I am not one to spend money when not necessary, but my 15 year old 50inch projection unit is about to give up the ghost.... I want to but 60inch+, stay away from plasma.... What do ya'll have, likes /dislikes reccomendations....  etc.... and dont particuarily care about cost.....

Thanks.

I've heard in general that plasma tends to be a tad better to watch movies, whereas LCD is a bit better for gaming. One has a better contrast while the other has a better frames per second refresh rate ... well, that's what I've been told at least.

Anyway, if you're looking for good brands of LCD TV's, I can certainly recommend Sharp. They've been the market leader in Japan for many years and have about 60% of market share there. Unfortunately, they're a bit harder to find in Europe. In general, when comparing brands, I notice that Sharp's tend to have better contrast, more vibrant (and realistic) colors and offer better picture quality at various viewing angles.

Another good brand is Panasonic, but if you want to get a 60"+ screen, you'll have to go plasma with them, I'm afraid.

Brands I would avoid are Philips, because they only assemble parts made by other (mostly Korean) brands and as such, are lagging behind other brands who do most of their research and development in-house.

I'm only speaking from what I've read not from experience but it seems that newer plasma screens are better when it comes to screen burn. Unless you plan on just watching one channel that has a permanent logo on screen constantly you should be fine. If you change the channel periodically it will avoid burning in. The same applies if you're watching your DVDs. If you leave a film paused for long periods it will burn in, but leaving it for a short time will be fine.

Both plasma and LCD screens have their advantages and disadvantages, although film purists tend to lean towards plasma.

Advantages of LCD:
- brighter than plasmas (and hence more suitable for very brightly lit rooms)
- less screen reflection
- no image retention or burn-in
- lower power consumption.

Advantages of plasma:
- deeper blacks (and therefore better overall colour display) than traditional LCDs (companies like Samsung and Philips claim their LED backlit LCDs come close to plasma screens in this area)
- (much) wider viewing angle without any loss of picture quality
- no motion blur with fast movement (e.g. a moving ball during sports matches) - LCDs need special techniques (like the recent 240 Hz models) to display fast moving objects correctly
- higher contrast ratios
- according to some, plasma pictures look more "natural" (and CRT-like) than LCD pictures, which tend to look more "digital" or "artificial". But this is also a question of personal taste.

LCD is catching up with plasma in some areas, however, e.g. the LED models offered by companies like Samsung and Philips are good with regard to contrast, black levels and motion.

In the end, it largely depends on your personal preferences with regard to the type of image you prefer and on how you're going to use your TV. E.g. if you need a large viewing angle (watching the screen with many people from different angles), plasma is the way to go. If you're going to watch in a very brightly lit room, LCD would be the technology of choice.

However, as Ken pointed out, at 60"+ LCD does become a very expensive choice. Have you considered to go for DLP or rear-projection TVs?

More on these issues can be found here,
here and
here.

I personally have had a Panasonic plasma for a little over half a year now. Very happy with it, and neither screen burn-in nor lifetime are issues any longer with the better recent models. With Pioneer now having left the plasma market, Panasonic is the best plasma brand remaining (and affordable at that).

One final word of caution: what screens look like on a high street shop floor does not mean anything. The typical shop is very brightly lit and many screens (especially the ones the shop is trying to push) have been turned up to stand out from the rest. You ought to be able to watch a screen in a setting with lighting conditions similar to how you're going to watch it at home and you should be able to fiddle with the screen settings. What type of signal is fed to the screen makes a big difference as well (could be anything between Blu-ray and analogue TV - make sure you are comparing same-quality signals! Better still: take a Blu-ray or DVD you are familiar with to the shop and compare using that!).

Some forums can be of help as well, e.g. the AVS Forums,
the Home Theater Forums,
TV forums or the
CNET forums.

@ Taro:
I don't know what source you have for the story that Philips is only assembling parts from other brands, but it's untrue. E.g. Philips' 42PFL9803 LED model earned the EISA 2008/2009 award for best LCD TV.

Quoting kemper:

Quote:
After about 4 days of touch and feel at various places, reading your comments....I ended up with a Samsung LN55B640

55 inch LCD.... bought a basic blue ray player while out... Sony BDP-S350.... Got out of BestBuy with a wallet 3k lighter.....

Only problem was trying to get everything in the Jeep...

Thanks to all for the input1

That is an excellent choice - high value for moderate price.... it's excellent

No doubt you will thoroughly enjoy them.

Now the question is what kind of sound system do you have.  To truly enjoy that picture, you really need the right sound to go with it! 

Quoting dee1959jay:

Quote:
@ Taro:
I don't know what source you have for the story that Philips is only assembling parts from other brands, but it's untrue. E.g. Philips' 42PFL9803 LED model earned the EISA 2008/2009 award for best LCD TV.

Well, to be honest my intel dates back a bit, to 2006 or 2007, I don't remember. Someone working for Philips at that time (he's fired now due to slumping sales of the brand) said they hadn't invested early enough in LCD technology R&D and as a result were lagging behind other brands, such as Sharp, Sony, Samsung, etc. In order to catch up, they had to 'buy' licenses of R&D by Asian brands to catch up and some parts were directly imported for final assembly in Europe. Of course, in the mean time things may have changed.

Although, this article still doesn't inspire much confidence. All Philips LCD TV's sold in the US are infact distributed and manufactured by Funai as of this year:


I can't shake the feeling that they're not on top of their game anymore as they used to be.