thehowe_v7.1

My parents need a new TV. They've had their current CRT for over 8 years now, and for the last two years or so it's been broken. You can still watch it, but the color is all messed up. It randomly tints the picture a different color (blue, green, yellow, red, etc.) every so often, which often makes the picture unwatchable. The only way to fix it is to turn the TV on and off several times until the color resets itself.

My Dad has wanted a new TV ever since it broke. Of course, he doesn't just want to replace it. He wants to upgrade to a HDTV. After two years, my mom finally relented.

So, of course, it falls to me to do all the research to figure out which HDTV to get.

Right now, I'm debating whether to go plasma or LCD. On the one hand, plasma has a higher viewing angle, which my parents will need if they want to keep their current setup. On the other hand, LCDs are higher resolution, and seem to be cheaper at the lower sizes. Plasmas can handle lots of motion without blurring, but LCDs tend to have crisper images because of the higher resolution. Plasmas display truer blacks, but they also have a tendency to burn-in withing the first 100 hours of use.

Overall, I'm still undecided. For the kinds of shows my parents will be watching (sports, movies, standard-def cable) it seems like plasma has a slight edge. However, I'm getting a Xbox 360 for Christmas, and I want to be able to play it on the new TV, but it's unwise to play video games on a new plasma because of burn-in.

Sigh. Decisions, decisions.