Well gentleman, I may be in a position to finally upgrade the old 27" CRT to a flat panel in our great room. I read through this thread that jakewash started last year, but would like a little more input from my family here.

I'm thinking the biggest plasma I can afford, but my biggest question is whether to go 1080p or 720p. I can get a Panasonic 46" 1080p for the same money as a Panasonic 50" 720p. We will be sitting ~10 to 12 feet away.

The present sources are std def satelite and std def DVD. The first upgrade will be to Blu-Ray, with no plans to upgrade the dish anytime soon. We rarely watch sports - mostly movies, concerts, and premium stations. (Nat Geo, TLC, DIY, History, etc..)

My price ceiling is $2000 (plus taxes) at Future Shop Canada. (I have a gift card for a portion of it)

Thoughts?

Unless you're going larger than 55 or maybe even 60 inches the experts say that you will never see the benefits of 1080p. I would save the money. If it's the same Panasonic 50" as my dad picked up for his home theater a month or so ago (the 50PZ80U I believe, it ends in 80U at any rate) it's a beauty and you will never regret it. My father in law has that legendary Pio 60" Kuro and for my money I couldn't tell a difference in resolution between his and my own dad's Plasma when watching the same BRD, however that extra few grand will get you amazing blacks. The Panny is no slouch though I wholeheartedly recommend it, especially from that distance. You'd have to be 6 feet or closer to see the 1080p.

tough call, at that size and distance 720p might be better....

I bought a 50" 720p tv 2 years ago and it is great... However, when I buy a bluray player in the comming months I will want a 1080p tv to take advatage of all bluray has to offer.

I sit about11 feet away and would not want anything smaller than my 50".... now I must resist urge to buy 65" lcd 1080p tv...

It's like buying a set of M60's and wondering if I should have bought the 80's.........

Buy the 50" 720p. You won't even notice the extra pixels on the 42" set. And actually, it will make your standard def viewing that much softer on the 42".

42" from 10 feet is a little on the small side, too.

Lastly, I don't know if you're factoring this into your decision to buy, but I have found that the difference between Blu Ray and DVD on a 50" plasma from 10 feet is pretty marginal. On the audio side of things, Blu Ray rocks my world. But the screen's got to get up in the 60 inch territory before today's plasmas start making DVD look soft enough to justify the upgrade to Blu Ray on the video side.

Go BIG and don't look back. You'll regret it otherwise.

The larger the screen the more 1080p comes into play. Anything over 46" I think I would go with 1080p, anything smaller you may not notice a difference, so the experts say.
There are too many other variables that affect picture quality, most of which are more significant than a set's native resolution. Find the set that looks best to you at your normal viewing distance.
With my 60 inch set 1080p blu-ray is stunning, the same picture does not look nearly as nice as it does on my 720p 42 inch plasma, but then again part of that could be that the Pioneer has a better PQ than my Toshiba.

50+ =1080p is my rule...but then I have a 50" 1080p

At that distance, I would definitely say get the 720. There is no substitute for "bigger". Ray would tell you to try and find the 58" commercial Panny. If he wasn't too busy for our ilk, that is.

Golf is a harsh mistress.

Especially when you live on the 5th tee.

I was looking at a Mitsubishi DLP a couple days ago. It was a 72", 1080 unit with LED light. Very nice picture. If you have the room for one of these, you might want to consider it as they are quite a bit less money. I almost had them load this thing up for the family room, but figured I'd get in serious trouble makeing it home with a big TV and no washer and dryer.

Good call, Mike.

Yes, the more I live with my 61" JVC HD-ILA RPTV, the more I like it. For my installation, the form factor didn't matter, but oh baby, that extra eleven inches...

Definitely get the biggest you can afford, when the changeover to all digital is finally done you will appreciate the extra inches and can sit closer as well. I got a 60" Sony RPTV and it now seems normal, not that impressive anymore, I don't think it matters how big you buy, you will get used to it. I only sit about 8 feet away from it and it looks great, onHD sources of course. Standard def sucks, so I watch standard def on my old 32" Toshiba.

I don't know if you're dead-set on a plasma. If not....

About a month ago I made the jump into the HDTV world. I had a nice Toshiba 36" SDTV and went to a Samsung 61" LED DLP ( HL61A750). Full 1080p. It was $1,700 from Amazon, no tax & free to-my-livingroom-shipping.

I had done an incredible amount of comparison shopping in the past few years, and this set finally hit the mark for me as far as performance (HD & SD) and price. I didn't want to hang the TV on the wall so I spent hours comparing DLP vs LCD vs Plasma.

I am 100% happy with the decision on this set. It's absolutely fantastic. The LED light source should last basically forever (20k hours), and no spinning color wheel means that there is zero noise and no 'screen door' effect. I do not yet own any 1080p sources, but both 720p and 1080i HD (OTA & Dish) looks incredible. It even does a fairly good job on the few channels that I watch in SD, which is surprising.

It is true that this is my first HD set, and thus I don't have a lot of personal experience to draw from. But I know what I've seen comparing this to other models at the store, and from watching HDTV at friends' homes. It seems to be a really good set at a very good price. Just so long as it's not a requirement to be wall-mountable.

Thanks for all the input guys. I want good PQ, but I'm not videophile critical, so the 720p will probably be fine. Not dead set on the Plasma - pricing on the LED units is certainly attractive, but unfortunately Future Shop doesn't carry them. (I'm locked into buying there)

So here are the three 720p's that will fall into my budget:
Panasonic 50" (TH50PX80)
LG 50" (50PG25)
Samsung 50" (PN50A450)

For no other reason than brand recognition, I'm drawn to the Panny..... Any thoughts on the other two? I've had 2 LG burners in my computer that have been bullit proof, and I have a Samsung 19" widescreen LCD that is great as well.

I would go with the Panasonic, that set has had some really great reviews, and it can be had for several hundred less than Future shops, at least in the states.

Shawn that's a pretty good deal on the Panasonic, about a year and half or so back we paid over $1,800 for our 42" Panasonic (plasma) ... and I'll second Michael's recommendation for the Panny, we really do like ours.

hmmm, 72" dlp led... sounds great!

There is just too much cool stuff that I want to buy...

Hey Peter, I checked out Amazon about the Samsung and your right about the pricing BUT no can do to Canada C**P

Shawn, go with the Panasonic.

Another vote for the 50" Panny. They have been the highest rated sets for picture quality for a number of years. People still say 'Wow' when they see mine.

... even though you know you'll have to replace the whole thing one day when it gets too dim?

That's one reason why I went DLP -- no built-in limited lifetime.

Don't worry about your plasma dimming. By the time the plasma dims to any noticeable degree, you will have moved on to to another set, promise. The math on the half life of the plasma gas is like 15 to 20 years, they say. Plus, no bulb replacement during that time, whereas with DLP, the replacement bulbs (assuming your color wheel is still spinning) will cost more than the TV initially did.

The bottom line is that most of us will never watch our plasma until it dies because the gas runs out just like most of us will not have to buy another DLP bulb. Chances are, technology will be at a place where those replacement parts aren't worth the expenditure in the face of newer, better, bigger, crisper, more stable and longer lasting technology at a cheaper price.

My 61" Samsung DLP cost $1899. I just bought a replacement bulb for $170 (don't need it yet, but just keeping in ready since the current bulb has about 4500 hours on it). A plasma screen of the same size would have been double what I paid for the DLP, and to me anyway, the picture quality was identical.

I do agree that plasma has much more of a wow factor, and is the best choice for space limitations.

At $200 every five years (guesstimate), I'll be dead before that reaches the break-even point. The 2-3x price premium for a plasma set factors in too, as well as the extra power and heat.

Yes, they look really bright and I guess sizes for people who sit 3' from them are affordable.

Thanks for the advise, guys - picked up the 50" Panny for $1699.00 + tax, along with a Pioneer DV410 upconverting DVD player.

I'm very happy with video output on the Pioneer, but there is a problem. When connecting to the TV via HDMI, the player seems to downmix the SPDIF output to 2 channel only. No matter what settings I use, the receiver will only decode Dolby ProL2. I even tried the optical out from the TV instead of the coax off the player. Same issue. Is this common?

I have to use SPDIF as my Yamaha receiver doesn't have HDMI.

Future Shop has a Panasonic UC DVD player for about the same money that I could try as well. I went with the Pioneer because it had full controls on the front, and supposedly better picture. (According to the salesman)

Any thoughts?

time for a new receiver!

Ah, I'd love to, but it would never get past the warden......

Shawn got a new TV!

Current temperature in hell is apparently 0C.

LOL! It's all about compromises. I wanted an asphalt driveway, and she wanted interlocking pavers. Lets just say we BOTH won on this deal...

Now, to find similar leverage to get me my gear. Maybe a custom Hello Kitty high-gloss finish?

As for DVD players -- I'm happy with my Oppo 971. I've got some A/V sync issues but those may well be due to my TV.

Everyone seems to rave about Oppo's, but they're very difficult to get in my area - no one seems to carry them.

Nobody carries Axioms either! I got mine direct. Dunno if they're available anywhere retail.

I just ordered direct from Oppo.

Although I'm not sure that - today - it is a better investment than a BluRay player. I must say, though, that the upconverted DVD picture is just fantastic, and noticeably better than the OLD Pioneer and cheaper Toshiba that I used to have.

Yep, I like the what their newer players (I have the first gen one) have to offer, but at this point I'll stick with what I have until they get their BD unit on the market.

Ah....... there you go. Light bulb on.

Ordered an OPPO DV983H last week and it should arrive next week. Will also probably get a PS3 later if I want to go Blu-Ray. We see if this player does make a difference on my DVD collection.
Mel N.