zombeaner

So, today is my 30th birthday and my wife surprised me by getting me an HDTV. I don't have it yet, she went to Best Buy and there is a Geek coming over on Thursday to discuss my space and mounting options, I was hoping for something huge, but dependent upon budget and space, we may compromise. She said she saw an awesome Panasonic 50" 1080p plasma set for $900, which would be great! Are there any questions I should as the guy as we settle on a monitor? I have an upconverting DVD player that will do 1080i, is there a noticeable difference between that and 1080p upconverting?

Pointyskull

If your wife has sanctioned the purchase of a 50" Panny plasma you should consider yourself one lucky mofo. I have a 50" Panny and I love it. Only you know if you can go bigger, and the general rule of thumb is if you can go bigger (within budget and room/viewing constraints), do so.

I paid for the Best Buy install, but I bought cables and wall mount ahead of time from Monoprice.com. And you'll need to coordinate HDTV service too (cable or dish) so that you're not watching SD on that sweet set.

Prepare to be wowed.

And I'll avoid any "mounting options" jokes.

dick_grayson

depends on how far you're sitting from the screen. if under 5 feet(ish), then I'd say "yes" otherwise "probably not"

SoSpacey

i doubt Best Buy was selling a 1080p panasonic plasma for $900. even the competitive stores in my area only go to to $1100 for a 1080p and Best Buy isn't competitive. Make sure he isn't selling her on a 1080i...not that 720p/1080i is bad (i have one) but don;t get fooled is all.

Superman07

Scrap the Best Buy purchase and "install" and put the extra towards a larger set?

zombeaner

Oh, I won't. She may be, but we'll figure it all out, I kind of like the whole full-service deal I'm getting, even though I'm sure she (and my Mom and MIL) are paying a premium. It is nice to be taken care of once in a while.

Mr. Salty

There's no such thing as a 1080i plasma, or LCD for that matter.But yeah, unless it's an open-box item or something, the cheapest 50-inch Panasonic 1080p plasma at Best Buy is $1,200. The 50-inch 720p is $1,000.

zombeaner

That is online. She was shown something in the store. I dunno, I'm not going to get too hung up on that part till I get in there to look.

Sdallnct

Well I'd still kiss your wife's feet if she got you a 720p Panny plasma. That is an awesome set.

zombeaner

After looking at 50" sets in Wal Mart today, they are bigger than I'd imagined. I think I may be able to go smaller and still be happy.

Pointyskull

Go with the 50.... Trust me

Gojhawks

Nooooo! Do not go smaller. You will be shocked how much the set will "shrink" once you get it home and start watching it. If you can swing a 50" get a 50". If you go smaller you will almost certainly regret it in the long run.

Snowmaker

This guy does not deserve an HDTV.

RM811

50" is definitely not too big. I have a 50" and my wife already said our next tv will be at least 60" so even she agrees 50" is not too big. anything smaller and you will definitely be wishing for bigger.

Sdallnct

Get the 50".

Look at my signature. When I built my screen I tried everything from 78" or so to 105". I settled on 94" which my wife thought was crazy big. She thought she liked the 80" range...LOL....Now I'm considering building a 100" screen.

Oh and our front row is 10.5 feet from the screen!

zombeaner

Okay, twist my arm...

SoSpacey

i know there isn't. but this is Best Buy we are talking about. i am sure they tried the old "1080" routine without the i or p at the end to try and dupe them. do you know how many times I have heard about this?

or people see 1080i on the side of the box meaning it can handle the signal and think it means 1080 is 1080.

zombeaner

I might end up selling some of my high dollar OOP DVDs to subsidize a couple hundred extra bucks.

PlumPeach

If you're mounting this on the wall, I'd say do it yourself and save money. Between my father-in-law and me we have mounted 4 displays: 58" Panasonic plasma, a 52" Samsung LCD, a 50" Samsung plasma, and a 42" Samsung plasma. For all of these mountings we used the Level Mount which can be found at Sam's Club for around $90. Works with all displays, has a bubble level built into it, and even comes with a stud finder. Pretty simple process.

zombeaner

It is actually going to be a weird mounting job. The house we live in has a cut out in the den that looks like it was obviously there with a TV in mind. However there are no outlets inside of the cut out, hence the cables trailing out on either side. It is about 49 inches wide and I'm going to have to either get a TV to fit inside of it, OR find a way to mount it outside. Either way it is going to be a pain.

Sdallnct

Then what I would do is save the money from the BB install and hire and electrician to run you power in there. Then mount yourself.

There are all sorts of video's on line. Heck I had wife help me mount our LCD in my bar!

zombeaner

There is a plug in the garage directly behind that wall, so I was thinking I might make a small hole in that cut out and run power in from the garage. I haven't looked at it yet, and I'm not sure if it is grounded. Our house is old and has very few grounded plugs. Anyway, the install and set up are not up for debate, Best Buy is doing it, I'll come up with any extra money I may need myself.

Sdallnct

Oh, if there is a plug there already, it is easy to add a plug. I probably can't see it in my signature photo, but the screen I built covered to light switches. One for the room lights and one for the closet (to the left). I "moved" the closet switch into the closet (sounds similar to what you would need to do), and I "moved" the light switch for the room down to the baseboard (instead of a regular light switch I used a Lutron wireless light switch and hooked it into Harmony remote). Each only took minutes to do. And yea I turned off the power first...LOL (and my house was built in the 70's. No grounded plugs).

Snowmaker

Are those cinder blocks? No wonder you're insistent on keeping the Best Buy installation and set-up.

As for the install, doesn't Best Buy also run any necesary wiring/electrical behind the TV if needed?

Pointyskull

Cabling = Yes. Electrical was extra I think, or there already had to be an outlet installed behind where the set was going to go. That wasn't an issue for me because I didn't have the power cable run behind the wall ( "no", you can't see it with my setup) and I wanted to have it plugged into a quality surge protection system. And that's another of the reasons I had them do it. They ran the HDMI cables I had bought, including a couple extra for equipment I didn't have yet.

I get the concept of "connect the mount to the studs", but in my all-thumbs experience something always goes wrong. And I didn't want to see my pretty new TV crash to the floor. I know it was extra $$, but I had bought the mount and cables through monoprice, so I had saved some cash there.

The set was a big purchase for me - and a long time coming - and I didn't want to fuck it up with my half-assed handyman skills.

And for what it's worth, I did run all of my speaker wire in-wall myself, including the surrounds. For some reason that didn't stress me, partly because it didn't all hinge on hanging a $2000 television on something I had put up.