Help Purchasing New TV

Robert, Go to <www.epinions.com> to get the ratings from consumers on all electronic products. It's a good starting place.

We have a Panasonic 32" flat panel HDTV in our family room which weighs a ton, and a Panasonic 34" LCD TV in our bedroom. I have a Panasonic 14" regular tv in my computer room next to my computer desk. Did I mention Panasonic?

Sony is pretty much considered the best TV brand, at least mainstream companies. They're also the most expensive. Great picture, and reliable.

Whatever you do, don't go buy one like I did. I'm a sucker for Best Buy, and for me, that place is like a candy store to a fat kid.

I TRIED to go in saying "I'm spending X amount," but I ended up doubling that. They line up all the TV's up, so they progressively get better pictures/designs. Worked on me.

Either way, a television show will look good on a widescreen. You're also probably talking about a flatscreen, which is a sharp picture...and get HDTV!!!!

For a general idea. I have a 34" 16:9 (Widescreen) TV and when watching a 4:3 image it would be comparable to a 29" "standard" TV. Widescreen images are, of course, 34". My living room is 10'x16' and I wouldn't go much larger for the room. Personally, unless you have a huge room I wouldn't consider anything larger than 42".

There are a few ways for a standard 4:3 image to be displayed on a widescreen TV. You can opt to just watch it is standard format and you'll get black bars on the left and right sides. Most sets will also allow you to stretch the 4:3 image to 16:9. Some will just stretch the image horizontally and you'll get a lot of image distortion. Others will enlarge the entire image and the top and bottom will get cut off.

If you pull HD channels off the air or from your cable or Sat. provider the image will either be in 16:9 format or they'll insert gray bars on both sides of a 4:3 image and transmit the entire package as a 16:9 image. Either way the picture will be a major improvement over your current NTSC image.

B&O.
'nuff said.

fishin brings up an important point in considering the size of your tv. You need to measure the distance between where you will be sitting from the tv, then consider the size recommended for that distance.

Another point I'd like to share. We have a 34" LCD in the bedroom. When I stand close to the tv, the picture is somewhat blurry, but when in bed, the pictures is as sharp and clear as any HDTV.

SONY
dont go cheap.....buy sony....its the best