My wife and I have recently been in the market for a new TV, we are looking for something to replace our old 26" tube television in our family room. Right now we are pretty sure that we want a flat panel but are having issues with size, brand, etc.

We are planning on wall mounting the TV above our fireplace in the room. The dimensions of the space are:
30" High
60" Wide
8.5" Deep (Actually that is the depth of the mantle so probably more like 5" deep)

I was looking at something around 42-46" and found two in particular that I really like:
Sharp Aquos 45d40
Sony KDL46D2000

I do not know much about TV's etc but the big problem that I am having right now is both of those TV's are just about 30" tall. Am I going to have problems mounting them if the fit is so tight? Does anyone have any suggestions of other sets to look at?

 

Why not a 42" plasma?

 

A friend of mine told me to stay away from plasma televisions, he said beings that the TV in this room gets used a lot that they die faster. I didn't even think to question it, is that true?

 

It's not true.

If you're going to be gaming on the plasma, then avoid them.

Plasmas are now getting 60,000 hours, which is 20.5 years at 8 hours a day.

 

Just looking at a couple of plasma dimentions for a 42" its
WHD 40.2 x 24.0 x 3.9 in NEC
WHD 42.5"x 27.2'' x 5.5'' Panasonic

Looks like plasma will be a good fit and cheaper to buy.

 

Well it looks like I will be going the plasma route, any suggestions of brands to look at/avoid?

 

Can't go wrong with Pioneer, Panasonic, Samsung and/or NEC.

 

Is the room you plan on putting the new tv have a lot of bright lights/daylight? If so, an LCD will handle glare better than a plasma. Another thing to think about is the heat from the fireplace if you hang it over the fireplace. Anyone have issues with this?

 

I am not too worried about the heat from the fire place because the fireplace is rarely used and also when it is used it has a fan that blows heat away from the setting. The room does get a lot of daylight, especially in the afternoon, the glare issue is something I have to think about. I know that on really sunny days the glare washed out our tube TV.

 

LCDs can get washed out in sunlight

 

The one thing I will say bad about plasma is if you have kids, keep the damn Noggin channel off of that TV. The logo will burn in if that channel is left on all day. And its one damn ugly logo.

I have a slight burn from that damn thing on mine and the noggin channel is now . I see the ghost image of the logo on solid color backgrounds. It is getting better but its taking a long time to go away. I really only see it now on white backgrounds.

I haven't had any other problems with logos, blackbars, sports banners, etc.

 

&

I'm also not sure what your budget is or if this TV is the main TV in the house, but if you're looking to save some money, look into an EDTV Plasma. We're actually considering getting one for the bedroom and moving the regular plasma to the bonus room. One of our neighbors has one in their bedroom, and HD on it looks just as good as on an HD plasma. Don't believe me? Go to any TV store and look at an EDTV plasma and a HDTV plasma side by side. I'd be surprised if you could see any difference. Of course if you're looking at a $5k plasma you will... but the entry level HD plasmas verses the EDTV plasmas are pretty much a draw, and you can save anywhere from a few hundred up to $1k.

Just a thought. I personally would only do it for a bedroom or secondary TV as I'd like my main TV to support higher resolutions, however, if you don't watch much TV or aren't too picky with TV specs, that may be the way to go...

 

How long do you have before doing damage by a persistent Logo or PS2 game? An hour or 2?

 

We really don't have a budget for this TV, it is in one of the main gathering areas of the house. We have HDTV from our cable company so HD is a must, but other than that there are not many requirements. I would like it to have decent speakers as the wife is electronically challenged and made me swear that she would not have to turn on 5 components to make the TV work, like our theater. I would say that I am willing to spend up to 5k if the TV is right. I am still looking around, this whole burn in issue with the plasmas worries me. We watch a lot of news programs and they always have those stationary banners. Do LCD televisions suffer from burn in?

 

We've had our plasma for almost 5 months now, and there is zero burn in. We've watched movies on channels like TBS, where they have the logo on the bottom, and still zero burn in. The only way you'll really get burn in on a new plasma is if you leave something on for hours. And I mean hours, just sitting there, with one image. Even leaving the news on all day won't do anything b/c they have commercials, and the logos are gone during commercials. So you really shouldn't have anything to worry about with regards to burn in...

 

FYI, here's a good article debunking many plasma myths... such as burn in...

http://www.4electronicwarehouse.com/...sma-myths.html

 

Oh and BTW, if you're going to spend that much money on a TV, try to get 1080p. Not sure if any plasmas under $5k have 1080p... but there are LCDs that do.

 

Thanks for the advice and input guys. I think that I am going to go pick up a 1080p 40" Samsung LCD. It is on sale at best buy right now for $3200 and the salesman said that if I buy a blu-ray DVD player he would sell me the TV for $2900. I still haven't decided if I am going to get the DVD player as of yet... 1k for a DVD player is a lot.

 

^^^

I believe $3200 is what that 1080p set usually sells for at BB. Or $3299. Not much of a sale.

You should EASILY be able to get 10% off a TV without having to buy anything. Don't let these guys put the squeeze on you.

$2900 w/o a BR player should be doable.

 

i believe that is also a misconception - gaming on a plasma is not as bad as everyone thinks IMO the response rate might not be as awesome as a crt/ regular tv but it is still doable

we played halo 2 and kingdom hearts 2 (i no, not me) for almost 6 hours straight and no burn in for health bars, etc

our Vizio has a burn on reducing system and a system burn in restore if something gets horrible

 

It's really not a misconception... Perhaps there are units out there that are less susceptable to burn in, but current plasma units are prone to burn in during gaming or when any type of static image is displayed on the screen.

It is OK to play games on a plasma, where there are no static images displayed. GT2/3 are examples of games you do not want to play.

 

Definitely not misconception. When the manufacturers themselves are telling you that their TV's are awesome for every kind of use, but don't play games on them... it's usually for a reason. Plasmas are very susceptable to burn-in when playing video games, and like Scribby said, when playing a game with static images (which most games have), you're just asking for trouble...

So there's no way to stop anyone from playing games on a plasma, but just b/c you personally haven't had any problems doesn't mean it's a misconception. It just means that you've been lucky so far since both the industry and manufacturers advise against it.

 

Well I went back to Best Buy to buy the Samsung but they didn't have any in stock and no Best Buy in the area had any, with no idea when they were getting any more....

I left empty handed and decided to stop by Video Only on my way home and I ended up buying a JVC LT40FN97... which means basically a 40" 1080p HDTV LCD. I am going to pick it up on friday.

With the mount and 5 year warranty I left only having done $2900 in damage... what the TV alone would have cost at Best Buy...

I have 30 days to return it so if anyone has any advisories against JVC let me know.

 

^ I heard from many that JVC is not very reliable as far as TVs goes. As far as burn in s on plasmas, I was told that the new ones have been less proned to burn in as long as they are not lef with a still logo or picture for more than ~8 hrs.

 

My parents and neighbor has JVC's 52" HD-ILA TVs and they love them. Not too sure about their LCDs, but if the HD-ILA TV's are any indication, you should be very happy with the LCD (plus, yours is 1080p while theirs is 720p... but on a 40" screen, you probably won't see much of a difference, if any).