I know everything ultimately comes down to personal preference, but setting that aside for a minute, I was hoping to get some advice and opinions from all you folks that have a lot more experience in this than I do. I am currently helping my father pick out his first HDTV and I would like to give his old, conservative butt a well informed opinion. So here is my (his) situation:
Budget: $2500
Viewing Distances: Main seat, 13 ft.; Secondary viewing seat, 8-12ft.; Kitchen, 22ft.
Total Viewing Angle: 100 degrees
When I first started looking for tvs we had assumed a max viewing distance of 10ft and a budget of ~$2000. With those two things in mind I was looking in the 50" plasma range (We were originally ruling out LCDs because there will be no glare problem). I was nudging him toward 1080p, but as you can see one of the two tvs I settled on is 720p. The two tvs I had narrowed it down to were:
Panasonic TH-50PZ77U
$1850 from Amazon
Pioneer Kuro PDP-5080HD
~$2,000 from various online vendors (and possibly BB
Great deal on PDP-Pioneer 5080HD)
Like I said, I chose those two tvs (besides the obvious, that they are both amazing sets) because of their size and general price range.
Today, I learned that the viewing distance is actually around 13'. Understanding that the farther from the tv he sits, he will want to go bigger, he raised his budget to ~$2500. Here are my questions:
1) According to the Crutchfield (
http://www.crutchfieldadvisor.com/IS...placement.html) chart he should purchase a tv at least 56". I believe I have also read that tv size relative to viewing distance is not as important as people make it out to be. Since the distance is 13', would it be advisable to move up to the 55"+ range?
2) Assuming we go with either the Panny or Pio, are there any nuances of these two tvs that might not be learned from reviews (e.g., cnet)? I have a hard time imagining that there is very much wrong with either of these sets.
3) If we did move up in screen size, do LCDs come back into the mix of choices? If I'm correct, there are more available sizes of LCDs than of plasmas...?
4) My father plans on keeping the tv for at least 10 years. Is there any reason to assume that the Kuro 5080 could not handle future improvements in technology since it seems that 1080p is becoming the industry standard?
Thank you for any info, help or criticism.
Chris