Nice the one we saw that looked the best is your top rated 42" one. Panasonic TC-P42S1

Yep, the S1's are nice. It's the G10 panel in the X1 case.

We went with a 55" Vizio LCD BATV, mostly because of price and the fact that the room it's in has a lot of sunlight in it during the day. The plasma TV's we saw didn't look bright enough to get the job done right.

We were watching the Band of Brothers on Blu-Ray and were absolutely stunned. One feels like one is standing right there with them. Indeed, my wife says it's because they're 1:1 scale from the camera's distance in many cases.

Oddly enough, the main board on the TV went katywhompus and Vizio is coming out to replace it, as it's within 90 days of purchase. Not repairing or having us send it in. They're having someone bring around a brand new one and taking the bad one with them.

This is shocking in that customer service is not only based in the USA (South Dakota), but the guy on the end of the line didn't treat me like an idiot. He actually asked if I had done any troubleshooting and listened while I ticked off the list (moved the TV to see if it was interference, used different devices using different connection techniques, etc.) and quickly admitted the TV was bad.

One of the things that was a deciding factor was we have a dedicated TV/Video Game room that has only 1 double window, outside it is a 12 ft porch with 12 ft overhang and a big tree in the yard so very little light makes it in, plus the window has a room darkening shade we can pull down and make the room completely dark.

Since it's our dedicated viewing room we have the lights and seating placed so there is no glare or reflection on the screen. The room is setup perfectly so that a plasma will look awesome.

Sounds sweet!

When the wifey had the house built in '93 she was thinking "lots of light in every room" instead of "man cave potential."

Women. Can't live without them. But sleep lightly; they can live without you.

That's why any house that any man has any sayso whatsoever in the construction of should have a "man cave" built into the plans somewhere! I know if I ever own a house it will have that, if nothing else just for my projector and movies.

And side note - feels weird to be discussing this in a dead mans thread, not that there's anything bad about it, but still, weird...

Personally, I'm still in the "denial" stage of things.

So no, it doesn't feel weird - he's just logged off the site, that's all. Really.

I don't think it's weird. This is a great thread with lots of info being passed around. I think over the next year many here who haven't jumped to LCD or Plasma will look at this thread.

Right now HHgregg has the Panasonic on sale with a free Panasonic Blu-Ray player after mail-in rebate for a total of $800.00. Good deal.

http://www.hhgregg.com/ProductDetail.asp?SID=n&ProductID=22945&BrandStore=All#script

If we get it we will wall mount it with the viewing distance being 9ft to 10 ft.

Update----

After further research it turns out the problem with my tv is the optical drive. Due to a lawsuit Sony has to replace it for free.

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/news-item.pl?news_id=277&mdl=KDS50A2000

Called, repair came out and said yes optical drive, ordered a new one, when it gets in he will replace. Takes about 45 min. My wife know the guy from working at McDonalds, so I'm going to slip him some extra cash to clean it while hes' here. He said my TV will basically be a brand new one, minus the lamp which is about 8 months old. This is great news because I really loved the great picture on my TV.

Here is my TV.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Grand-KDS-50A...8055&sr=8-1