Rants and raves about burning topics that have caught my attention midweek, be it greedy corporate shenanigans, frustration or joy in regards to the Philly sports teams, a movie, show or DVD that has fired up my imagination, an intriguing personality, or what’s happening in the region. — Lori Hoffman, Associate Editor, Atlantic City Weekly.

Over the past two decades I’ve treated myself to something special after various surgeries. Back in 1997 after a cancer scare surgery, I bought the biggest TV I’d ever had, a nifty 36” GE set that was one of the first to have an S-Video input. It was big and heavy and it took me a full day to put together the big corner console I bought to put it on.

Well I didn’t have any recent surgery, thank goodness, but I am out of credit card debt and since the football playoff season is a great time to buy, I am finally going to upgrade to a flat screen HDTV. Right now I am in full research mode. The last time I bought a TV the choices were a lot simpler. Now I have to decide how big I want to go, whether to go with plasma or LCD, figure out how many inputs I need, decide if I need a Wi-Fi ready set, and find a suitable stand, plus a Blu-Ray home theater system to create a moviejunkie screening room.

Plasma vs. LCD
As a movie fanatic who loves to watch movies in the dark, I was leaning towards a plasma TV since that format is superior in dark rooms and doesn’t have the motion blur you can have with LCDs. When I’m not watching movies, I’m looking forward to watching the Phillies this season in HD. However, I’ve now learned that plasma TVs use more electricity and they still can have problems with “burn-in.” LCDs are also superior when it comes to glare and daytime viewing. I might have to give up the plasma in favor of “going green.”

Size Matters
I live in an apartment with a decent sized living room so I’ve decided I can go for the 50-inch set but if I see a great bargain I might settle for a 46-inch TV. My nephew is a computer tech and he really likes Samsung TVs so I’m going to give them a serious look.

Inputs/TV Stand
There are even more choices in TV furniture than TVs themselves. I love the modern, open stands with two or three shelves, and a place to organize and hide your wires. I like my TV to be eye level so I’m not considering wall brackets. That will save me money; I won’t have to pay for professional installation. All I have to do is make a tray of lasagna and my nephew will help me set up my movie cave.

As for inputs, I’m looking for a ton of them. It’s recommended to buy a set with at least three HDMI inputs plus a USB port and an Ethernet connection. I want to go wireless and I want to watch Netflix movies and other streaming content and see my digital pictures up on the big screen. That’s on top of hooking up my blu-ray home theater and cable provider.

If you’ve been going through the HDTV search recently and found something you really liked, please let me know in the comments. I could use as much help as possible.

Tags: HDTV shopping, Netflix, Samsung

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 12th, 2011 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Hump Day Report, Shopping, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.