As I'm happy when it comes on with a minimum of button pushing, I'll consult the Oracle of Tim and see if he has any suggestions. The LCD over Plasma is, from what I understand, still better in terms of both cost and burn in issues. But maybe I just share your fear with or without reason. Anyway, I'll come back and share my trivial opinions. Because I have a wealth of them.

Hey, if you give enough trivial opinions, they start to at least give the appearance of something substantial. And that's more than I have at this point.

I look forward to the OOT pronouncements. I assume that sheep entrails are plentiful this time of year...

i suggest a 19" GE curved screen. i just so happen to have one if you want. i'll sell it to you for $5.

I couldn't possibly go higher than $3. And that's only if the curve is concave. I've had it with convex.

Much to my surprise, after watching a side-by-side comparison at Fry's down in Austin of HDTVs with and without the DLP mirrors, there really was a difference in the ability to capture fast motion and/or quick camera pans without blur. You could see the sharpness on the football games was a lot better on the sets using the mirror technology.

As much as I'm sick of those Texas Instrument "It's the mirrors" commercials, if you're going to buy a TV and plan to keep it for a decade or so, it really is worth spending the extra money to get a DLP television. And the salesman also showed that a screen with a non-glare wide screen also is better than one with more light reflection, especially if you watch TV with a lot of background lighting.

Of course, he was extolling the virtues of a Sony 42-inch HDTV at the time, and the brand name surcharge, plus Sony's legendary crappy customer service -- which I've experienced twice first-hand -- makes me wary of turning over a few thousand dollars worth of cash to them. But hopefully by next year when the deadline arrives, some other companies with better service and lower prices will be offering the same type of interior and exterior options.

We always consult our resident electronics buff, Al, when purchasing tvs, etc.

I always consult C|Net for these kinds of big-ticket electronics purchases. We bought a 42" Panasonic plasma last ('06) Summer and it has been an excellent choice.

I recommend a model that has at least 2 HDMI ports and even better if you can get a model that also includes an additional front-mounted HDMI.

We've shopped but not yet purchased anything; we have settled on the 40" Samsung or 42" LG LCD model (as I understand it, the plasma shows better only if there is no ambient light in the room, but we don't have that luxury, so the LCD is our choice for that reason). My dad recently bought the 40" Samsung LCD after much of his own research and loves it.

"It's the mirrors"

It took me a while to figure out what a "meer" was.

The fatal "flaw" of DLPs for us is that they're not wall-mountable (at least not in any reasonable sense of the word).

Jen, I'm afraid my chips-and-salsa budget doesn't match up well with Al's caviar tastes. ;-)

Rob, that's a good thought about the ports. Picture quality is, well, just part of the overall picture. I definitely want to get a model that has good ease-of-use and flexibility to handle a variety of inputs.

Gwynne, I'm also reading good things about Samsungs. I followed Rob's advice above and popped over to cNet where they rated an LED-powered 46" 1080p Samsung at the top of the pack (tied with a Panasonic overall). Even a conventional backlit Samsung was in the top four or five.

What a lot of great advice! I'll offer just this... You can't buy too big in HDTV. And, if you plan to wall mount, check all possible viewing angles carefully on the model you choose.

Les, I hope we can mitigate some of the viewing angle issues by using a wall mount that has pan, tilt and swivel. I realize that this won't completely make up for a model with a really limited viewing angle, but it will at least provide more flexibility for one or two people to sit in different places from time to time.

Hi, Eric,
Have you read Consumers Report for the pros and cons of all the options? Makes my head spin. I don't know if you feel they are reliable, but I figure if I read their coverage from time to time, when I'm forced to make a decision hopefully it won't seem like a completely foreign language. I'm glad you're going through this now so I can call on your expertise when it's my time. Thanks in advance, Margaret

I have an RCA brand 42". I love it. I should point out that if you get one this big, make sure that you have a good size vehicle to carry it and at least one strong friend.... I learnt this the hard way!

samsung 40" lcd on special now at your favorite local circuit city - weight is important hanging on a wall and lcd's will not burn in

I heard Leo LaPorte yesterday on his radio show (from November) say if you're going to get a 40" go with a plasma and the brands he liked were Pioneer and Panasonic.

At least I think that's what he said. :)

Margaret, we don't have a subscription to CR, but everything about new TVs makes my head spin! We'll probably end up making our decision based on what goes best with the paint on the mantel. ;-)

Rachel, the vehicle is not a problem, but locating a "strong friend" when it comes time to do the hard work might be a challenge.

Bill, we did anticipate this when we designed the area over the fireplace. It's got special reinforcing studs that will accommodate a TV of any realistic size and weight. (Now, as implied above, getting it up there is a whole other issue.)

Denise, plasma is starting to look like more of a contender in this race than I figured when it started. Still, we have lots of ambient light in the living room, and it sounds like that has to be factored into the plasma-vs-LCD decision.

Honestly,
Go to the local Best Buy or what have you, look at all of the ones on the wall and buy the best looking one in your price range. It will surely be outdated, cheaper and discontinued by the time you get it home.

Vizio makes a great tv and you can get them at a reasonable price at Sams. I installed one from my brother on the wall with all the boxes hidden in an Ikea cabinet. Their 50" Plasma features a 15,000:1 contrast ratio and has the DCDi Faroudja chip for deinterlacing (real important for SD channels to look nice). And before you spring for the ridiculously priced HDMI cables at Best Buy, order them from www.monoprice.com , they have cables for inwall installation and are much cheaper. I even use their remote 5x1 HDMI switch which was only 50 bucks and my Logitech 1000 has no problems controlling it.

Thus saith the Oracle of Tim (a little late to the game, sorry!):

"I would check out http://www.hdtvsolutions.com/ that has a lot of TV reviews along with some useful information in the forums.

Plasma has gotten a lot better as far as burn in - having said that, personally I would pick LCD over DLP and Plasma for the overall price to picture quality value - especially in the 40-40" screen size.

If you get to *see* the TV in action prior to purchasing it, then you can more or less forget about refresh rate, contrast, response time, etc if you are happy with what you see.

Refresh rate on a TV is the same as refresh rate on your computer screen - it's just how fast the monitor can re-draw the entire screen. I don't know of any TVs that have a problem in this area any more.
Overall, contrast defines how well your TV can represent varying shades of colors along with it's ability to give you a good picture in ambient light. Higher numbers are better. If you ask 10 people what the best number is, you'll get 20 different answers. My suggestion is to make 1300 your minimum and don't worry much about it when you start hitting the 3000 range. (See, I'm one person giving two answers....)

Response time is basically how quickly a pixel can flip on/off. It matters more for action movies. Higher response times cause the screen to "ghost" or "streak" when there's a lot of action while lower response times keep motion "crisp". Response time is another point of contention because different manufacturers measure it different ways. My general opinion is don't go above 8ms.

Finally, consider the viewing angle and brightness. Cheaper TVs can look great - but only when viewed straight on. If you're off center, some of them can get really dark / fuzzy.

I'm always happy to throw out an opinion or two, but take them with a grain of salt as I have a projector, not a TV. :)"

This endeth the sayings of the Oracle of Tim.

Be sure to thank OOT for the wise words. Everything he said makes sense, and will be factored into our decision. Although I'm starting to think that a nice monaural AM radio would look elegant on top of the mantel. ;-)