Well, in my usual fashion, I've succeeded in belaboring the decision long enough that Mrs. Tuttle has been reduced to "buy whatever makes you happy and makes you shut the hell up".
Budget has been reduced. I'm now looking at ~$1500 rather than ~$2k. Likewise, my expectation about screen size has been tempered - a 50" plasma or a 55-57" RPTV.
I've read and looked a lot.
Mrs. Tuttle likes the picture - and especially the viewing angle - of the Sony 55A2020 ($1,599 at Costco). I must admit, it looks good to me, too - much better than the Samsung and Mitsubishi models.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with either the Sony or the JVC. There's really no point in me spending extra for a plasma in the current room, and a future upgrade to front projection is probably only a matter of time (and sheetrock...). My wife seems to seriously not care about the form factor, since even a 16:9 LCoS TV will be noticeably smaller than our current set.
I have questions!
1. Viewing angle. This is one of the terribly seductive parts of the Sony, although I've been unable to really critically examine the JVC in this regard.
How do you JVC owners feel about the off-axis video fidelity?2. Inputs. To recap, I have to do any non-component video switching in the TV (at least for a while). I'll have the following inputs:
- Oppo 980 (HDMI)
- DirecTV (HDMI or Component - I still have the SD model at this time, which might be only S-Video)
- Wii (Component)
- HTPC (for browsing, games, music management, etc. Currently using a 15" LCD for control/text. It is a bummer.). I'm not sure if my video card outputs DVI, but I definitely have VGA and component. Problem is, I understand that I really need to use one of the two HDMI ports for the PC in order to get 1080 resolution.
Since I'll need to do video switching in the box, I have a couple questions.
Are the inputs on the JVC discrete or do you have to cycle through them? I'll be wanting to build macros in the MX-700 to get "absolutely" to a particular input.
My plan would be to use the component video from the DirecTV box (since it could only be 720p or 1080i, right?) and reserve the other HDMI input for the PC.
Does that seem right?Thanks for your counsel.
- Tom
