1" option if you're like me, and can't stand the image being stretched wide. This option, as is indicated by it's name, basically "zooms" in the picture (much like how you can zoom in with your camera to get a closer shot without having to step closer) so that the edges of the 4:3 signal meet up with the edges of the screen. The only problem with this option is that you end up "cropping off" parts of the top and bottom of the 4:3 signal. If you're watching a news broadcast or a sporting event, this usually means that you crop off the "ticker" at the bottom of the screen. Personally, depending on the program I'm watching, I'll alternate between the 4:3 and the ZOOM1 settings.

Any HDTV from Sony.

Shougo B'Stard said:

Thanks for helping me out, everyone, I appreciate it! :anime:

I went with Samsung. Eh...it's going to take some getting used to. No matter how much I mess with the colors, it's so bright! The images practically are burned into my retinas!

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Go into the picture options and switch to MOVIE Theater Mode which dims the color. I had the same problem for the first few days until I found out the option.