We are selling our house in maryland and moving to Jacksonville, FL in about a month. We will have smoe money to play with, and I'd like to get a plasma or LCD TV. Which is better? Oh, and BTW, I don't play video games on them, so the pixels won't "freeze" into the screen. I've heard about that.

I'm looking to not spend more than roughly $2500. Eventually I'm going 6.1 in the living room with speakers in the other two or three bedrooms throughout the house. How much would it cost to run speakers (with volume control in each room) throughout the house?

 

You really should start your own thread. IMHO, plasma is better. I have yet to see a LCD with a picture that can rival a good plasma (and I've seen a lot). It all depends on the layout of your house as to how expensive it will be to put volume knobs in each room. Is there an open basement or open attic above or below these rooms? If not then the sheetrock will probably have to be notched and then patched which adds cost onto everything for the patch work and paint (unless you already have wires run for speakers and everything which I doubt).

 

I apologize for the but I just wanted to get a couple of quick answers. I didn't think that a new thread was worth it.

We don't even know what house we're going to be getting into yet, so the only thing I CAN tell you is that it's going to be a one story house. I would think that if I did my own patching, that would drive the cost of the install down. I'm pretty handy with that stuff.

 

Well, I would say find a house first, then look into your different options. You have to see what you can budget in, and that will depend on what you spend on a house. And then you will have to figure out how you can run wires in the particular house you find. The costs could run from a few hundred to a few thousand, so it really depends on circumstances.

edit: I didn't mean to be a ball-buster, I just meant you would probably get more exposure in your own thread rather then a several month old thread with 15 pages.

 

Right now it is just easier to ask yourself, "What size TV do I want?". You will be hard pressed to find a plasma under 37". I don't even think they exist. LCDs over 37" will be hella expensive.

 

This is what you need to do.

Take a DVD and go to a store and watch both LCD and Plasma with your disc. Look a few different models and makers.

EVERYONE has their own opinions on what looks best to their eyes. Personally, I do not care for plasmas. BUT there are people on here who seem to think they look very good.

So, one isn't really better then the other (keeping opinions out of this )

There is What do your eyes tell you looks best?

 

I just picked up a 32" Sony Bravia LCD. I was gonna go plasma, but in the end wen with the LCD because it was cheaper and I only live in an apartment, so I am not ready to set up a home 'theater'. Went home and watched a cartoon movie (Chicken Little) just to test the colors and see how it looked. Compared to my old flat tube, its a million times better looking. I was going to go DLP also, but I just didnt need something in the sizes I saw, 32" was the biggest I would go.

Like Sarlacc said, take a DVD to the store and check them out side by side, thats your best bet. Also do comparisons with the brands. I only took the Sony becuase I got it for cheaper than retail (1200 compared to 1799) but the Sharp Aquos machines are gorgeous. There were none in stock, otherwise that would have been my choice.

 

I am not a huge LCD fan, but I think the Bravia looks nicer then the Aquos actually. It just seems to have a sharper picture to me with less pixelation. Do you use surround sound or the tv speakers? If you do use the tv speakers, make sure you set it for the tru surround setting in the Wega Gate menu. I think it has the best sounding speaker for any flat panel tv that I heard to date.

 

That's the first thing I set. I will not be hooking up a surround sound system with this TV, the room is kinda small, so the regular speakers are just fine. For some reason though, the Aquos' picture seemed a little clearer to me, but maybe because the Sony wasn't set up right. Either way, I'm happy with my purchase.

 

I have a huge preference towards LCD since I mainly use my TV for gaming, and thus am worried about the heads up display in games burning in. I am running a sharp 32'' LCD (not mine, just in my dorm room somehow) with 1080i and I really like being able to run it off of my laptop's DVI and its practically a computer monitor. I can then hook my laptop up via optical to my sound system and play 5.1 HD computer games on my home theater system which I prefer to the xbox 360 piece o junk also sitting here (also not mine).

So it's really all about what you are going to use it for...

One thing I REALLY hate about LCD is that regular TV signal looks like utter crap. Im sure it would look better with a digital signal coming from a cable box but I don't have that.

 

Im going to have to consult the experts on that last point I made:

I have the signal going from coax --> tivo --> composite video and some shows (that 70's show, old school monty python for example) are totally unwatchable. This was not a problem with the CRT sitting in the other room using the same exact setup. Does plasma suffer from this?

 

^ SD tv looks like ass on any HD set.

 

Composite or component? Big difference.

Composite cables are not HD. Component can carry an HD signal.

Switch to at least component, if not HDMI.

Also, HDTVs were made for high quality feeds. When you throw a crap picture at it, you're gonna get garbage out. And if you don't have an HD TiVo or HD set top box... Even worse.

 

it does if it's OTA, but I get digital SD from the dish and it looks just as good if not better on my plasma than it did on my old CRT.