Saturday my trusty 27" CRT decided to start emitting a high pitched noise that gives my wife and I a headache when its on. So now we have the bittersweet moment of choosing a new TV (have wanted a new one, but the money is better spent elsewhere right now).

I think I have decided on a 42" LCD, but am still partially open to plasma. Plasma seems to be cheaper but we have a large window in the room with the TV so im worried about glare and washout with the plasma. We don't subscribe to HD channels or even have digital chanels. We don't have a blu ray player so inputs will come from standard cable or a DVD player with up conversion.

I want to try and stay with a good brand so I have found an LG 42LD520 which seems to be a good buy in its size class. Samsung and Sony seem to be too expensive and Panasonic didn't seem to have a nice picture to my wife and I at the store

 

don't pay attention to what you see at the store...they usually have them set up shitty

 

^Very true. They don't calibrate the models in the store at all, just pull them out of the box.

That said, for your needs, that LG looks to be a great TV. And when you do get HD and/or digital, it will be able to handle it.

 

I have a 42" LG that was displaying SD content for a year or so and I loved it. IIRC LGs seemed to do better displaying SD content.

 

Thanks guys, probably going to pick up the LG tonight

 

So we actually went to best buy last night and decided to buy the LG 42LD550 which is a higher model than what I was previously looking at. The major difference is this model has netcast. I saw on their website that this TV was on sale for $799 but in the store it was listed as $850. I asked them to price match their website and they agreed, so we went to look for an up converting DVD player to go with it. Come back to the sales guy and he informed us that he found the TV for $650 online so thats the price he was matching . We decide to get an LG blu ray player instead since we were saving so much on the TV.

Only problem is that the sales guy assured us the TV was wireless for netcast. I come to find out that it has a wired connection or you have to buy a $50 wireless adapter. I will be contacting best buy about this but I doubt the will do anything. I will most likely end up moving my router and modem to a location behind the tv.

Hooked it up last night and the picture is amazing, I am very pleased with our purchase. The 42" fills the space in the room very nice and was a perfect choice.

 

Great deal. I remember how excited and pleased I was when I got my new TV. Two years later, aside from wanting a slightly larger one (which I realistically don't need), I'm still just as thrilled. You'll come to love it the more you watch it, especially as you upgrade inputs. BD is great, and you can get free HD (of locals) with OTA.

I'm surprised the salesman mentioned that he found an even lower price, though. No big on the wireless; $50 or move some stuff, really easy either way.

Be sure to check out cnet or avsforums for settings. Whether you use them as you find them or tweak them some afterwards, I've always found the settings on either site to be a good place to start.

 

Thanks, and yes I was surprised with the lower price as well.
At my old house I had comcast cable and I could use my digital tuner to find the local HD channels. With the cable company we have now they must block them because nothing comes up with the DTV search.

The TV actually has a function called picture wizard which steps you though choosing a value for each setting.

 

My old 27" CRT also started emitting some high pitched noise which is the main reason I got rid of it as well... Hmmm, is that normal for CRTs?

Any of those brands are good. Samsung, Sony, LG, Vizio. Maybe look at cnet.com for reviews... Some brands' tvs are better in some categories and worse in others... just depends.

 

I can't believe someone just mentioned Vizio and good in the same sentence.

If you have a Star Wars DVD, you can use it to calibrate your tv. In the menu there is a option called THX optimizer. You can use it for sound or picture. The picture section will display a few boxes and circles and what not and have to adjust the contrast and brightness and color to optimize your picture. Did a decent job on my old LG plasma.

 

Get a set of rabbit ears, you should be able to pull some HD signals out of H'burg.

 

I've seen good reviews for Vizio before. And you can get something like a 50" 1080p LCD Vizio at Costco for the price of a 40" 720p Samsung at Best Buy.

Saying that.. I got a SAmmy

 

Well just found out that its only $6 per month to upgrade to digital channels and HD. We will probably go that route, but unlike comcast I can't just go pick up the box. I have to pay a $37 fee for them to bring it out