"Charles Schuler" wrote in message
. ..

Don't do it. what's wrong with the sony CRT set?
LCD's are awful , see:

What is awful about them? I was just at Best Buy and the pictures on most
them looked wonderful.

Most of the pictures that I see on them look bloody awful, so I'm not going
to be replacing my 36" Tosh CRT set anytime soon. However, I have seen some
*very* good pictures on some NEC pro plasma panels installed at a local bar
where I gave some assistance to the installer / supplier with some sound
distribution issues. These were big mothers - like 60" - and weighed in at a
hefty 6 grand UKP each, but it just goes to show that given the money, these
things can work. I think that part of the problem is that people trade up
from a 26" CRT set to a 40" flat panel, and then sit the same distance in
front of it. I have to admit that the further you get away from them (
assuming that your living room is big enough ) the better they look, but
that's defeating the object of upgrading the size, as you come back to,
effectively, a 26" equivalent again ...

My daughter recently bought a 32" Philips LCD, and I have to say that in
general, it looks pretty good - good enough brightness, contrast ratio and
viewing angle, that I initially mistook it for a plasma. However, that said,
you can still see motion artifacts on it, and colour shading rendition
errors, that just are not there on a CRT set with a standard off-air TV
signal going in - either analogue or digital. My mother has a Panasonic CRT
set with a built in digital tuner which is now exclusively all that is used
to receive off-air transmissions. With the exception of the low bitrate
'cheapo' channels, which suffer from all of these digital display problems
anyway, the picture on this set is still better than my daughter's LCD.

I think that the best advice that can be given to anyone thinking of
purchasing a flat panel TV, is to set aside a half day to go into the stores
that are selling them, have a really good look from the sort of viewing
distance and angle that you will be at in your home, and talk to the sales
person. Whether they are showing pictures from a DVD or not, all stores have
the capability of showing a real off-air picture, so you should ask to see a
variety of stations' pictures on any set that takes your fancy. Don't be
taken in by the nice darkened home cinema demo areas either. A lot of the
time, your TV will be watched in daylight, not a darkened room. Also, don't
let the salesman blind you with just HD pictures. Make sure that you see
some 'normal' resolution pictures as well, as these will still be the
standard for a while to come yet, and if the set is operating in a
non-native mode to display these, it may perform rather less well than it
does in its native hi res mode ( a bit like LCD PC monitors ).

As far as the extended waranty deals go, I would recommend them, but make
VERY sure that the panel itself is covered under the terms of it. Some, I
believe, exclude this very expensive (both plasma and LCD) item. Hope this
helps.

Arfa