What brand has the best picture quality(projection TV)

[kegman]

I am looking to purchase a need HDTV around 50'' any suggestions on who has the best picture.

Also best sound for home theater systems(brand)

[Brian Shannon]

Originally posted by kegman
I am looking to purchase a need HDTV around 50'' any suggestions on who has the best picture.

Also best sound for home theater systems(brand)

I think you will find that those would be very subjective answers.

What is your budget?

[kegman]

for the TV want to stay around 2g's

[drmoze]

I'd recommend a Mitsu or maybe a Pioneer. The Mitsu is very tweakable, so you can pull a great picture from it with a few adjustments.

[kegman]

How about best DVD player to buy. I have a samsung but want to get everything new

[Brian Shannon]

Originally posted by kegman
How about best DVD player to buy. I have a samsung but want to get everything new

What is your budget for the player?

I like my Denon DVD 2900 alot and think it is a great player.

[REL77]

the best advice I can give is go to a store and look at every TV... Remember that no TV's are tweaked and everything will look better at your house. I just made my purchase and I went with the Toshiba 57H93 and the Pioneer 563A DVD player... Everyone has their own prefrence

[The Void]

Yep, you have you look and decide for yourself. Everyone will say thier TV brand is the best...unless they are having problems with it. After calibration the picture on most CRT rear projections should be very similar on any of the major brands. Out of the box they will all vary.

I decided on a Hitachi 51S700 that was just delivered this past Saturday. So far I am very impressed. I also ordered a Denon 2200 universal DVD/DVD-A/SACD player that should be here Monday. I first bought a Denon 910 DVD player but will be returning it because it didn't impress me much.

[kegman]

got a sony widescreen in the store looked to have the best picture

[drmoze]

Bad way to pick a tv. Store rptv's are *never* set up well! And apart from flaming contrast, a lack of proper convergence will make any rptv look bad.

FWIW, after lots of reading/research, most people who've dealt with the details prefer Pioneer, Mitsubishi, and Hitachi rptv's. Sony is great for tubes, but their rp's are not in the same top tier.

[kegman]

The Mitsubishi looked real dark we turned the brightness all the way up and it was still a darker pic than the sony

[airic43]

The best three in my Opinion are:

Hitachi
Mitsubishi
Pioneer Elilte

I chose the Hitachi 57SWX20B and I have no regrets. DVD and HDTV look absolutely awesome.

[Michael Corvin]

When I researched for my purchase a little over a year ago, the top 2 seemed to be 1. Hitatchi and 2. Sony. But that was before the Sony manufacturing glitch. Mine had it, what a pain. But I still stand by my set.

I found it was a tiered thing, in my research I had:

top-level
Hitatchi
Sony
-----------
Mid-level
Toshiba
Mitsubishi
Pioner
-----------
Bottom-level
RCA
Pioneer
GE
and the like at the bottom

But like as stated, most of it ends up boils down to personal preference, unless you are talking bottom tier and generic brands. ;)

Although, when I think VCR I think JVC, when I think DVD I think Toshiba or Sony.

[drmoze]

FWIW, the Mitrsus are more tweakable than most (see hometheaterspot),with access to the service emnus thru the remote. Which means that with a decent calibration disc and a bit of reading up on things, you can easily adjust the linearity and overscan, in addition to the usual set-up. For me, this means my Mitsu has 4.5% overscan all around with nice straight grid lines along the edges--so the picture is clear from edge to edge.

As for a dark Mitsu, that's odd--the Mitsus (and pretty much every major brand) can get plenty bright, although proper bright/contrast levels lead to a more natural-looking picture (that shouldn't be dark). There could be a slight difference in viewing anglesamong brands/models (and vertical is more sensitive than lateral) but most newer models have good viewing angles.

Michael, you put Pioneer on both the 2nd and 3rd levels! But in my extensive reading (ht spot, hometheaterforum, various other forums, etc.), I maintain that the overall hierarchy for consumer-level rptv's (i.e. not each brand's top-of-the-line $5k+ sets) has hitachi, pioneer and mitsu on top, with toshiba and sony a cut below, and rca/zenith/ge/etc. further down. I would dare to add Apex to the bottom list, although I have yet to see one in person!