Hi follks. I'm new to this board so excuse my clumsiness.Anyone have any suggestions regarding an upgrade of my home video system.

 

The first questions that you want to ask are how much do you want to spend, what is the environment that you are looking to place your TV in, do you have satellite or cable and how big do you want the set to be?

 

Look at avs form. That is what I did. It should have all the information you need (and then some).

 

You might want to post this same question in the Electronics Forum. I'm sure some of the wizards over there can point you in the right direction.

 

Sorry for the short response last night.

The technologies that are current available are varied.
First off you want to decide on whether you want HD vs. ED. HD is high def which will give you the highest resolution available, whereas ED will give you only the resolution of DVD (480p) which is significantly lower than standard 1080i HD.

I have HD which I have had for ~3 years and am quite pleased with it.
The main technologies of the sets are FP (front projectors), RP (rear projectors), flat panel (plasm and panel LCD) and direct view (standard pic tube).

Front projectors work like a movie projector, you put them in a room with a screen. These work well in a theater environment, but need to be used in low light. The major types are CRT projectors, DLP projectors and LCD projectors. Again this is the most expense solution and they tend to be impractical for normal environments.

Rear projects are the "typical" old style "big screen". The use three CRTs (like TV pix tubes, red, blue and green) and project an image onto a screen that is in the set. They tend also to like darkened environments.

There are a few new technologies for rear projectors that tend to be a little brighter than the CRT types. DLP, LCD and LCoS, these all use a "light bulb" to project the image on the sceen. They tend to be smaller in size than the CRT RPs but they tend to cost more as well.

Flat panels are all the rage. They tend to be expense, though prices are considerably lower than just a few years ago. The two major technologies are plasm displays and LCD panels. Both are bright enough to be used in almost any environment. The LCDs are not available in the larger sizes of the plasms, but I prefer the picture of the LCDs.

Ther are plenty of direct view HD sets now available. They tend to be lower in price than the other technologies, but they far a bit short in picture quality. If you do go for a direct view I would strongly advise you to be sure you get a letterbox of 16x9 set, if you are looking for trye HD, as all HD broadcasts are letterboxed.

Pricing varies, for the HD FP units the prices range from ~$3K for projector and scaler to $80-100K for the very best avaiable.

For HD RPs the prices are ~$1800 to $3-4K.

For flat panels ~$1K for small LCDs to ~$5-6K for a good plasma.

For dirct view you'll be in the ~$1-2K range.

I hope this helps.

 

Just bought a Panasonic 42" HD Plasma. Awesome! Check www.avsforums.com they are by far the most knowledgeable on the subject. I got my plasma from VisualApex in WA state. The ED runs about $2500, the HD about $1000 more. The wall mount was about $150 and shipping another $200.

This display is stunning and I haven't even calibrated it yet! @ ~$3800 the Pana TH42PHD6UY or ~$2500 for the TH42PWD6UY are the way to go. Don't forget the i in the 1080i means interlaced (540 lines) and the p in 720p means progressive scan (720 lines).

I couldn't be happier with this display.