Well, I took the plunge and got the TV.  Other than the size (a bit too big for my space), I'm liking it quite a bit.  At first, I was having a problem getting PS2 and Wii games to look halfway decent, but then I knocked the Sharpness down to -6 and that smoothed things out pretty well (it makes the Wii menus a touch blurry, but polygonal games look much nicer than without it).  With my modified version of the Game A/V mode in place on most of the inputs, I'm not noticing any difference in performance between the Component inputs on the side and the ones on the back.

480i stuff still looks like ass, especially analog TV, but Metroid II actually looked OK on the SGB, if somewhat pixelated.  Super Mario Kart looked awful, though.  I haven't tried the PS1, XB, or DC yet, but I did put the TV through its paces with 60fps Widescreen 480p F-Zero GX (on the Wii, I haven't had time to ebay NGC Component cables yet).  I was really afraid the LCD wouldn't be able to keep up, but it did very well.  The game looks absolutely fantastic on this set.  There were only a few times where I thought I caught a glimpse of noticeable blur.  Ironically, I did notice some blur in the static backgrounds of the much slower Super Paper Mario.  Makes no sense to me why the slow game shows blur and the fast game looks amazing, but whatever.

I don't own any HD-capable game systems, so I can't speak for HD gaming, but I found some HDTV stations hiding on my cable line, and they look pretty darn nice, though I could see a lot of artifacting on last night's Sunday Night Football broadcast.  I'm wondering if this is related to it being live since ABC HD had none of this though it seemed to be too red for its own good.  I'm still tweaking the color, contrast, and tint stuff to try to find a happy medium that works well for the core digital channels so I don't have to constantly tweak everytime I change channels.

Thought I'd resurrect this topic, to see where everyone stands with their TVs today.  Same questions as the first post:

1) What sort of television do you own today?

2) Those who bought their HDTVs from the last discussion, how are they holding up for you?

3) Those who haven't made the jump to HDTV yet, do you plan on doing so eventually?

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I've still got my Sharp Aquos LC-37D40U, and it's been treating me well enough.  However, since my younger sister is finally getting a place of her own, I may plan on giving it to her as sort of a housewarming gift.  That of course is going to put me back in the market for a new set.

Though I've never had any major complaints about the LC-37D04U in terms of gaming before, I guess my eyes and senses have become a bit more trained on detecting lag to note it as being a minor problem; especially after having had some experience with HD-gaming.  I'm thinking of dropping for a GP1U model myself, so I'd be particularly curious to hear an answer to question two from both Crash and XLord.

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I have a Sony Bravia 40" KDLXBR2.  It's just about 1.5 yrs old from when I bought it and it's still going great.  I find it's great for gaming, I don't notice much lag in it at all.  I'm currently waiting for the new crop of Sony TV's to come out that were shown at the CES back in Jan.  I'll probably pick up a 52" (provided I can find someone to take this 40" off my hands too though).

1) Sony 27" WEGA flatscreen SD CRT. Best TV I've ever had.

2) I sold my HDTV on Craigslist several months ago because I had no use for it anymore. My friend has my 360, and I'm not too picky about how my Wii games look, and MY SUPER NINTENDO LAGGED ON IT, so I just sold it and went back to what I had. Best move I've made in a while.

3) Nope. All set. Give me 16 bits and 4:3 and I'll be fine.

I did not own an HD tv when you first posted this topic, but I have since taken the plunge!

I bought a JVC 42" LCD (LT-42X788) at Thanksgiving 2007, and it's been great. I'm using HDMI from the PS3 and the cable box.

The only really negative thing I have discovered about this tv in particular is that the optical sound port on the tv is basically useless. When using HDMI, you cannot control the audio through the optical port (like you can with the PS3). That means the only way you can use the optical out is to use the component video in, right? Well if that's the case, that also means you're required to use regular red/white audio in from the cable box. If you then go optical audio out, it makes no sense - you're downgrading your audio.

Anyway, the way I worked around it is I bought a Logitech Z-5500 - a poor man's surround sound theater system. It's actually very nice and works great in my living room. I've got the optical audio from the cable box and the PS3 routed to an optical audio switch, which then goes to the amp. Best I could do without buying an expensive receiver to deal with all the inputs. I'm pretty happy with the setup now, especially since I control it all with my Logitech Harmony One universal remote.

I still have the 30" widescreen Toshiba CRT.

The new line of Panasonic sets, called 'Viera' looks very appealing. The high end of the Viera line has a 30,000:1 contrast ratio, which is better than any other set currently out. The dynamic ratio is 1,000,000:1 and, of course, that's what stores advertise.

I have an Olevia 32" HDTV. No lag that I've noticed and 360 games in particular look terrific on it. Wii games somewhat less so (but that's not the fault of the television). I don't have a PS3 so I haven't jumped to Blu-Ray yet but I find that DVDs look just fine.

Must have a lot of nostalgia value to that.

Back in 2005, I bought a Sony KDF-E42A10, which was a 720p 42-inch LCD rear-projection television.  I liked it well enough, and all of my video sources looked good on it.  But after a while, I started noticing the 'screen door' effect that plagues a lot of LCD televisions.  It wasn't so bad when I was watching film content (I had only a 1080i upconverting DVD player then).  But it was very noticeable with content that used lots of brightly-colored and high-contrast images (animation and some video games).  Really, it was a good television, even if it wasn't 1080p.  I just became less tolerant of that screen door mask each time I saw it.

Fast forward to 2008; I upgraded.  I now have a Sony KDS-55A3000 SXRD rear-projection television (1080p with 24fps conversion and several other bells and whistles), and I love it.  It's an SXRD (which is, in my view, a step above DLP), and the picture quality is stunning.  HD anything looks great on it, and I haven't even properly calibrated it yet.  I won't upgrade anytime soon.

I'm happy with the GP1U so far.  I've had it for about eight months now, and I have yet to notice any lag, but I do notice motion blur on side-scrolling games and live football.  I haven't really played any rhythm games on it, and those seem to be the true test for lag.  The GP1U has a 6ms response time, but Sharp (Samsung too, I think) has some bigger LCD sets that have 4ms if you want a faster refresh rate.  If you do get it, make sure you change all the inputs to "GAME" mode to drop some of the processing overhead.  From a settings perspective, I'd also recommend seriously turning down the color saturation, bumping up the backlight, and possibly decreasing the default contrast (more so for cables that are not component or HDMI) to make games look right.

Yeah, my TV is still keeping me happy.  I'd still recommend the TV for any gamer.

Ohhh, pretty... and expensive!

http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/ysho … f-oled-tv/

Thanks for the replies, XLord and Crash.  I'll likely go for the 37" GP3U, although I really like how the red cabinet version looks - but it seems to only be available on the 32" model.

$2500 for 11"?  Damn, that comes to roughly..... $227 per inch.   Even for me.... that does not compute.

Okay, I'm pretty close to taking the plunge on my first flat screen TV.  I've pretty much settled on a Panasonic Viera for its handling of lag (or lack thereof) and SD stuff.  I'm considering going to Costco this weekend with a friend to pick up this:

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.as … lang=en-US

It appears to be a special version of the PZ80U but with a PC input (which I'd probably use for my Dreamcast).  Anyone have any experience with these?

I finally bought a flat panel TV. I got a 50" Panasonic Viera (plasma) for $1300 shipped. It's not 1080p, only 720p. I won't be watching anything in higher resolution than 480p anyway, since I'm still into those Korean movies. I have roughly 160 more to watch before I'm caught up with what I actually own. What's really striking about this set is that DVDs haven't lost any picture quality when compared to my older 30" set. In fact, they look better. I was worried that a 50" set would make DVDs look worse. I can't imagine how good blu-ray would look in 720p. But that won't be happening for a while. I'll go blu when Laser TVs drop in price and blu-rays have been relegated to the bargain bin. I have heard rumors that blu-ray will be obsolete in a few years, so I think a cultivation of patience will serve me well.