First off, I'm new so hello to everybody? Looking forward to being apart of this board, I hear it's awesome...

Anyways, enough of the BS. I'm trying to figure out which kind of HD television I should get. I have been doing a lot of research and there is just to much sh1t out there and I'm kind of illiterate with this stuff. I have about 2,500 that I'm willing to spend on it and as of now I'm thinking about getting a new Sony Wega 50 inch rear projector. Not the big one that comes as it's own stand, but the one that is smaller and sits on a tv stand. Any body have any experience with this tv? Is it a good one for my budget? Any others you would recommend?

Any help is appreciated because I need to get one asap.

Re: HD Televisions???

There are lot of HDTVs out there, But you might want to hold off buying one for a while, The problem right now, Many of the current HDTVs don't support HDCP, Which is whats gonna be used for HDDVD and Blu-Ray in order to watch HD content in 1080p in the future. And a major problem for those who spend loads of money on the latest video cards are gonna be SOL since they too don't have full support for HDCP, You can read about it [URL="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060214-6177.html"]here[/URL].

Re: HD Televisions???

Thanks for the advice, but I'm itching to get one of these...hah I can't stand going to friends houses to watch red sox games or having to go to bars to watch all of the football games... I need one in my living room...

Re: HD Televisions???

HD projection's are so reasonably priced at the moment, chances are if you buy one now, by the time everything upgrades and what not, you'll be able to upgrade no problem. those upgrades never happen on time. when i worked at best buy years ago, the company swore to use that EVERYTHING would be hd by 2006. uhh....yea right. don't believe best buy ever.

Re: HD Televisions???

[quote=3d_1200]HD projection's are so reasonably priced at the moment, chances are if you buy one now, by the time everything upgrades and what not, you'll be able to upgrade no problem. those upgrades never happen on time. when i worked at best buy years ago, the company swore to use that EVERYTHING would be hd by 2006. uhh....yea right. don't believe best buy ever.[/quote] That day will come, Cause on Feb 2009, All local analogue TV stations will have to switch to Digital Broadcasting format, Therefore, People who don't have cable nor satellite will have to buy a set top box to receive there local channels in digital since analogue broadcast will become obsolete.

Re: HD Televisions???

i bought a 50 inch toshiba dlp a few months back. hooked up the directv with hd and it's phenomenal. i bought it at costco with a tv stand for $1800. i'd highly recommend it. you can't go back after watching hd. it's painful watching regular tv.

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Rear projection DLP's are doing pretty good, though you will need a room perfectly sized to be able to get the best visual experience.....

Re: HD Televisions???

Don't wait -- go buy an HDTV asap. Nearly all the prime TV programs are broadcast in HD and local cable providers and satellite broadcasters have lots of channels to watch HD.

Don't worry about that 1080p issue. No one's even using 1080p yet. Most new HDTVs all have an HDMI or two inputs which should work fine for the future. And I doubt most people will be buying HD DVD players until the whole format war is finished. Just get an upconverting DVD player and you'll be fine.

Sharp, Samsung, and Panasonic have traditionally had the best LCDs. Sony has released some decent one's recently too.

Re: HD Televisions???

Samsung LE32R51BD Absolute quality :D ...

Re: HD Televisions???

Thanks for all the advice. I pulled the trigger last night on the Sony 42 inch wega. It gets delivered tomorrow, so fired up.

Do the DVD HD players make that much of a difference? Does the movie itself need to be in a certain format in order to watch it?

Re: HD Televisions???

[quote=diggler20]Thanks for all the advice. I pulled the trigger last night on the Sony 42 inch wega. It gets delivered tomorrow, so fired up.

Do the DVD HD players make that much of a difference? Does the movie itself need to be in a certain format in order to watch it?[/quote]

You'll need one of those upconverting DVD players. I've got the Sony one that's about $300 and it works great. The DVD player will format the screen size to 16:9 for you, so there's really nothing you'll need to do. I'd recommend getting an HDMI cable instead of using component cables though. Some movies look better than others. Sin City which was shot in HD looks great upconverted to an HDTV.

Re: HD Televisions???

[QUOTE=TigerClaw]That day will come, Cause on Feb 2009, All local analogue TV stations will have to switch to Digital Broadcasting format, Therefore, People who don't have cable nor satellite will have to buy a set top box to receive there local channels in digital since analogue broadcast will become obsolete.[/QUOTE]

This deadline has come and gone at least twice already. I'm not holding my breath.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of the DLP's out there in terms of bang for your buck. The major downside is that you can't hang it on your wall and they are a bit bulky, but they are still slimmer than a traditional rear projection tv and have great contrast ratios. Whatever you end up doing, make sure it has a contrast ratio of 200:1 or better.

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Thanks for the advice superdave, i'm still holding out a little longer though for the DVD HD players... Baby steps for me I guess...hah

Re: HD Televisions???

I use pricegrabber and it gives nice prices. One tv I like is [URL="http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Sony_WEGA_KDF_E60A20_60_LCD_Projection_TV,__9771910/search=sony+60%2522"]http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Sony_WEGA_KDF_E60A20_60_LCD_Projection_TV,__9771910/search=sony+60%2522[/URL]