So I'm shopping for a 32" LCD 1080p res, decent brand. Best I can find so far is $400 on an Insignia. Anyone see anything better?

 

I would avoid Insignia, Westinghouse, Vizio, etc.
Stick with Samsung, LG, Sharp, Panasonic, Toshiba

 

and Sony...

 

we just bought a 55" LG LCD here; $1450.

 

I'm getting skullfucked at work so i can't get my e-hustle on.

 

Yeah, I'd stay with that set of brands, I've got a Samsung Plasma, love it. But you can't go wrong with any of those brands mentioned, Samsung, Toshiba, LG, Panasonic, Sony, and don't forget Pioneer, although you won't find any deals on those.

The problems with the off brands is they just don't hold up, not to mention the quality of the picture. Just hold out and wait until somebody has a great sale, maybe on a model that's being upgraded. That's what I did, Samsung was upgrading their 55" Plasma, so Best Buy had a great sale, $1349.99!

And I'd go LCD, I love the Plasma's picture, but you have to let it run so many hours until you can bring your settings up to where you want them, plus with some of them you get the burn in problem, it usually wipes itself clean, but a friend of mine that watches CN all the time now has a ghost image of CNN over everything he watches.

 

Normally I would agree but Insignia is supposedly a good "brand" and it has a 2-year warranty.

 

My gf has an Insignia, its ****. I'm getting her the same Panasonic plasma I have for Christmas. I paid around $800 for mine, now they are down around $500 and change on amazon.

 

BB had a samsung 55" plasma with a free blue ray for something like $1600.

 

I have quite a few friends with Westinghouse and Vizio LCDs who have had no issues whatsoever over the course of a few years, I might have gotten one except I got one hell of a deal on a Toshiba. (We also sat a Vizio unit next to my Toshiba to play Modern Warfare 2 on two screens, you could not see a difference in quality and both were hooked up via HDMI cables.) Of course saying they've had no problems is not personal experience and carries little weight, but I know they use them a lot while gaming on 360s and PS3s. But it seems name brands are meaning less as a lot of the companies source their parts from the cheapest supplier.

As far as Insignia goes, when I worked at Best Buy, they used to try to get salespeople to sell them by saying parts were made by LG and Sharp for Best Buy. That's true, the outer case was sourced from LG and I forget what Sharp sold. In any case, the guts of the TV were unknown. They're a hit and miss model, usually on the miss side.

 

I'm glad I read this thread...we were about to pull the trigger on the same Insignia after racking our brains all weekend over the supposed "deals" on solid brand name LCDs.

 

I'm probably going to pick up a 50" plasma 720p for the house once I buy it. From my experience 720P is more than great from viewing distances of 6'+. The large majority of inputs are no better than 720P anyway. All HD TV is filmed at 720P and upconverted, most movies and blurays except the most most recent are filmed below 1080P and unconverted. And from >6' its hard for the eye to distinguish between 720 and 1080P anyway.

Plus you can get a nice 50" 720P plasma for like 500-600 on sale. Well below half the cost of a 1080p equivalent.

 

Yeah I have been thinking about getting a 720p and saving a lot of money. It is a gift for someone, and honestly they will probably not see the difference.

 

My sister has a 50" iirc Vizio plasma. They've had it for well over a year without any problems. I LOVE my 58" Samsung Plasma though.
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You also love huge shlong, but you don't seem to be gloating about that...

 

It's not that the low end tv's necessarily fail more often than better sets, it's that they look like ****.
Realistically, there are very few manfucacturers of the display panels. It's the supporting electronics, and attention to their design and placement, that makes the difference.

I'd rather have a higher end 720p than a low end 1080p, especially in the 32" range.

People who claim not to see a difference between 720 and 1080 sets 42" and greater are playing with themselves. It's not just increased resolution that the 1080 sets offer. The newest gen plamsa panels kick the crap out of older stuff. You can get a Panny 50" 1080p plasma for ~$1000.

 

I'm not just playing with myself. When I look at brand new tvs at my local best buy (all the displays are calibrated here) I can tell no significant difference worth $500 between a nice panasonic 720P plasma and a nice 1080P LCD or Plasma at a distance over 6'. Now sure I can see a difference. But its not worth twice the cost.

I know you used to do home theater as a job, but I'm not new to this stuff either. For people looking at just getting a really nice TV on a budget, the new 720P plasmas are off the chain for the size and price.

 

Panasonic sets sure do stand out. I'd take a good 720p Panny over a lot of 1080p sets. My corrected eye sight is not as sharp as most peoples', but I typically see pretty big differences between sets. Going higher end usually yields in better contrast, better black levels, and more accurate color reproduction (gamma curve). You also get better supporting electronics which minimize errors.

I used to design automated environments, home theater was a part of that. Injury ended my career, and now that I'm better, the economy doesn't really support it anymore. I am still licensed (state of GA low voltage, unrestricted) so I still do some theater installations, but it's become an occasional thing. Mostly boring stuff like hanging panels over fireplaces. I also sometimes pull permits for companies who are not licensed when they are working in a jurisdiction that requires permits (you have to have a low voltage license to get a low voltage permit--and most of the "professional installers" are not licensed).

I'm ISF-C certified. Suprised that BB would calibrate sets. They damn sure don't do it here. Their sets look like ***.

 

Because the demo's are 720p >.<

 

Its just something they have done here because the manager decided to do it. I used to work there for like 4yrs so I know most of the people. IF they say it was done then I believe them. It makes sense for them to though. The Geek Squad (love it hate it, don't care) offers calibrating as part of their installation services. So if they show it off in store people will see why it needs to be done to get the most out of your expensive tv.

As stated previously, the majority of stuff you will be displaying on your TV will be 720P or upconverted from a 720P source....